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jomiddlemarch · 2 months

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III. “Who’s looking after you?” Draco asked.

He was sitting in a slat backed chair he’d dragged up beside her bed. It seemed mean that the few private rooms in the Hogwarts infirmary only held a twin bed and a side-table, far more like a prison cell than he felt was appropriate but perhaps reflective of the very little time anyone at Hogwarts had spent at Azkaban. Hermione was propped up with pillows, her hands laid flat on the white coverlet on her lap. Her hair had been washed but not tended especially well, wrestled back into an unruly, lumpy plait that spoke to unfamiliarity with either charms or potions. There was a cup of tea on the table, apparently untouched, as was the iced biscuit tucked at the base of the saucer.

“What do you mean—”

“I mean, who notices when you leave meals early? That you’re too pale, that you always answer when anyone asks, that you don’t count any danger to yourself too great? Who should’ve been the one to follow you, to stop you. To keep you from drowning?” Draco said, his voice a little too tightly controlled, too calmly even for her to not to be aware he somehow, for some reason, was nearly incandescent with rage. “It shouldn’t have been me. You’d never have thought I’d come running—I almost didn’t come, didn’t run, except that the children were too quiet—"

“They were scared,” she said.

“They bloody well should have been,” he said. “I was terrified—”

“I look after myself,” she said, answering the earlier question. She looked down at her hands but he didn’t think she saw them.

“You look after other people,” he countered. She looked up, startled. But not offended, not yet. Perhaps she wouldn’t be. “I understand, when we were children, everyone thought you were the brightest witch of our age. You knew better than everyone else, it was all right to rely on you but now—Potter doesn’t try? Neville?”

“Harry was brought up by people who treated him about as badly as your father treated House-elves. And then he lost Sirius and Molly basically commandeered him as an honorary Weasley with years of parenting to be made up for. She can be rather smothery, it’s not an approach he could really model himself after,” Hermione said. “He’s not very good at it. And he uses most of what he’s got to give on his own children, as he should.”

“Fine. I think you’re cutting him too much slack but I am willing to admit you know him better. But Neville? It’s not like him, not to notice, he’s always been so fond of you,” Draco said, trailing off.

“Exactly,” Hermione replied. “I can’t—it’s not fair to him, when he feels one way and I…”

“He’s in love with you and you only care about him as a friend, so you don’t let him get close,” Draco said.

“You’re as blunt as a bludger,” Hermione said.

“If you mean a Gryffindor, you might as well say it,” Draco shrugged. “You nearly died, I’m trying not to tax you too greatly.”

“You needn’t worry,” she said.

“You’re wrong. I know it’s an unfamiliar experience for you and that you’re likely to tell me I’m the one who’s wrong,” he said.

“Because you are,” she replied.

“No, I’m not. Because I’m the one who dragged you out of a loch in Scotland in November, because you couldn’t get yourself out, despite being one of the most powerful witches alive in England,” he said. “Someone else needs to worry about you. Though I prefer looking after, since worrying is largely ineffectual and won’t stop you from depleting your entire magical core, a real feat, I must add, given your previously mentioned magical strength, and getting yourself killed or at least maimed without the prospect of any recovery, if we go by your predilections. And it will surely be in a way that creates maximum guilt in your friends and associates. Neville will be beside himself and Potter may end up going through a midlife crisis and becoming the next Dark Lord. He’ll grow a goatee and be generally intolerable.”

“You know what a midlife crisis is?” Hermione said. Her lips curved and he realized it was the first time he’d seen her smile in months. A real smile, where the expression in her eyes matched.

“Yes, I don’t live under a rock. Potter would be a little young by Wizard standards, but I think like you, he still sees himself as a Muggle first,” Draco replied.

“Not wrong,” she said.

“Oh, are we playing a game now?” Draco said. “I’ll win. You’ve always been pants at chess and you can’t stand Quidditch.”

“Draco, what do you want?” she said. She settled back against the pillows and he could feel her exhaustion. The Hogwarts linens were too thin. She ought to be covered in a fluffy duvet, supported by a featherbed. There should be a pair of sheepskin slipper warming on a fender.

“I want you to be properly looked after. I’ve—we’ve both lost too many people in our lives. I don’t want you to be someone else who’s lost,” he said. “I spoke to Abbott and the Headmistress, they allowed me to see whether your quarters were adequate for your recovery and the suite is hardly better kitted out than this room, might as well belong to a hermit—”

“You had no right,” she said.

“You’re right. I didn’t. But I did ask permission from your physician and your superior. When Neville heard, he didn’t scold me,” Draco said. “All the plants he gave you are dead, by the way. Even the metalmalarky cactus”

“You still haven’t said what you want. Not directly,” she replied.

“I want to look after you. Myself. I have a property nearby. You know I don’t live in the dungeons like Snape did,” Draco said. The man had been a masochist or Dumbledore had had him under house arrest. There was no way Draco would ever have agreed to live adjacent to his classroom and he certainly wasn’t going to allow the Hogwarts dungeon to be his son’s home. He and Astoria had bought the small estate shortly after Scorpius was born, an act of faith that the baby would not be a Squib and a commitment to being present in their child’s life as neither of their own parents had been.

“You want me to live in your house?”

“It’s a not insignificant property. There’s a carriage house, entirely separate. But it’s got all the mod cons and a library, a conservatory,” he said.

“A carriage house with a conservatory. Only you, Malfoy. Will you feed me hothouse grapes from your lily-white hand?” she said.

“I’ll stock the library with Regency romances, as you seem to have a taste for them,” he said, slipping the cufflinks out of his cuffs and rolling them back so she could see the calluses on his palms, the spatter of old burns he’d never bothered to fully heal. “Not lily-white. Say yes, Hermione. Let me help—”

“You’ll badger me endlessly if I refuse, won’t you?” she said. She could have sighed and didn’t. He let himself hope.

“I’ll have to. I don’t fancy a repeat of today’s dip in the loch. The Squid is whatever squid is for handsy,” he said. She raised an eyebrow and he decided to pivot. “It was too close. Please. Please allow it.”

“I suppose since you’ve asked so nicely, I’d be an utter wretch to refuse,” she said.

“Yes, I think that would be the consensus. Here and of course, elsewhere. Abroad. Across the pond,” Draco said, relief making him a bit giddy. “Shall I go on?”

“I think I’d rather nap for a little while. Then Hannah can tell us whether I’m allowed to Side-along or whether we’ll have to take Muggle transport.”

“That’s fine. I’ll get everything sorted. Let the looking after commence,” he replied, lowering his voice as Hermione’s eyes grew dozy.

#dramione #hermione x draco #draco POV #hogwarts professors AU #epilogue what epilogue #hurt/comfort #tw: near drowning #slow burn #harry potter #neville longbottom #caretaking as a love language #draco loses his temper judiciously

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