Dragon Heartstrings by pips_n_chiaw [K]
Valentine For: rinfics
Title: Dragon Heartstrings
Author/Artist: pips_n_chiaw
Type of Valentine: fic
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J K Rowling. No profit is being made.
Rating: K
Warnings: none
Notes: rinfics , hope you enjoy this! It came out rather long, and sometimes when we read it we like it, when we reread it we don’t… you decide whether it’s good or not. Thanks very muchly to zarahjoyce , our beta (love ya!) and the other people who have read this and told us it was good. Unfortunately, the summary isn’t that good. Sorry! And we apologize for the lateness. :)
Summary: A story in which Draco and Hermione are not talking to each other, have not broken up, and are definitely not getting married.
Dragon Heartstrings
The sun glinted off his scales as he wheeled through the sky, squinting at the ground below. Normally dragons possessed incredibly keen vision, but one too many curses aimed for his eyes had taken its toll.
On the ground below him he spotted the motionless form of his mate, his love, his best friend. She was surrounded by wizards, who continued shooting spells at her, despite her helpless condition.
“Leave her,” he roared at the men. “We are peace-keeping dragons, we are good-”
“We know,” a human shouted back.
The dragon stopped short for a moment. These were the humans Wulfric Dumbledore had warned them about, the Dark humans, those who were against the good ones.
His hesitation was enough for the men to cast their spells on him. Their magic was powerful, but his rage was stronger. He roared in fury and soared higher, out of the range of the humans’ wands. Back and forth he flew, scorching those unlucky enough to be within his reach.
He should have stopped and flown to the distant mountains, but his temper would not permit it. His strength was beginning to fail him, when a human directed a spell between the dragon’s eyes. He fell a few yards away from his mate, and squinted at the cave a few miles away in the mountains. In it was their egg, their baby, their hope for the future.
“I hate you.” Her voice was quiet and firm, but brimming with anger.
“You loved me five seconds ago.” His voice was sarcastic and tinged with hurt.
“Which makes me hate you all the more right now.” Shaking with anger, Hermione stood, wrenched the ring off her finger - it was too loose anyway - and slammed it down in front of Draco. “If you don’t love me enough to wait for me, then perhaps we shouldn’t do this.” She turned and walked away, blindly navigating around tables in the crowded restaurant.
Draco tossed more than enough Galleons onto the table and strode after her, not caring how many people he bumped into along the way. “You can’t back out now,” he hissed as he grabbed her arm. “I just told my mother we were getting married. She’ll have received the owl by now.”
“Then you can tell her we’re not. She’ll receive the owl in half an hour.”
“You tell her. You’re the one who called it off.”
“She’s your mother!" Hermione muttered, yanking her arm off his hold.
"What about your parents? What would they say if--"
"I'll tell them that--"
“No, if you want to call off the wedding then you tell both our mums.” They had reached the Apparation point, but neither made a move to disappear. Draco stared at Hermione, not believing she could be so stubborn. This exceeded the usual Gryffindor stubbornness; this one bordered on stupidity.
“I’m not the one who asked the stupid question,” Hermione snapped, glaring at Draco. “This is hardly my fault-”
“I’m not the one who accepted a proposal she thought was stupid!”
“Oh, this is my fault, isn’t it? It’s always my fault.”
“Why are you being so stubborn, Hermione? We both know you don’t mean it, you want to get married, you want-”
Hermione was even more furious. “Who are you to say what I mean or not?”
“If you really love me-” they both began, then stopped abruptly. Hermione would have smiled if she hadn’t wanted to strangle him instead.
“I already told you, I hate you,” she said coolly.
“The feeling is now mutual,” Draco shot back. “I can’t believe you have people believing you’re the smartest witch of the century, when you can’t seem to recognize stupid proposals when they hit you in the face!”
“You know what? If I’m stupid then you must be-”
“I can’t take this anymore,” Draco cut in, running his hands through his hair in exasperation. “Think of a solution, genius. At least we realized our mistake before getting married.” He disapparated with a pop.
Hermione clenched her jaw painfully, resisting the urge to scream in rage. It was the first time Draco had ever walked away from one of their fights, and it showed a total lack of respect. She saw her reflection in a mirror- the one that incoming customers generally used to make sure that they aren’t in any way harmed during their Apparation- and noticed that several curls of her hair had escaped their Sleekeazy’s prison and were coiling most annoyingly on top of her head. She looked almost scary. And it was all Draco’s fault, as always. The bottle specifically said not to use the potion under stress.
Stress was exactly what was plaguing her at the moment. She needed to calm down. She needed peace and quiet. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, mentally transporting herself to her safe place- the library. In her mind’s eye she could see shelves and shelves of books, each one right where it should be, without a page out of place. She took a deep breath and imagined the smell of old books, the smell of knowledge. She relaxed, imagining the soothing sound of complete silence- libraries were, after all, sanctuaries of silence.
She exhaled as she emerged from her safe place. Hermione smiled. She had an idea.
The moment she arrived home, she strode to the phone.
“Harry, I need a diversion in the papers tomorrow.” Her voice had a steely quality to it, not unlike McGonagall. Her tone made it impossible for Harry to refuse. “Can you owl them or something? They’ll put you in, you’re the Boy Who Lived. This is the only time I’ll ask you to do something like this. I just need something big that will go on the front page. It can be as ridiculous as you want, just take attention away from the weddings page. No, I’d rather not talk about it. I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks.”
She hung up and went to take a shower. She even managed to get through her shower without snapping the bar of soap into two, although not for lack of trying. Fortunately for the soap, it was slippery, and rather than break in two, it fell half a dozen times instead, hitting her toe twice before she gave up.
And with giving up came a horrible feeling of guilt, sadness and shame- her least favorite emotion of all. It was her desire to avoid being shamed that drove her to be such a workaholic, and it was her desire to work that made her want to put the wedding off for a few years. And yet here she was, ashamed.
The bar of soap lay forgotten as Hermione sank to the floor, her face buried in her arms.
He frowned in concentration as he handled the wood, running his fingers over the smoothed sides, feeling for any imperfections. He found none.
Carefully, he polished the wood, until the glow of the fire shone on its surface. It’s a strange combination, he thought as he worked. Vine wood and dragon heartstring were not normally paired together.
Then again, ebony was not normally paired with dragon heartstring either. The wand he had finished just the day before had been made of that wood, and it was particularly hard to work with. He chuckled as he worked. Dragon hearts tended to be very picky.
Hermione frowned, her eyes still closed. Someone was hitting her head. Literally. And she knew it wasn’t a hangover as she hadn’t had a drop of alcohol before going to bed the night before.
She opened her eyes a crack and saw Ron Weasley staring down at her, his finger persistently jabbing at her forehead.
“Oi,” he said, “wake up.”
“No,” Hermione groaned, batting at his hand and rolling to the other side of the bed.
Someone began poking her shoulder. She ignored it for a while, but they began whispering.
“Did she fall asleep again?” Harry asked.
“I don’t know,” Ron whispered back.
Silence.
“Is that Malfoy?”
“Where?” Hermione asked eagerly, sitting up and looking around. She knew he would come to apologize. She looked around the room, expecting to see her blond, disheveled, and extremely apologetic boyfriend.
Instead, she saw Harry and Ron staring at the picture of a young Draco Malfoy wearing a Kneazle costume. “Oh.” She flopped back onto the bed, burying her face in her pillow.
Ron wrenched the pillow away from her. “You have to wake up some time, Hermione.”
“Not in the near future. It’s not like I’m, oh, I don’t know, getting married any time soon or anything.”
“Look, maybe this will cheer you up.” Ron showed her the Daily Prophet.
Hermione blinked, not sure she was seeing right. The headline screamed “HARRY POTTER SEES EASTER BUNNY”. A picture beside the article showed Harry gesturing and pointing at a trail of rabbit footprints which ended in front of a chocolate egg.
Ron gleefully showed her the rest- all of which sported similar titles, except one which read “‘YOU-KNOW-WHO IS EASTER BUNNY’- POTTER” and of course, the Quibbler, where Mr. Lovegood claimed to have spotted the Easter Bunny as well somewhere in Windsor. Hermione glanced at all of them before returning to the Daily Prophet and staring blankly at Harry’s picture, her messed up brain not succeeding in telling her what to say.
“We were lucky the newspapers agreed to print it,” Harry said finally, breaking the awkward silence.
“They wouldn’t have done it if it had been anyone other than Harry,” Ron agreed. “It was rather rushed, though.”
Hermione realized she hadn’t thanked them. “Harry, Ron... thank you both so much. I... I didn’t know what else to do…”
“What happened, Hermione?” Ron asked gently, sitting down at the foot of the bed. “The papers still announced your engagement to Draco.”
Hermione shook her head sadly. “I- He…It’s off. He proposed, I accepted, we fought, then we cancelled the wedding. All in one night. Neither of us wanted to tell Narcissa that it was off just a few moments after we told her it was on.”
Ron made a funny sound, as if he found the situation highly amusing. Harry coughed to hide his own grin. Both of them knew that Draco and Hermione fought often over everything and anything, and also that they were usually righter than rain again in two or three days.
“Er, Hermione, your mum put it in the Muggle papers as well. Good thing we took care of them too, since you didn’t specify last night which ones you wanted to get rid off.” Harry held up a paper that said 'YOUNG MAN SEES EASTER BUNNY'. “It’s not the headline, but it’s on the front page.”
“Apparently neither of you wanted to tell your mum as well,” Ron commented.
“Great. Just great,” Hermione said glumly, covering her face with her hands. “I didn’t think Mum was the type to…publicize family affairs.”
“You’re her only daughter,” Harry reminded her.
“Her only child,” Ron stressed. “Mum wouldn’t make a big deal if I got married, unless it was to someone like Celestina Warbeck-” he shuddered “-but she’d pee in her pants if Ginny announced she was engaged. And besides, your mother probably never expected you to snag a man. No offense, Hermione, but you’re not exactly the type of girl most guys go for.”
Hermione’s shoulders sagged. “I didn’t really expect to find one either- I mean, not many men have the patience to deal with a bossy, know-it-all, nightmarish woman for the rest of their lives. I just thought that Draco…” Her still-swollen eyes filled again with tears. “I thought wrong.”
The boys looked at each other helplessly for a few seconds, their earlier amusement fading away. Generally after rows Hermione would join them in angry sessions of Malfoy-bashing, but this time she just seemed sad.
“Er, Hermione?” Ron asked tentatively, “what did you fight about? Maybe it was a bit hasty, calling it off. My parents argue all the time, but they’ve always made up after.”
“But your parents are totally made for each other. And they were in the same house in Hogwarts. They’ve known each other that long. They don’t fight over the most trivial things, and they don’t tell each other they hate each other.”
Harry pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and frowned. “Why did you say that? You two love each other.”
Hermione was quiet for several minutes. “I don’t know. We were just so angry. But I do. I do love him. Which is why I might reconsider, if he apologized.”
The girl looked eagerly around the shop, taking in the rows of boxes that lined the shelves as she waited for the man to choose one.
“The wand chooses the witch, you know,” he told her, taking down several boxes. “I can’t find you the right wand. It takes patience.”
“So why did you take all those measurements?”
“It helps,” he said simply.
“The width between my nostrils helps?”
“Wands are very particular,” the old man nodded seriously. The girl wasn’t sure if he was teasing her or not. She glanced dubiously at her mother as she took one of the wands. Her attention was drawn immediately to the piece of wood in her hand- she had never held a wand before, and it was quite unlike the thin sticks magicians waved around.
“Abracadabra,” she said, flourishing the wand.
The man snatched it quickly from her fingers, replacing it with another one. “Don’t say that,” he said. “It’s too similar…”
“To what?”
“Never mind.” He exchanged the wand she was holding with yet another wand.
“Hocus-” He grabbed the wand and replaced it with another “-pocus.”
The girl watched as the man chose several more boxes from the thousands that lined his store. Her father surreptitiously checked his watch.
“Try this one,” the man said, as if struck by an idea.
She took it, but it felt no different from any of the others. “What-”
“This one.”
The wand had barely touched her fingertips when she felt what can only be described as a rush of magic through her. Green sparks danced from the tip, causing her to jump back in surprise.
“Ah,” the man said, his silver eyes gleaming. “Dragon heartstring and vine wood. Interesting. That will be twelve Galleons.”
Draco was sleeping in an armchair when a house elf entered to announce the arrival of Harry and Ron. He groaned, but allowed them to enter anyway.
“You look bloody horrible,” Ron said by way of greeting. “How much did you drink?”
“Nothing at all.” Draco rubbed his temples tiredly. “I wanted to be sober in case Hermione came to apologize.”
“That’s not going to happen any time soon,” Harry said, conjuring a chair.
“She’s being more stubborn than usual,” Draco complained. “I don’t know, maybe I proposed too soon.” He continued massaging his temples in silence for a few moments, before looking back up. “Have you seen her? What’s she like?”
Ron shrugged. “She was sleeping when we arrived. Started bawling a few minutes into our conversation.”
“She said might reconsider if you apologize,” Harry said hopefully. “So maybe you should.”
Draco looked indignant. “She broke off the engagement!”
“But she’s crying. Doesn’t that bother you at all?”
Draco muttered some very offensive words under his breath, which the other two pretended not to hear. “Of course it bothers me, but if I gave in every time she started crying- I mean, you two, you know what females are like!”
Ron nodded. “Harry, remember Cho Chang? Eyes like a leaky faucet, that one.” Harry turned red, but before Draco could ask what happened between Harry and Cho, Ron brandished the newspapers. “You might want to check out the papers. Even the Muggle ones. Your upcoming wedding is mentioned.” He was grinning mischievously, while Harry looked even more embarrassed.
“No thanks,” Draco muttered gloomily. “The wedding’s off. And even if Hermione did apologize, I’m not so sure I feel like proposing again.”
“Come on,” Ron wheedled. “Don’t you want to read the news? Even just the front page? The headline?”
“No.”
“But Harry’s-”
“He said no, Ron.” For once, Harry and Draco were actually grateful for each other. “What did you guys fight about, anyway?”
“None of your business, Potter.”
“Must be something stupid,” Ron snorted, “if neither you nor Hermione wants to tell.”
“Yes, Weasley, it was stupid. We were fighting about china patterns,” Draco said acidly. “Happy now?”
Both boys stared, dumbfounded. Draco thought he could have heard a pin drop somewhere in Africa. “You fought over plates?” Ron’s voice rose incredulously.
“Of course not,” Draco snapped, wondering if they thought he and Hermione really were that stupid. “We fought over how long our engagement should be. That’s what we fought about. We fought over the wedding date. Now we’re not even engaged!” His voice was filled with a bitterness even Ron couldn’t miss.
“All you have to do is apologize, Malfoy,” he said quietly. “A quick ‘I’m sorry’ never killed anyone, or so Mum always says. And anyway, she’ll take you back.”
“I know she would, since it’s entirely her fault. Why doesn’t she apologize herself?” Draco asked angrily. “She wants to wait a year or two. Two!” he spluttered. “Five months is more than enough time to plan a wedding, and she wants to wait two years. It’s not that she’s not ready, she said, it’s just that she has things to accomplish first. Merlin, life isn’t going to change that drastically just because of a wedding. Females,” he said with disgust. “And then, she starts practically yelling about how I’m ‘not willing to wait’ for her,” he mimicked Hermione.
“Malfoy, if you guys would just talk to each other-”
“Hermione said you guys would never break up,” Harry tried another tactic.
Draco paused. “When was this?”
“Er… when we used to say you two would never last,” the Gryffindor mumbled, cheeks pink. “She said you were both too proud to break up because that would be admitting that by getting together you made a mistake.”
Draco grunted his agreement. Both Harry and Ron stared at him as if they expected him to get the point. He stared back, wondering what point he was supposed to get.
“So… why are you breaking up?”
“We’re not breaking up. We’re just not getting married.” Silence. Draco shifted uneasily. “Why, did Hermione say we were breaking up? Has she broken up with me? Shit.”
“No, she didn’t quite say so, we just kind of assumed…”
He looked relieved, although still anxious. “Good.”
Ron frowned. “So you two are too proud to break up, according to Hermione, and both too proud to apologize and make up, so… what happens now?”
“Nothing. Tell her to apologize. I’m not talking to her until she does.”
Harry stood, his green eyes narrowed with frustration. “You know, with a skull as hard as yours, you should have been in Gryffindor.”
A pile of wands, his mother’s choosing, were already waiting for him when he and his father entered the shop.
“Good afternoon,” the old man said, his silver eyes sweeping over the boy. “It’s such a pleasure to see you, sir.”
The boy looked around himself with interest as the old man conversed with his parents and a tape measure flicked around, taking measurements. Once the tape measure stopped, the man stepped forward and handed the boy his first wand.
“I want a dragon’s heartstring,” the boy said.
“They’re all dragon heartstring,” his mother told him. “Almost everyone in our family owns a dragon heartstring wand, and you should be no different.”
As the pile of dragon heartstring-containing wands dwindled, he found himself getting more and more nervous. His parents would be disappointed if he didn’t get a dragon heartstring wand.
Finally, a wand chose him, and he felt the rush of magic as his magical center connected with that of the wand. He grinned happily at his parents, who smiled back.
“Dragon heartstring and ebony,” the man told him, as he placed it back in the box and wrapped it up. “Use it wisely,” he added softly after his father had paid and turned away.
A week later was Valentine’s Day. Hermione thought she might even actually be enjoying her sudden single status- not that she was single, technically, it was more like her boyfriend was missing-in-action. Of course, her mother called her almost every day about the wedding (but Hermione was always conveniently busy), several friends who still had read the Weddings pages congratulated her (idiots who had nothing better to do), and Narcissa Malfoy kept owling because Draco had (apparently) told his mother to ask Hermione for all the details. Aside from those tiny trifling details that kept reminding her that the entire wizarding world thought she was getting married to a guy she wasn’t even speaking to, everything was just fine. Perfect, in fact. Harry and Ron were being angels, since they alone knew the truth about Draco and Hermione’s relationship and were promised painful deaths if they ever breathed a word about it to anyone.
It was the first time in four years that she hadn’t received a valentine from Draco. She received a card from Ron and a box of melted chocolate from Harry, but nothing from Draco.
This was only fair, considering she hadn’t gotten anything for him either, aside from the Muggle candy he loved, which she would give to him if he apologized.
In an attempt to do something productive with her Saturday, Hermione went to the museum to browse through the exhibits. ‘Nourish the mind, heal the heart’ was her new motto.
The employees at the museum were familiar with her face, and they were eager to help. “There’s a new exhibit for wands in Exhibit Room D. Mr. Ollivander’s in there now, and if you hurry you can catch him.”
“Thanks, Wallace.” Hermione grinned at him and hurried down the hall. She was always excited when new exhibits opened, but she was ecstatic to hear that an expert would be present. She almost forgot that just the previous month, she and Draco had visited a Mummy exhibit in the same room she was heading for that day.
Mr. Ollivander was nowhere in sight when Hermione stepped into Exhibit Room D, but the walls were lined with cases of wands and she forgot her worries. There was a brief description and history written for each wand, and several wands dated back to 550 B.C. One section had the equipment and tools used for wand making, and a table listing the properties of each wood used for wands. Unfortunately, no one was doing a demonstration, but a sign promised that a skilled wandmaker would be demonstrating wand-making techniques later on in the day.
One particular case caught Hermione’s attention. There were five wands in it, but spaces had been left for three more. One of the wands looked familiar to Hermione, so she checked the history. It was Snape’s wand.
“A replica,” Mr. Ollivander said beside her, causing her to jump.
“Oh! You startled me, sir.”
“My apologies.” He peered at her, his silver eyes glinting through his thick glasses. “Not with the Malfoy boy today?”
Hermione shook her head. “He’s busy.”
“Too busy for Valentine’s Day?” Mr. Ollivander clucked disapprovingly. “Congratulations on your upcoming wedding, by the way.”
“Er… thanks.” Somehow Hermione got the feeling he knew they had fought. He was a wand expert, and she was glad that he was there, but she didn’t want to talk about the wedding- or lack thereof. She was about to step away to examine another case of wands when Ollivander spoke again.
“Pity,” he said. “Such a pity. I wanted to tell you both about this particular display.”
“Because Snape’s wand is there?”
“Partly. And also because your wands should be here.”
“Excuse me?”
Ollivander cleared his throat so as to make himself more understandable. “I said, your wands should be here. Yours and Mr. Malfoy’s.” He glanced at the pocket in which Hermione kept her wand. She was still staring at him, trying to figure out whether or not he was pulling her leg.
The famous wand-maker took out his own wand, and even Hermione, who had little experience with wands aside from her own, could tell it was a magnificent piece of work.
With two flicks of the wand, a couple of armchairs appeared in front of the display case. “Have a seat,” Mr. Ollivander offered, and although Hermione would rather stand, she couldn’t refuse him.
“Your wand is vine wood and dragon heartstring, is it not?”
Hermione nodded.
“Mr. Malfoy’s is ebony and dragon heartstring. A long time ago, a very, very long time ago, there were two types of dragons- the kind we have now, wild and dangerous, and a more peaceful kind, the sort that communicated with and helped humans.”
“I thought that was a legend,” Hermione murmured, since Ollivander was evidently waiting for a reply.
“You’ll learn that in the wizarding world, very few things are legends. All have some truth to them.” Ollivander, seeming pleased with his tidbit of advice, continued the story. “There have only been eight documented peaceful dragons. Each had a name, but no human has ever been able to pronounce their names, so they were known by their numbers. The eldest, who had passed long before the youngest, was the first, and the youngest, who passed long before you and I were born, was the eighth, or the last. Do you follow?”
Hermione couldn’t help wondering- quite arrogantly- whether or not Ollivander knew he was talking to the brightest witch of her generation. “Yes, sir.”
Ollivander seemed delighted. “My family, the premiere wand-makers at the time, were approached by the eldest dragon. He asked that, in the event that a dragon should die, the heartstring should be taken out and fashioned into a wand. Nasty business. The instruments used are displayed over there.” He waved a pale hand towards one of the display cases along the far wall. “It takes as long as seven hours to extract one heartstring.”
Feeling it was time to ask a question, Hermione very nearly raised her hand, catching herself just in time. “Why, sir? Why would they want to give up their heartstrings?” She couldn’t imagine having to give up a part of her heart, although she had opted to donate her organs in the event that she died. But to place part of her heart in a wand?
Come to think of it, she thought, it was rather disgusting to think that she had part of the heart of a dead animal enclosed inside her wand.
“They knew they were powerful, one of the last remaining species that were completely good and pure. Their relatives, the wild dragons, are nowhere near as pure. Since those peaceful dragons passed, the only such creatures left are phoenixes and unicorns, both of whom are almost extinct.”
“But Voldemort’s wand contained a phoenix tail feather.”
“The wand does choose the wizard,” Ollivander agreed,” but it doesn’t guarantee that the wizard will be good. Besides, phoenixes and unicorns give tail feathers and tail hairs. Tails are much less capable of choosing than hearts. They feel the power, the aptitude. The hearts of the peaceful dragons generally felt other hearts.”
Hermione nodded slowly. It did make sense, after all. Surreptitiously, she glanced at her watch. She and Ollivander had been talking for less than fifteen minutes, but it felt like several hours had passed. She wished he would speak faster.
“The most interesting story is that of the last two dragons,” he continued, his silvery eyes studying her face. Hermione wondered briefly if he was related to the Malfoys- certainly their eyes were similar- until she remembered that almost all purebloods were related to each other. “A male and a female. The last one, the male, was a mischievous creature, although pure at heart. He was the type who would be sighted by Muggles, even though the elders expressly forbid it. Many had doubts as to his being a good dragon at all.”
By now Hermione’s scholarly interest was starting to wander. Ollivander, although a better storyteller than Binns, sounded almost exactly like him, and without a notebook to write down every word, Hermione was beginning to feel sleepy. It really sounded like a legend more than anything else. She pulled herself together and with superhuman effort, she focused on what Ollivander was saying.
“The last two dragons became what one would call mates- my great grand father said wizards would often hear them, either laughing together, or bickering. The female, you see, was quite the opposite of the male- not mischievous at all. She always said that if they got killed, it would be the male’s fault for showing himself to Muglges.
“In the end, it was Dark Wizards that killed them, not Muggles. The female died first, and, in his rage, the male destroyed a third of an army. Eventually, he died as well. They left behind an egg, but without its parents, it had no chance of surviving.”
“That’s a very interesting story, sir,” Hermione said politely, “although a little sad.”
“There’s more,” Ollivander said, his silver eyes gleaming. Hermione mentally resigned herself to more boredom. She already had a feeling as to where this was leading to. “The wands made with the heartstrings of those two dragons are centuries old, but they were only bought a little over a decade ago. They were bought within a week of each other, by you and Mrs. Malfoy, for her son Draco.”
“And that’s why you say our wands belong in the glass case,” Hermione stated. She was pleased that her wand had such an interesting history to it, although she found it a bit far-fetched and hard to believe. She was now twenty-four, and had been aware of her magic for twelve years. Almost nothing could surprise her now.
“Exactly,” Ollivander exclaimed, seemingly pleased that she had understood. “Yes. I was wondering if you would give me permission to make replicas.”
“Of course,” Hermione said absently, her mind on other, more interesting, things. “Sir, would an effect similar to the Priori Incantatem take place if we used our wands against each other?”
“No, no, of course not.” He shook his head vigorously. “Priori Incantatem is for wands that have a core substance taken from the same animal. That never happens for wands whose core substance is dragon heartstring, because dragons only have one heartstring each that can be extracted. The effect your wands will have is called Animus Incantatem, and instead of the wands opposing each other, they help each other, strengthening the spell.”
Hermione nodded, digesting the information. She needed more research. Ollivander’s tale had opened a vast array of possibilities. She and Draco just had to work together… which would never happen now, she remembered with a sinking heart.
An old woman entered the room, followed by a slightly younger man. “Dear, it’s time to go.”
Ollivander looked at his watch. “So it is, so it is.” He glanced regretfully at Hermione. “I’m afraid I must leave you. Darling- this is Hermione Granger. Ms. Granger, my wife and son.”
Hermione politely shook hands with them, hoping none of her surprise had been displayed on her face. She had never considered a family for Ollivander, but she supposed it was only logical.
“Congratulations on your engagement, dear,” Mrs. Ollivander said kindly.
“Thanks.” Hermione forced herself to smile.
“She owns one of the dragon wands,” Mr. Ollivander told them. “If I may, just for a moment...?” Hermione gave him her wand, and he examined it. “Yes,” he seemed satisfied, “you can still feel his power.”
“His power, sir?”
“Yes,” Mr. Ollivander seemed surprised that she hadn’t realized it. “Yours is the heartstring of the male dragon, the last. He chose you.”
“Stupefy!”
The same spell burst out of two wands, sending identical jets of red light towards the same target. The Death Eater was blasted into the air, falling to the ground a few meters from where he had stood.
“Save your strength,” the young man told her. “No need to cast such a strong spell!”
“I could say the same to you,” she retorted, taking aim at another man hidden in the shadows. “Besides, I could have taken him by myself.”
“Says you,” he snorted, shielding both of them as several more Death Eaters stepped into view. “Can you take care of them by yourself?” He indicated the approaching men with the ghost of a smirk on his face.
She let out a frustrated noise “They’d never have found us if it weren’t for you,” she reminded him. “You sneezed.”
He rolled his eyes, wishing she’d stop bringing that up. He couldn’t help it if his nose was sensitive; he was just recovering from a cold. “Let’s just finish up here, all right? Stupefy!”
Three days of research later, Hermione still knew next to nothing about the dragons, and nothing about Animus Incantatem. There was only one thing to do- talk to Draco and perform an actual test.
Draco looked up from his book as she barged into his bedroom, followed by Harry, Ron, and Ginny. “Come to apologize?” he smirked. “You even brought witnesses?” His eyes darted to the closet where he had kept several bouquets of flowers for this very occasion.
Hermione appeared to be in a rather foul mood. “Yes, Harry and Ron are witnesses for what we are about to do. And Ginny-” she cast the younger girl a murderous glare, “eavesdropped and found out that you and I fought.”
“What? Only Potter and Weasley are supposed to know that. Ronald Weasley,” Draco added, as Ginny opened her mouth.
“Exactly,” Hermione gave Ginny a frigid look.
“I wasn’t eavesdropping, I only overheard,” was Ginny’s defense. “I was walking by and heard Ron and Harry asking if you were going to apologize, and whether Draco had apologized, and then Harry asked if you told anyone else yet that the wedding was off… Come on, Hermione, you know me.”
Hermione gritted her teeth. She did know Ginny, and since Ginny was the younger sister of the Weasley twins, she wouldn’t put it past her to eavesdrop. But she trusted Ginny. “You’re right, Ginny. Sorry.”
“You apologized to her!” Draco exclaimed. “Just like that!” He snapped his fingers. “Whereas I’ve been waiting for a week…” he trailed off as Hermione turned her scowl on him.
“I can’t believe you two announced that you’re getting married when instead you’re fighting,” Ginny said. “What’s everyone going to say when they find out you’ve broken up?”
“We haven’t broken up!” Both Draco and Hermione yelled at her.
“But-”
“We’re just having a disagreement in which we’re not talking to each other, and certainly are not getting married.” Hermione said. “Now, to the business at hand.” She moved a small table to the center of the room and conjured six glasses. She took five away, leaving only one in the middle of the table. Everyone watched in interest.
“What are you doing?” Draco asked her, folding his arms across his chest.
“Setting up. I just want to try something, it’s only a little experiment.” Hermione went right up to the table and then took five steps back.
“And… why are you experimenting in my bedroom?”
She ignored him and raised her wand, aiming at the glass on the table. “Reducto!”
The glass shot backwards and shattered. Hermione stepped forward, examined the shards of glass on the floor. Casting another spell, she marked the spots where they fell with red magic.
“Your turn, Draco,” she said, placing the second glass on the table.
Draco was tempted to be difficult, he really was. What right did Hermione have to suddenly decide to conduct an experiment in his house? After not talking to him for more than a week? But he was too curious, he decided. It was interesting. And Hermione looked too angry to cross.
Feeling slightly foolish, he followed Hermione’s instructions (grumbling all the way), and walked straight up to the table before taking five steps back, stopping at approximately the same place where Hermione had stood.
“Why didn’t you just mark it with magic?” he complained as he completed his fifth step.
“Because I didn’t think of it,” she snapped back. “Go on, use the Reductor Curse on it.”
Draco glared at her and took his own sweet time- no sense aiming at and missing the glass, after all. “Reducto!” He watched smugly as his glass flew a little bit farther than Hermione’s as it shattered.
She merely rolled her eyes at his smirk and marked his shards with green magic. She marked the spot where Draco had stood and ordered Harry and Ron to each break a glass, marking Harry’s shards in blue and Ron’s in orange. It was no surprise to anyone other than Draco that Harry’s glass exploded most forcefully. Then Hermione made Harry and Ron curse the glass together, which she stained in black.
She placed the last glass on top of the table. “This time,” she said, looking at Draco, “we’ll do it together.” Hermione indicated for him to get into position.
“Maybe you should explain first,” Draco said at a last ditch effort to get more information, although he was extremely curious as to what Hermione thought would happen to the last glass.
She ignored his request, again. “Harry, count to three. Draco, it’ll be one, two, three, then shoot. Don’t fire on three, okay?” Draco didn’t say anything, so she nodded at Harry. “Go.”
Harry cleared his throat. “One, two, three.”
“Reducto!” Two beams of light hit the glass, and it exploded with a loud bang, pieces of glass falling all over the room.
“How many disastrous dates do we have to go on before you give up?” she asked, her cold expression softening slightly.
“As many as you’ll agree to go on,” he replied easily, shifting the bouquet she had refused from one hand to the other. His breath was condensing in little clouds near his mouth, but he did not seem to notice.
“Why do you keep asking?”
“Why do you keep accepting?” the young man retorted, pulling his cloak more firmly around him. “Look, I don’t want to give up. I want to be with you, no matter how difficult you are. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, genius, I love you.” His cheeks took on a pink tinge as he confessed this.
A smile formed unbidden on her lips, and she opened the door wider, to accommodate him. “Come on in.” She took the flowers from him as he removed his cloak and hung it up.
“I hope you like red roses. They’re very Gryffindor, you know. Red.”
She did not reply, but embraced him gently and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you. You can be so sweet when you try.”
“Only to people I really, really like.” He smirked at her, holding her just a little bit tighter.
And, finding he couldn’t resist any longer, kissed her properly on the lips.
“What in Merlin’s name was that?” Draco asked shakily, looking around his room. Everything seemed all right, except…
“What in Merlin’s name are those?” Hermione breathed, her eyes fixed on Draco’s closet, which had been destroyed by the force of the explosion. Inside were the bouquets of flowers he had been saving for Hermione, open for the world to see. He swore.
“Nothing, just flowers. Red roses. Why?” he asked, challenging. “What’s wrong with having flowers?”
“Who are they for?” Draco thought he could detect a hint of jealousy in her voice. He decided to tell the truth, instead of making her squirm. Merlin, she had turned him into such a Gryffindor.
“They’re for you,” he said honestly. “For when we stop fighting.” He could feel everyone’s eyes on him, and it made him uncomfortable.
“When will that be?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Oh.” Hermione looked disappointed. She stepped forward and examined the bits of glass she and Draco had scattered around the room, coloring them gold.
“Care to explain now, Hermione?” Ron asked, when she was finally finished..
“All right,” she said, seeming satisfied with the experiment. She told them what Ollivander had told her, her voice soon changing from near tears to her usual lecture voice.
“…and my wand contains the heartstring of the last dragon, and Draco’s contains the heartstring of the seventh.” She had, all this time, referred to him in third person, as if he wasn’t in the room with her. “Mr. Ollivander said our wands would show Animus Incantatem- that is, our combined spells would be more powerful than normal, because the heartstrings in our wands came from dragons who were mates. I didn’t quite know how much stronger the spells would be, and I didn’t really want to think of a better way to do it, so I decided on a simple and harmless Reductor Curse.”
“Hardly harmless,” Draco commented, surveying his room again. “We’re lucky no one got cut.”
Hermione shot him a look, clearly commanding him to be silent. “It worked. When you two did it, Harry, Ron, the glass shattered and the two farthest pieces fell three feet apart. When we each did it by ourselves, Harry’s spell was strongest, with the pieces falling just over a foot apart. When Draco and I did it together, well, the glass fell all over the room, it was that strong. Our spell was more synergistic than yours. I wish we had known before the war, it would have been a great help.”
“It was a big help, we just didn’t know it then,” Draco said. “Remember that time the Death Eaters almost got us and we stunned about twelve of them by ourselves?”
“Eleven,” she corrected automatically. “There were only eleven Death Eaters, and they wouldn’t have found us if you hadn’t sneezed.”
“Well excuse me for being off by one,” he snarled, turning red.
“Wait a minute,” Harry said, with significant looks at both Draco and Hermione, “so basically history is repeating itself, and you two are meant to be together. Correct?”
“I wouldn’t go that far-” Hermione said, turning a light shade of pink.
“Neither would I,” Draco added.
“-especially since he hasn’t apologized,” she finished.
“I still fail to see why I should apologize, seeing as I’m the innocent one. She broke off the wedding.”
“This isn’t just about the wedding anymore! This is about everything.” Hermione’s voice held a hint of desperation and anger, as if she was trying to drive some point across his thick skull. It rose in volume until she was almost shouting. “This is about all the names we’ve called each other, about how we should apologize for not apologizing, for not doing anything on Valentine’s Day, and for not caring enough to swallow our pride. The wedding was just our breaking point.”
“Well, since you’ve got it all figured out, why don’t you just go ahead and tell me how sorry you are?”
“You’re a nightmare.”
Both Draco and Hermione fell silent when Ron cleared his throat. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “I’m pretty sure Charlie mentioned that story before. Do you remember, Gin?”
She furrowed her brow. “Now that you mention it…”
“The ending was different, though,” Ron continued. “Well, not different in the sense that they survived, but it was a bit more detailed.”
Hermione looked skeptical. “What?” she asked, her voice thick with unshed tears. Draco avoided looking at her, but shifted guiltily. If there was anything he could do aside from apologize, he would probably do it.
Ron was slowly turning red. “Charlie said the dragons were even angry at each other when they died, and didn’t get to, er, get back on good terms.”
“Oh yeah,” Harry said suddenly, “I think I was there then. It was at dinner one time, wasn’t it?”
Ron nodded, but Ginny frowned. “I think your memory is messed up, Ron. Charlie never said-”
“Oh yes he did, Ginny,” Ron replied through gritted teeth. “He said neither wanted to apologize, and in the end, it was too late.” Both he and Harry were glaring at her.
“No, he said- ” she paused as it sank in. Her eyes grew wide and she cast a meaningful glance at Draco and Hermione. “Oh yes, now I remember,” she said unconvincingly. “How could I have forgotten!”
Harry, Ron, and Draco rolled their eyes. Hermione had to suppress a grin. Ginny blushed, but continued doggedly. “No, it’s true,” she insisted. “I remember now. Charlie said they fought over… uh…”
The boys couldn’t help it. They burst out laughing. Ginny turned even redder. “Really!” she burst out, stomping her foot.
Hermione took pity on her friend, who was near tears. “It’s okay, Ginny. Do you think you guys could leave me and Draco alone for a few minutes?”
Draco stopped laughing, suddenly feeling both hopeful and nervous. Harry and Ron both patted his back encouragingly before leaving- what did that mean? Did they want him to apologize or did they know Hermione was up to something? Another experiment? He swallowed hard and glanced again at the closet.
Awkward silence reigned for about a minute, wherein both Draco and Hermione fidgeted nervously. Eventually, Hermione spoke.
“I was thinking of a compromise. Nine months from now, if you’re available.”
“Merlin, Hermione, you know I never make appointments that far in advance. Of course I’m available. I won’t schedule anything for that entire month.” A small, niggling voice in the back of his mind told him to argue- nine months was much closer to the original five he had wanted rather than the twenty four she had fought for. He decided to keep quiet, however, since he didn’t want to start another row, and because a part of him was pleased that he had won.
“Just checking.” She smiled meekly at him. “I told your mother we’d go for a white and gold motif, by the way.”
Draco felt immensely relieved, knowing that the wedding was still on. All the tension that he had felt since their big fight had started fell away in an instant. He reached into his closet and presented Hermione with a bouquet. “For you.”
Hermione accepted it, her heart thudding, her lips smiling. “Thank you.”
Another awkward silence passed.
“It seems we’ve sorted this out without apologizing,” Draco said finally, although that wasn’t what he had meant to say. What he wanted to say was how sorry he was- how truly, deeply sorry he was that he hadn’t wanted to wait as long as Hermione wanted, that he hadn’t had the guts to apologize before, that he hadn’t apologized even to stop her from crying.
Hermione shook her head, feeling the need to apologize, remembering what Ron had said about the dragons. It wasn’t true, she knew, but still, one couldn’t tell, could they? For all she knew, it was true… for all she knew, something could have happened to her or Draco without them apologizing. “I’m sorry, Draco.”
He didn’t have to hear it- in fact, now, he was convinced that she didn’t have to apologize at all. “I’m the one who should be sorry, Hermione. And I am.” He was terribly embarrassed- before, he had been hoping she would apologize first, but now he was ashamed that she had more courage to say it than he did.
She smiled at him. God, he had missed her. “Come here, genius,” he said, opening his arms. “I haven’t kissed you yet.”
She slid easily into his arms, and he eagerly pressed his lips to hers. Some time later, when they were both sufficiently breathless, Hermione asked, “Apologizing wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Draco made a noncommittal sound. “Mm…. I suppose not,” he admitted grudgingly. “I suppose I could do it more often, if I had to.”
“Me too,” Hermione said, sighing against him happily. “Sorry for not explaining the experiment before we actually performed it.”
“Sorry for making you deal with both our mothers.”
She laughed. “It’s fine. I didn’t actually deal with them. They think everything’s perfect, and they never even knew that we fought.”
“So do you think this thing with our wands is coincidence? That we’re rather similar to those dragons you were talking about?”
She shrugged, hugging him tighter. “Do you believe in coincidences? Or do you think things happen for a reason?”
He considered her question. “I think this one happened for a reason,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the engagement ring she had returned.
About ten minutes later, Draco and Hermione finally left his room and found the others in the living room. Ginny was sitting, sulking, in a corner, and it was evident that Ron and Harry had been teasing her about her earlier slip-up.
“All good, then?” Harry asked as they walked into the room, holding hands.
“I hope you’re all available nine months from now,” Hermione said, smiling. “We’re getting married!”
“Finally,” Ron said, sighing explosively, before all three of them leapt to their feet to congratulate the couple. The boys then began asking Draco to recount exactly what had happened after they left- who apologized first? while Ginny fawned over Hermione’s ring.
“Come on, Hermione, we have to go,” Draco said, tugging at her hand, after allowing Harry and Ron to think that, while Hermione had apologized, both of them had decided that there really was no need for apologies.
“Where’re you going?” Ron asked.
“To see if we can Stun Hagrid,” Hermione explained, grinning cheekily. “No one’s been able to do it before…”
Final Notes: Hope you enjoyed it! Happy Valentines Day. :D
Would you prefer an art or fic valentine? Any, I guess. Preferrably a fanfic.
Describe your ideal valentine in as few words as possible: A dash of angst, a pinch of humour, a sprinkling of romance, and an appearance by the Easter bunny.
Dealbreakers (absolute no-no's): Too much fluff...?
Title: Dragon Heartstrings
Author/Artist: pips_n_chiaw
Type of Valentine: fic
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J K Rowling. No profit is being made.
Rating: K
Warnings: none
Notes: rinfics , hope you enjoy this! It came out rather long, and sometimes when we read it we like it, when we reread it we don’t… you decide whether it’s good or not. Thanks very muchly to zarahjoyce , our beta (love ya!) and the other people who have read this and told us it was good. Unfortunately, the summary isn’t that good. Sorry! And we apologize for the lateness. :)
Summary: A story in which Draco and Hermione are not talking to each other, have not broken up, and are definitely not getting married.
Dragon Heartstrings
The sun glinted off his scales as he wheeled through the sky, squinting at the ground below. Normally dragons possessed incredibly keen vision, but one too many curses aimed for his eyes had taken its toll.
On the ground below him he spotted the motionless form of his mate, his love, his best friend. She was surrounded by wizards, who continued shooting spells at her, despite her helpless condition.
“Leave her,” he roared at the men. “We are peace-keeping dragons, we are good-”
“We know,” a human shouted back.
The dragon stopped short for a moment. These were the humans Wulfric Dumbledore had warned them about, the Dark humans, those who were against the good ones.
His hesitation was enough for the men to cast their spells on him. Their magic was powerful, but his rage was stronger. He roared in fury and soared higher, out of the range of the humans’ wands. Back and forth he flew, scorching those unlucky enough to be within his reach.
He should have stopped and flown to the distant mountains, but his temper would not permit it. His strength was beginning to fail him, when a human directed a spell between the dragon’s eyes. He fell a few yards away from his mate, and squinted at the cave a few miles away in the mountains. In it was their egg, their baby, their hope for the future.
“I hate you.” Her voice was quiet and firm, but brimming with anger.
“You loved me five seconds ago.” His voice was sarcastic and tinged with hurt.
“Which makes me hate you all the more right now.” Shaking with anger, Hermione stood, wrenched the ring off her finger - it was too loose anyway - and slammed it down in front of Draco. “If you don’t love me enough to wait for me, then perhaps we shouldn’t do this.” She turned and walked away, blindly navigating around tables in the crowded restaurant.
Draco tossed more than enough Galleons onto the table and strode after her, not caring how many people he bumped into along the way. “You can’t back out now,” he hissed as he grabbed her arm. “I just told my mother we were getting married. She’ll have received the owl by now.”
“Then you can tell her we’re not. She’ll receive the owl in half an hour.”
“You tell her. You’re the one who called it off.”
“She’s your mother!" Hermione muttered, yanking her arm off his hold.
"What about your parents? What would they say if--"
"I'll tell them that--"
“No, if you want to call off the wedding then you tell both our mums.” They had reached the Apparation point, but neither made a move to disappear. Draco stared at Hermione, not believing she could be so stubborn. This exceeded the usual Gryffindor stubbornness; this one bordered on stupidity.
“I’m not the one who asked the stupid question,” Hermione snapped, glaring at Draco. “This is hardly my fault-”
“I’m not the one who accepted a proposal she thought was stupid!”
“Oh, this is my fault, isn’t it? It’s always my fault.”
“Why are you being so stubborn, Hermione? We both know you don’t mean it, you want to get married, you want-”
Hermione was even more furious. “Who are you to say what I mean or not?”
“If you really love me-” they both began, then stopped abruptly. Hermione would have smiled if she hadn’t wanted to strangle him instead.
“I already told you, I hate you,” she said coolly.
“The feeling is now mutual,” Draco shot back. “I can’t believe you have people believing you’re the smartest witch of the century, when you can’t seem to recognize stupid proposals when they hit you in the face!”
“You know what? If I’m stupid then you must be-”
“I can’t take this anymore,” Draco cut in, running his hands through his hair in exasperation. “Think of a solution, genius. At least we realized our mistake before getting married.” He disapparated with a pop.
Hermione clenched her jaw painfully, resisting the urge to scream in rage. It was the first time Draco had ever walked away from one of their fights, and it showed a total lack of respect. She saw her reflection in a mirror- the one that incoming customers generally used to make sure that they aren’t in any way harmed during their Apparation- and noticed that several curls of her hair had escaped their Sleekeazy’s prison and were coiling most annoyingly on top of her head. She looked almost scary. And it was all Draco’s fault, as always. The bottle specifically said not to use the potion under stress.
Stress was exactly what was plaguing her at the moment. She needed to calm down. She needed peace and quiet. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, mentally transporting herself to her safe place- the library. In her mind’s eye she could see shelves and shelves of books, each one right where it should be, without a page out of place. She took a deep breath and imagined the smell of old books, the smell of knowledge. She relaxed, imagining the soothing sound of complete silence- libraries were, after all, sanctuaries of silence.
She exhaled as she emerged from her safe place. Hermione smiled. She had an idea.
The moment she arrived home, she strode to the phone.
“Harry, I need a diversion in the papers tomorrow.” Her voice had a steely quality to it, not unlike McGonagall. Her tone made it impossible for Harry to refuse. “Can you owl them or something? They’ll put you in, you’re the Boy Who Lived. This is the only time I’ll ask you to do something like this. I just need something big that will go on the front page. It can be as ridiculous as you want, just take attention away from the weddings page. No, I’d rather not talk about it. I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks.”
She hung up and went to take a shower. She even managed to get through her shower without snapping the bar of soap into two, although not for lack of trying. Fortunately for the soap, it was slippery, and rather than break in two, it fell half a dozen times instead, hitting her toe twice before she gave up.
And with giving up came a horrible feeling of guilt, sadness and shame- her least favorite emotion of all. It was her desire to avoid being shamed that drove her to be such a workaholic, and it was her desire to work that made her want to put the wedding off for a few years. And yet here she was, ashamed.
The bar of soap lay forgotten as Hermione sank to the floor, her face buried in her arms.
He frowned in concentration as he handled the wood, running his fingers over the smoothed sides, feeling for any imperfections. He found none.
Carefully, he polished the wood, until the glow of the fire shone on its surface. It’s a strange combination, he thought as he worked. Vine wood and dragon heartstring were not normally paired together.
Then again, ebony was not normally paired with dragon heartstring either. The wand he had finished just the day before had been made of that wood, and it was particularly hard to work with. He chuckled as he worked. Dragon hearts tended to be very picky.
Hermione frowned, her eyes still closed. Someone was hitting her head. Literally. And she knew it wasn’t a hangover as she hadn’t had a drop of alcohol before going to bed the night before.
She opened her eyes a crack and saw Ron Weasley staring down at her, his finger persistently jabbing at her forehead.
“Oi,” he said, “wake up.”
“No,” Hermione groaned, batting at his hand and rolling to the other side of the bed.
Someone began poking her shoulder. She ignored it for a while, but they began whispering.
“Did she fall asleep again?” Harry asked.
“I don’t know,” Ron whispered back.
Silence.
“Is that Malfoy?”
“Where?” Hermione asked eagerly, sitting up and looking around. She knew he would come to apologize. She looked around the room, expecting to see her blond, disheveled, and extremely apologetic boyfriend.
Instead, she saw Harry and Ron staring at the picture of a young Draco Malfoy wearing a Kneazle costume. “Oh.” She flopped back onto the bed, burying her face in her pillow.
Ron wrenched the pillow away from her. “You have to wake up some time, Hermione.”
“Not in the near future. It’s not like I’m, oh, I don’t know, getting married any time soon or anything.”
“Look, maybe this will cheer you up.” Ron showed her the Daily Prophet.
Hermione blinked, not sure she was seeing right. The headline screamed “HARRY POTTER SEES EASTER BUNNY”. A picture beside the article showed Harry gesturing and pointing at a trail of rabbit footprints which ended in front of a chocolate egg.
Ron gleefully showed her the rest- all of which sported similar titles, except one which read “‘YOU-KNOW-WHO IS EASTER BUNNY’- POTTER” and of course, the Quibbler, where Mr. Lovegood claimed to have spotted the Easter Bunny as well somewhere in Windsor. Hermione glanced at all of them before returning to the Daily Prophet and staring blankly at Harry’s picture, her messed up brain not succeeding in telling her what to say.
“We were lucky the newspapers agreed to print it,” Harry said finally, breaking the awkward silence.
“They wouldn’t have done it if it had been anyone other than Harry,” Ron agreed. “It was rather rushed, though.”
Hermione realized she hadn’t thanked them. “Harry, Ron... thank you both so much. I... I didn’t know what else to do…”
“What happened, Hermione?” Ron asked gently, sitting down at the foot of the bed. “The papers still announced your engagement to Draco.”
Hermione shook her head sadly. “I- He…It’s off. He proposed, I accepted, we fought, then we cancelled the wedding. All in one night. Neither of us wanted to tell Narcissa that it was off just a few moments after we told her it was on.”
Ron made a funny sound, as if he found the situation highly amusing. Harry coughed to hide his own grin. Both of them knew that Draco and Hermione fought often over everything and anything, and also that they were usually righter than rain again in two or three days.
“Er, Hermione, your mum put it in the Muggle papers as well. Good thing we took care of them too, since you didn’t specify last night which ones you wanted to get rid off.” Harry held up a paper that said 'YOUNG MAN SEES EASTER BUNNY'. “It’s not the headline, but it’s on the front page.”
“Apparently neither of you wanted to tell your mum as well,” Ron commented.
“Great. Just great,” Hermione said glumly, covering her face with her hands. “I didn’t think Mum was the type to…publicize family affairs.”
“You’re her only daughter,” Harry reminded her.
“Her only child,” Ron stressed. “Mum wouldn’t make a big deal if I got married, unless it was to someone like Celestina Warbeck-” he shuddered “-but she’d pee in her pants if Ginny announced she was engaged. And besides, your mother probably never expected you to snag a man. No offense, Hermione, but you’re not exactly the type of girl most guys go for.”
Hermione’s shoulders sagged. “I didn’t really expect to find one either- I mean, not many men have the patience to deal with a bossy, know-it-all, nightmarish woman for the rest of their lives. I just thought that Draco…” Her still-swollen eyes filled again with tears. “I thought wrong.”
The boys looked at each other helplessly for a few seconds, their earlier amusement fading away. Generally after rows Hermione would join them in angry sessions of Malfoy-bashing, but this time she just seemed sad.
“Er, Hermione?” Ron asked tentatively, “what did you fight about? Maybe it was a bit hasty, calling it off. My parents argue all the time, but they’ve always made up after.”
“But your parents are totally made for each other. And they were in the same house in Hogwarts. They’ve known each other that long. They don’t fight over the most trivial things, and they don’t tell each other they hate each other.”
Harry pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and frowned. “Why did you say that? You two love each other.”
Hermione was quiet for several minutes. “I don’t know. We were just so angry. But I do. I do love him. Which is why I might reconsider, if he apologized.”
The girl looked eagerly around the shop, taking in the rows of boxes that lined the shelves as she waited for the man to choose one.
“The wand chooses the witch, you know,” he told her, taking down several boxes. “I can’t find you the right wand. It takes patience.”
“So why did you take all those measurements?”
“It helps,” he said simply.
“The width between my nostrils helps?”
“Wands are very particular,” the old man nodded seriously. The girl wasn’t sure if he was teasing her or not. She glanced dubiously at her mother as she took one of the wands. Her attention was drawn immediately to the piece of wood in her hand- she had never held a wand before, and it was quite unlike the thin sticks magicians waved around.
“Abracadabra,” she said, flourishing the wand.
The man snatched it quickly from her fingers, replacing it with another one. “Don’t say that,” he said. “It’s too similar…”
“To what?”
“Never mind.” He exchanged the wand she was holding with yet another wand.
“Hocus-” He grabbed the wand and replaced it with another “-pocus.”
The girl watched as the man chose several more boxes from the thousands that lined his store. Her father surreptitiously checked his watch.
“Try this one,” the man said, as if struck by an idea.
She took it, but it felt no different from any of the others. “What-”
“This one.”
The wand had barely touched her fingertips when she felt what can only be described as a rush of magic through her. Green sparks danced from the tip, causing her to jump back in surprise.
“Ah,” the man said, his silver eyes gleaming. “Dragon heartstring and vine wood. Interesting. That will be twelve Galleons.”
Draco was sleeping in an armchair when a house elf entered to announce the arrival of Harry and Ron. He groaned, but allowed them to enter anyway.
“You look bloody horrible,” Ron said by way of greeting. “How much did you drink?”
“Nothing at all.” Draco rubbed his temples tiredly. “I wanted to be sober in case Hermione came to apologize.”
“That’s not going to happen any time soon,” Harry said, conjuring a chair.
“She’s being more stubborn than usual,” Draco complained. “I don’t know, maybe I proposed too soon.” He continued massaging his temples in silence for a few moments, before looking back up. “Have you seen her? What’s she like?”
Ron shrugged. “She was sleeping when we arrived. Started bawling a few minutes into our conversation.”
“She said might reconsider if you apologize,” Harry said hopefully. “So maybe you should.”
Draco looked indignant. “She broke off the engagement!”
“But she’s crying. Doesn’t that bother you at all?”
Draco muttered some very offensive words under his breath, which the other two pretended not to hear. “Of course it bothers me, but if I gave in every time she started crying- I mean, you two, you know what females are like!”
Ron nodded. “Harry, remember Cho Chang? Eyes like a leaky faucet, that one.” Harry turned red, but before Draco could ask what happened between Harry and Cho, Ron brandished the newspapers. “You might want to check out the papers. Even the Muggle ones. Your upcoming wedding is mentioned.” He was grinning mischievously, while Harry looked even more embarrassed.
“No thanks,” Draco muttered gloomily. “The wedding’s off. And even if Hermione did apologize, I’m not so sure I feel like proposing again.”
“Come on,” Ron wheedled. “Don’t you want to read the news? Even just the front page? The headline?”
“No.”
“But Harry’s-”
“He said no, Ron.” For once, Harry and Draco were actually grateful for each other. “What did you guys fight about, anyway?”
“None of your business, Potter.”
“Must be something stupid,” Ron snorted, “if neither you nor Hermione wants to tell.”
“Yes, Weasley, it was stupid. We were fighting about china patterns,” Draco said acidly. “Happy now?”
Both boys stared, dumbfounded. Draco thought he could have heard a pin drop somewhere in Africa. “You fought over plates?” Ron’s voice rose incredulously.
“Of course not,” Draco snapped, wondering if they thought he and Hermione really were that stupid. “We fought over how long our engagement should be. That’s what we fought about. We fought over the wedding date. Now we’re not even engaged!” His voice was filled with a bitterness even Ron couldn’t miss.
“All you have to do is apologize, Malfoy,” he said quietly. “A quick ‘I’m sorry’ never killed anyone, or so Mum always says. And anyway, she’ll take you back.”
“I know she would, since it’s entirely her fault. Why doesn’t she apologize herself?” Draco asked angrily. “She wants to wait a year or two. Two!” he spluttered. “Five months is more than enough time to plan a wedding, and she wants to wait two years. It’s not that she’s not ready, she said, it’s just that she has things to accomplish first. Merlin, life isn’t going to change that drastically just because of a wedding. Females,” he said with disgust. “And then, she starts practically yelling about how I’m ‘not willing to wait’ for her,” he mimicked Hermione.
“Malfoy, if you guys would just talk to each other-”
“Hermione said you guys would never break up,” Harry tried another tactic.
Draco paused. “When was this?”
“Er… when we used to say you two would never last,” the Gryffindor mumbled, cheeks pink. “She said you were both too proud to break up because that would be admitting that by getting together you made a mistake.”
Draco grunted his agreement. Both Harry and Ron stared at him as if they expected him to get the point. He stared back, wondering what point he was supposed to get.
“So… why are you breaking up?”
“We’re not breaking up. We’re just not getting married.” Silence. Draco shifted uneasily. “Why, did Hermione say we were breaking up? Has she broken up with me? Shit.”
“No, she didn’t quite say so, we just kind of assumed…”
He looked relieved, although still anxious. “Good.”
Ron frowned. “So you two are too proud to break up, according to Hermione, and both too proud to apologize and make up, so… what happens now?”
“Nothing. Tell her to apologize. I’m not talking to her until she does.”
Harry stood, his green eyes narrowed with frustration. “You know, with a skull as hard as yours, you should have been in Gryffindor.”
A pile of wands, his mother’s choosing, were already waiting for him when he and his father entered the shop.
“Good afternoon,” the old man said, his silver eyes sweeping over the boy. “It’s such a pleasure to see you, sir.”
The boy looked around himself with interest as the old man conversed with his parents and a tape measure flicked around, taking measurements. Once the tape measure stopped, the man stepped forward and handed the boy his first wand.
“I want a dragon’s heartstring,” the boy said.
“They’re all dragon heartstring,” his mother told him. “Almost everyone in our family owns a dragon heartstring wand, and you should be no different.”
As the pile of dragon heartstring-containing wands dwindled, he found himself getting more and more nervous. His parents would be disappointed if he didn’t get a dragon heartstring wand.
Finally, a wand chose him, and he felt the rush of magic as his magical center connected with that of the wand. He grinned happily at his parents, who smiled back.
“Dragon heartstring and ebony,” the man told him, as he placed it back in the box and wrapped it up. “Use it wisely,” he added softly after his father had paid and turned away.
A week later was Valentine’s Day. Hermione thought she might even actually be enjoying her sudden single status- not that she was single, technically, it was more like her boyfriend was missing-in-action. Of course, her mother called her almost every day about the wedding (but Hermione was always conveniently busy), several friends who still had read the Weddings pages congratulated her (idiots who had nothing better to do), and Narcissa Malfoy kept owling because Draco had (apparently) told his mother to ask Hermione for all the details. Aside from those tiny trifling details that kept reminding her that the entire wizarding world thought she was getting married to a guy she wasn’t even speaking to, everything was just fine. Perfect, in fact. Harry and Ron were being angels, since they alone knew the truth about Draco and Hermione’s relationship and were promised painful deaths if they ever breathed a word about it to anyone.
It was the first time in four years that she hadn’t received a valentine from Draco. She received a card from Ron and a box of melted chocolate from Harry, but nothing from Draco.
This was only fair, considering she hadn’t gotten anything for him either, aside from the Muggle candy he loved, which she would give to him if he apologized.
In an attempt to do something productive with her Saturday, Hermione went to the museum to browse through the exhibits. ‘Nourish the mind, heal the heart’ was her new motto.
The employees at the museum were familiar with her face, and they were eager to help. “There’s a new exhibit for wands in Exhibit Room D. Mr. Ollivander’s in there now, and if you hurry you can catch him.”
“Thanks, Wallace.” Hermione grinned at him and hurried down the hall. She was always excited when new exhibits opened, but she was ecstatic to hear that an expert would be present. She almost forgot that just the previous month, she and Draco had visited a Mummy exhibit in the same room she was heading for that day.
Mr. Ollivander was nowhere in sight when Hermione stepped into Exhibit Room D, but the walls were lined with cases of wands and she forgot her worries. There was a brief description and history written for each wand, and several wands dated back to 550 B.C. One section had the equipment and tools used for wand making, and a table listing the properties of each wood used for wands. Unfortunately, no one was doing a demonstration, but a sign promised that a skilled wandmaker would be demonstrating wand-making techniques later on in the day.
One particular case caught Hermione’s attention. There were five wands in it, but spaces had been left for three more. One of the wands looked familiar to Hermione, so she checked the history. It was Snape’s wand.
“A replica,” Mr. Ollivander said beside her, causing her to jump.
“Oh! You startled me, sir.”
“My apologies.” He peered at her, his silver eyes glinting through his thick glasses. “Not with the Malfoy boy today?”
Hermione shook her head. “He’s busy.”
“Too busy for Valentine’s Day?” Mr. Ollivander clucked disapprovingly. “Congratulations on your upcoming wedding, by the way.”
“Er… thanks.” Somehow Hermione got the feeling he knew they had fought. He was a wand expert, and she was glad that he was there, but she didn’t want to talk about the wedding- or lack thereof. She was about to step away to examine another case of wands when Ollivander spoke again.
“Pity,” he said. “Such a pity. I wanted to tell you both about this particular display.”
“Because Snape’s wand is there?”
“Partly. And also because your wands should be here.”
“Excuse me?”
Ollivander cleared his throat so as to make himself more understandable. “I said, your wands should be here. Yours and Mr. Malfoy’s.” He glanced at the pocket in which Hermione kept her wand. She was still staring at him, trying to figure out whether or not he was pulling her leg.
The famous wand-maker took out his own wand, and even Hermione, who had little experience with wands aside from her own, could tell it was a magnificent piece of work.
With two flicks of the wand, a couple of armchairs appeared in front of the display case. “Have a seat,” Mr. Ollivander offered, and although Hermione would rather stand, she couldn’t refuse him.
“Your wand is vine wood and dragon heartstring, is it not?”
Hermione nodded.
“Mr. Malfoy’s is ebony and dragon heartstring. A long time ago, a very, very long time ago, there were two types of dragons- the kind we have now, wild and dangerous, and a more peaceful kind, the sort that communicated with and helped humans.”
“I thought that was a legend,” Hermione murmured, since Ollivander was evidently waiting for a reply.
“You’ll learn that in the wizarding world, very few things are legends. All have some truth to them.” Ollivander, seeming pleased with his tidbit of advice, continued the story. “There have only been eight documented peaceful dragons. Each had a name, but no human has ever been able to pronounce their names, so they were known by their numbers. The eldest, who had passed long before the youngest, was the first, and the youngest, who passed long before you and I were born, was the eighth, or the last. Do you follow?”
Hermione couldn’t help wondering- quite arrogantly- whether or not Ollivander knew he was talking to the brightest witch of her generation. “Yes, sir.”
Ollivander seemed delighted. “My family, the premiere wand-makers at the time, were approached by the eldest dragon. He asked that, in the event that a dragon should die, the heartstring should be taken out and fashioned into a wand. Nasty business. The instruments used are displayed over there.” He waved a pale hand towards one of the display cases along the far wall. “It takes as long as seven hours to extract one heartstring.”
Feeling it was time to ask a question, Hermione very nearly raised her hand, catching herself just in time. “Why, sir? Why would they want to give up their heartstrings?” She couldn’t imagine having to give up a part of her heart, although she had opted to donate her organs in the event that she died. But to place part of her heart in a wand?
Come to think of it, she thought, it was rather disgusting to think that she had part of the heart of a dead animal enclosed inside her wand.
“They knew they were powerful, one of the last remaining species that were completely good and pure. Their relatives, the wild dragons, are nowhere near as pure. Since those peaceful dragons passed, the only such creatures left are phoenixes and unicorns, both of whom are almost extinct.”
“But Voldemort’s wand contained a phoenix tail feather.”
“The wand does choose the wizard,” Ollivander agreed,” but it doesn’t guarantee that the wizard will be good. Besides, phoenixes and unicorns give tail feathers and tail hairs. Tails are much less capable of choosing than hearts. They feel the power, the aptitude. The hearts of the peaceful dragons generally felt other hearts.”
Hermione nodded slowly. It did make sense, after all. Surreptitiously, she glanced at her watch. She and Ollivander had been talking for less than fifteen minutes, but it felt like several hours had passed. She wished he would speak faster.
“The most interesting story is that of the last two dragons,” he continued, his silvery eyes studying her face. Hermione wondered briefly if he was related to the Malfoys- certainly their eyes were similar- until she remembered that almost all purebloods were related to each other. “A male and a female. The last one, the male, was a mischievous creature, although pure at heart. He was the type who would be sighted by Muggles, even though the elders expressly forbid it. Many had doubts as to his being a good dragon at all.”
By now Hermione’s scholarly interest was starting to wander. Ollivander, although a better storyteller than Binns, sounded almost exactly like him, and without a notebook to write down every word, Hermione was beginning to feel sleepy. It really sounded like a legend more than anything else. She pulled herself together and with superhuman effort, she focused on what Ollivander was saying.
“The last two dragons became what one would call mates- my great grand father said wizards would often hear them, either laughing together, or bickering. The female, you see, was quite the opposite of the male- not mischievous at all. She always said that if they got killed, it would be the male’s fault for showing himself to Muglges.
“In the end, it was Dark Wizards that killed them, not Muggles. The female died first, and, in his rage, the male destroyed a third of an army. Eventually, he died as well. They left behind an egg, but without its parents, it had no chance of surviving.”
“That’s a very interesting story, sir,” Hermione said politely, “although a little sad.”
“There’s more,” Ollivander said, his silver eyes gleaming. Hermione mentally resigned herself to more boredom. She already had a feeling as to where this was leading to. “The wands made with the heartstrings of those two dragons are centuries old, but they were only bought a little over a decade ago. They were bought within a week of each other, by you and Mrs. Malfoy, for her son Draco.”
“And that’s why you say our wands belong in the glass case,” Hermione stated. She was pleased that her wand had such an interesting history to it, although she found it a bit far-fetched and hard to believe. She was now twenty-four, and had been aware of her magic for twelve years. Almost nothing could surprise her now.
“Exactly,” Ollivander exclaimed, seemingly pleased that she had understood. “Yes. I was wondering if you would give me permission to make replicas.”
“Of course,” Hermione said absently, her mind on other, more interesting, things. “Sir, would an effect similar to the Priori Incantatem take place if we used our wands against each other?”
“No, no, of course not.” He shook his head vigorously. “Priori Incantatem is for wands that have a core substance taken from the same animal. That never happens for wands whose core substance is dragon heartstring, because dragons only have one heartstring each that can be extracted. The effect your wands will have is called Animus Incantatem, and instead of the wands opposing each other, they help each other, strengthening the spell.”
Hermione nodded, digesting the information. She needed more research. Ollivander’s tale had opened a vast array of possibilities. She and Draco just had to work together… which would never happen now, she remembered with a sinking heart.
An old woman entered the room, followed by a slightly younger man. “Dear, it’s time to go.”
Ollivander looked at his watch. “So it is, so it is.” He glanced regretfully at Hermione. “I’m afraid I must leave you. Darling- this is Hermione Granger. Ms. Granger, my wife and son.”
Hermione politely shook hands with them, hoping none of her surprise had been displayed on her face. She had never considered a family for Ollivander, but she supposed it was only logical.
“Congratulations on your engagement, dear,” Mrs. Ollivander said kindly.
“Thanks.” Hermione forced herself to smile.
“She owns one of the dragon wands,” Mr. Ollivander told them. “If I may, just for a moment...?” Hermione gave him her wand, and he examined it. “Yes,” he seemed satisfied, “you can still feel his power.”
“His power, sir?”
“Yes,” Mr. Ollivander seemed surprised that she hadn’t realized it. “Yours is the heartstring of the male dragon, the last. He chose you.”
“Stupefy!”
The same spell burst out of two wands, sending identical jets of red light towards the same target. The Death Eater was blasted into the air, falling to the ground a few meters from where he had stood.
“Save your strength,” the young man told her. “No need to cast such a strong spell!”
“I could say the same to you,” she retorted, taking aim at another man hidden in the shadows. “Besides, I could have taken him by myself.”
“Says you,” he snorted, shielding both of them as several more Death Eaters stepped into view. “Can you take care of them by yourself?” He indicated the approaching men with the ghost of a smirk on his face.
She let out a frustrated noise “They’d never have found us if it weren’t for you,” she reminded him. “You sneezed.”
He rolled his eyes, wishing she’d stop bringing that up. He couldn’t help it if his nose was sensitive; he was just recovering from a cold. “Let’s just finish up here, all right? Stupefy!”
Three days of research later, Hermione still knew next to nothing about the dragons, and nothing about Animus Incantatem. There was only one thing to do- talk to Draco and perform an actual test.
Draco looked up from his book as she barged into his bedroom, followed by Harry, Ron, and Ginny. “Come to apologize?” he smirked. “You even brought witnesses?” His eyes darted to the closet where he had kept several bouquets of flowers for this very occasion.
Hermione appeared to be in a rather foul mood. “Yes, Harry and Ron are witnesses for what we are about to do. And Ginny-” she cast the younger girl a murderous glare, “eavesdropped and found out that you and I fought.”
“What? Only Potter and Weasley are supposed to know that. Ronald Weasley,” Draco added, as Ginny opened her mouth.
“Exactly,” Hermione gave Ginny a frigid look.
“I wasn’t eavesdropping, I only overheard,” was Ginny’s defense. “I was walking by and heard Ron and Harry asking if you were going to apologize, and whether Draco had apologized, and then Harry asked if you told anyone else yet that the wedding was off… Come on, Hermione, you know me.”
Hermione gritted her teeth. She did know Ginny, and since Ginny was the younger sister of the Weasley twins, she wouldn’t put it past her to eavesdrop. But she trusted Ginny. “You’re right, Ginny. Sorry.”
“You apologized to her!” Draco exclaimed. “Just like that!” He snapped his fingers. “Whereas I’ve been waiting for a week…” he trailed off as Hermione turned her scowl on him.
“I can’t believe you two announced that you’re getting married when instead you’re fighting,” Ginny said. “What’s everyone going to say when they find out you’ve broken up?”
“We haven’t broken up!” Both Draco and Hermione yelled at her.
“But-”
“We’re just having a disagreement in which we’re not talking to each other, and certainly are not getting married.” Hermione said. “Now, to the business at hand.” She moved a small table to the center of the room and conjured six glasses. She took five away, leaving only one in the middle of the table. Everyone watched in interest.
“What are you doing?” Draco asked her, folding his arms across his chest.
“Setting up. I just want to try something, it’s only a little experiment.” Hermione went right up to the table and then took five steps back.
“And… why are you experimenting in my bedroom?”
She ignored him and raised her wand, aiming at the glass on the table. “Reducto!”
The glass shot backwards and shattered. Hermione stepped forward, examined the shards of glass on the floor. Casting another spell, she marked the spots where they fell with red magic.
“Your turn, Draco,” she said, placing the second glass on the table.
Draco was tempted to be difficult, he really was. What right did Hermione have to suddenly decide to conduct an experiment in his house? After not talking to him for more than a week? But he was too curious, he decided. It was interesting. And Hermione looked too angry to cross.
Feeling slightly foolish, he followed Hermione’s instructions (grumbling all the way), and walked straight up to the table before taking five steps back, stopping at approximately the same place where Hermione had stood.
“Why didn’t you just mark it with magic?” he complained as he completed his fifth step.
“Because I didn’t think of it,” she snapped back. “Go on, use the Reductor Curse on it.”
Draco glared at her and took his own sweet time- no sense aiming at and missing the glass, after all. “Reducto!” He watched smugly as his glass flew a little bit farther than Hermione’s as it shattered.
She merely rolled her eyes at his smirk and marked his shards with green magic. She marked the spot where Draco had stood and ordered Harry and Ron to each break a glass, marking Harry’s shards in blue and Ron’s in orange. It was no surprise to anyone other than Draco that Harry’s glass exploded most forcefully. Then Hermione made Harry and Ron curse the glass together, which she stained in black.
She placed the last glass on top of the table. “This time,” she said, looking at Draco, “we’ll do it together.” Hermione indicated for him to get into position.
“Maybe you should explain first,” Draco said at a last ditch effort to get more information, although he was extremely curious as to what Hermione thought would happen to the last glass.
She ignored his request, again. “Harry, count to three. Draco, it’ll be one, two, three, then shoot. Don’t fire on three, okay?” Draco didn’t say anything, so she nodded at Harry. “Go.”
Harry cleared his throat. “One, two, three.”
“Reducto!” Two beams of light hit the glass, and it exploded with a loud bang, pieces of glass falling all over the room.
“How many disastrous dates do we have to go on before you give up?” she asked, her cold expression softening slightly.
“As many as you’ll agree to go on,” he replied easily, shifting the bouquet she had refused from one hand to the other. His breath was condensing in little clouds near his mouth, but he did not seem to notice.
“Why do you keep asking?”
“Why do you keep accepting?” the young man retorted, pulling his cloak more firmly around him. “Look, I don’t want to give up. I want to be with you, no matter how difficult you are. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, genius, I love you.” His cheeks took on a pink tinge as he confessed this.
A smile formed unbidden on her lips, and she opened the door wider, to accommodate him. “Come on in.” She took the flowers from him as he removed his cloak and hung it up.
“I hope you like red roses. They’re very Gryffindor, you know. Red.”
She did not reply, but embraced him gently and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you. You can be so sweet when you try.”
“Only to people I really, really like.” He smirked at her, holding her just a little bit tighter.
And, finding he couldn’t resist any longer, kissed her properly on the lips.
“What in Merlin’s name was that?” Draco asked shakily, looking around his room. Everything seemed all right, except…
“What in Merlin’s name are those?” Hermione breathed, her eyes fixed on Draco’s closet, which had been destroyed by the force of the explosion. Inside were the bouquets of flowers he had been saving for Hermione, open for the world to see. He swore.
“Nothing, just flowers. Red roses. Why?” he asked, challenging. “What’s wrong with having flowers?”
“Who are they for?” Draco thought he could detect a hint of jealousy in her voice. He decided to tell the truth, instead of making her squirm. Merlin, she had turned him into such a Gryffindor.
“They’re for you,” he said honestly. “For when we stop fighting.” He could feel everyone’s eyes on him, and it made him uncomfortable.
“When will that be?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Oh.” Hermione looked disappointed. She stepped forward and examined the bits of glass she and Draco had scattered around the room, coloring them gold.
“Care to explain now, Hermione?” Ron asked, when she was finally finished..
“All right,” she said, seeming satisfied with the experiment. She told them what Ollivander had told her, her voice soon changing from near tears to her usual lecture voice.
“…and my wand contains the heartstring of the last dragon, and Draco’s contains the heartstring of the seventh.” She had, all this time, referred to him in third person, as if he wasn’t in the room with her. “Mr. Ollivander said our wands would show Animus Incantatem- that is, our combined spells would be more powerful than normal, because the heartstrings in our wands came from dragons who were mates. I didn’t quite know how much stronger the spells would be, and I didn’t really want to think of a better way to do it, so I decided on a simple and harmless Reductor Curse.”
“Hardly harmless,” Draco commented, surveying his room again. “We’re lucky no one got cut.”
Hermione shot him a look, clearly commanding him to be silent. “It worked. When you two did it, Harry, Ron, the glass shattered and the two farthest pieces fell three feet apart. When we each did it by ourselves, Harry’s spell was strongest, with the pieces falling just over a foot apart. When Draco and I did it together, well, the glass fell all over the room, it was that strong. Our spell was more synergistic than yours. I wish we had known before the war, it would have been a great help.”
“It was a big help, we just didn’t know it then,” Draco said. “Remember that time the Death Eaters almost got us and we stunned about twelve of them by ourselves?”
“Eleven,” she corrected automatically. “There were only eleven Death Eaters, and they wouldn’t have found us if you hadn’t sneezed.”
“Well excuse me for being off by one,” he snarled, turning red.
“Wait a minute,” Harry said, with significant looks at both Draco and Hermione, “so basically history is repeating itself, and you two are meant to be together. Correct?”
“I wouldn’t go that far-” Hermione said, turning a light shade of pink.
“Neither would I,” Draco added.
“-especially since he hasn’t apologized,” she finished.
“I still fail to see why I should apologize, seeing as I’m the innocent one. She broke off the wedding.”
“This isn’t just about the wedding anymore! This is about everything.” Hermione’s voice held a hint of desperation and anger, as if she was trying to drive some point across his thick skull. It rose in volume until she was almost shouting. “This is about all the names we’ve called each other, about how we should apologize for not apologizing, for not doing anything on Valentine’s Day, and for not caring enough to swallow our pride. The wedding was just our breaking point.”
“Well, since you’ve got it all figured out, why don’t you just go ahead and tell me how sorry you are?”
“You’re a nightmare.”
Both Draco and Hermione fell silent when Ron cleared his throat. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “I’m pretty sure Charlie mentioned that story before. Do you remember, Gin?”
She furrowed her brow. “Now that you mention it…”
“The ending was different, though,” Ron continued. “Well, not different in the sense that they survived, but it was a bit more detailed.”
Hermione looked skeptical. “What?” she asked, her voice thick with unshed tears. Draco avoided looking at her, but shifted guiltily. If there was anything he could do aside from apologize, he would probably do it.
Ron was slowly turning red. “Charlie said the dragons were even angry at each other when they died, and didn’t get to, er, get back on good terms.”
“Oh yeah,” Harry said suddenly, “I think I was there then. It was at dinner one time, wasn’t it?”
Ron nodded, but Ginny frowned. “I think your memory is messed up, Ron. Charlie never said-”
“Oh yes he did, Ginny,” Ron replied through gritted teeth. “He said neither wanted to apologize, and in the end, it was too late.” Both he and Harry were glaring at her.
“No, he said- ” she paused as it sank in. Her eyes grew wide and she cast a meaningful glance at Draco and Hermione. “Oh yes, now I remember,” she said unconvincingly. “How could I have forgotten!”
Harry, Ron, and Draco rolled their eyes. Hermione had to suppress a grin. Ginny blushed, but continued doggedly. “No, it’s true,” she insisted. “I remember now. Charlie said they fought over… uh…”
The boys couldn’t help it. They burst out laughing. Ginny turned even redder. “Really!” she burst out, stomping her foot.
Hermione took pity on her friend, who was near tears. “It’s okay, Ginny. Do you think you guys could leave me and Draco alone for a few minutes?”
Draco stopped laughing, suddenly feeling both hopeful and nervous. Harry and Ron both patted his back encouragingly before leaving- what did that mean? Did they want him to apologize or did they know Hermione was up to something? Another experiment? He swallowed hard and glanced again at the closet.
Awkward silence reigned for about a minute, wherein both Draco and Hermione fidgeted nervously. Eventually, Hermione spoke.
“I was thinking of a compromise. Nine months from now, if you’re available.”
“Merlin, Hermione, you know I never make appointments that far in advance. Of course I’m available. I won’t schedule anything for that entire month.” A small, niggling voice in the back of his mind told him to argue- nine months was much closer to the original five he had wanted rather than the twenty four she had fought for. He decided to keep quiet, however, since he didn’t want to start another row, and because a part of him was pleased that he had won.
“Just checking.” She smiled meekly at him. “I told your mother we’d go for a white and gold motif, by the way.”
Draco felt immensely relieved, knowing that the wedding was still on. All the tension that he had felt since their big fight had started fell away in an instant. He reached into his closet and presented Hermione with a bouquet. “For you.”
Hermione accepted it, her heart thudding, her lips smiling. “Thank you.”
Another awkward silence passed.
“It seems we’ve sorted this out without apologizing,” Draco said finally, although that wasn’t what he had meant to say. What he wanted to say was how sorry he was- how truly, deeply sorry he was that he hadn’t wanted to wait as long as Hermione wanted, that he hadn’t had the guts to apologize before, that he hadn’t apologized even to stop her from crying.
Hermione shook her head, feeling the need to apologize, remembering what Ron had said about the dragons. It wasn’t true, she knew, but still, one couldn’t tell, could they? For all she knew, it was true… for all she knew, something could have happened to her or Draco without them apologizing. “I’m sorry, Draco.”
He didn’t have to hear it- in fact, now, he was convinced that she didn’t have to apologize at all. “I’m the one who should be sorry, Hermione. And I am.” He was terribly embarrassed- before, he had been hoping she would apologize first, but now he was ashamed that she had more courage to say it than he did.
She smiled at him. God, he had missed her. “Come here, genius,” he said, opening his arms. “I haven’t kissed you yet.”
She slid easily into his arms, and he eagerly pressed his lips to hers. Some time later, when they were both sufficiently breathless, Hermione asked, “Apologizing wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Draco made a noncommittal sound. “Mm…. I suppose not,” he admitted grudgingly. “I suppose I could do it more often, if I had to.”
“Me too,” Hermione said, sighing against him happily. “Sorry for not explaining the experiment before we actually performed it.”
“Sorry for making you deal with both our mothers.”
She laughed. “It’s fine. I didn’t actually deal with them. They think everything’s perfect, and they never even knew that we fought.”
“So do you think this thing with our wands is coincidence? That we’re rather similar to those dragons you were talking about?”
She shrugged, hugging him tighter. “Do you believe in coincidences? Or do you think things happen for a reason?”
He considered her question. “I think this one happened for a reason,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the engagement ring she had returned.
About ten minutes later, Draco and Hermione finally left his room and found the others in the living room. Ginny was sitting, sulking, in a corner, and it was evident that Ron and Harry had been teasing her about her earlier slip-up.
“All good, then?” Harry asked as they walked into the room, holding hands.
“I hope you’re all available nine months from now,” Hermione said, smiling. “We’re getting married!”
“Finally,” Ron said, sighing explosively, before all three of them leapt to their feet to congratulate the couple. The boys then began asking Draco to recount exactly what had happened after they left- who apologized first? while Ginny fawned over Hermione’s ring.
“Come on, Hermione, we have to go,” Draco said, tugging at her hand, after allowing Harry and Ron to think that, while Hermione had apologized, both of them had decided that there really was no need for apologies.
“Where’re you going?” Ron asked.
“To see if we can Stun Hagrid,” Hermione explained, grinning cheekily. “No one’s been able to do it before…”
Final Notes: Hope you enjoyed it! Happy Valentines Day. :D
Would you prefer an art or fic valentine? Any, I guess. Preferrably a fanfic.
Describe your ideal valentine in as few words as possible: A dash of angst, a pinch of humour, a sprinkling of romance, and an appearance by the Easter bunny.
Dealbreakers (absolute no-no's): Too much fluff...?