Voting Post: Best Romantic Ficlet
Best Romantic Ficlet (501-1000 words)
Complete rules and procedures can be found on the main voting page. To summarize:
1. To submit your votes for this category, copy and paste the code below into a comment to this post (will be screened), or send it in an email to dramioneawards[at]gmail[dot]com. No anonymous comments allowed!
2. You must vote for your top THREE favorite fics, and rank them with your top favorite fic in the #1 position.
3. When casting your vote, please use the number assigned to the fic, rather than writing out the whole title.
CODE (1c):
1c - Best Romantic Ficlet:
1. (TOP CHOICE)
2.
3.
Return to Main Page
Nominees:
-1-
Diagon Alley, by reetinkerbell
Diagon Alley was more packed than usual - it was the end of summer and the usual patrons had to share the space with parents out buying supplies with their Hogwarts bound children. The large crowd of people created an indiscernible hum as they talked to each other, enjoying the beautiful and peaceful day together.
At first, few noticed the young couple arguing. But as their voices rose higher and people began to recognise the two, several heads turned and more than a few ears perked in the hopes of catching the two notorious rowers in the act. Since it'd come out that they'd begun seeing each other, several gossipy articles had been printed, detailing their arguments - true as well as false ones - and more than one person watching wanted to sell the story of their latest row and earn a nice sum.
It looked as though the woman had had enough - she threw her hands up in the air in a clear sign of giving up, hissed something in the face of the man before she turned and hurried off down the street. The people parted the way for her, but she didn't notice or care as she walked, her head down.
The man stood shock still where she'd left him, watching her go. He too ignored the crowd, even as it'd begun to whisper and speculate as they looked back and forth between the two, wondering what would happen next.
"Your hair is just so incredibly stupid!" he cried out desperately after the woman.
She spun around, fire in her eyes as she glared at him. "What?"
"Your hair, it's just ridiculous," he elaborated as he walked towards her, not even glancing at the people who watched the new events unfolding. "When I wake up with you, your hair is always trying to choke me to death."
"If you're going to continue to insult me…" she left the rest of the threat unsaid, crossing her arms as she made a move as if to leave him standing by his own in the street again.
He was now close enough to touch her and he took advantage of that fact by wrapping his hands over her shoulder, holding her in place.
"But as much as I think you need serious help in hair care management," he said, leaning his face closer to hers, "there's nothing I want more in this world than to wake up with my face buried in that bushy hair of yours for the rest of my life."
The crowd watched, eyes wide. They were quiet as they now strained to hear the voices of the couple.
"Really?" she asked hesitatingly.
"Really," he agreed, nodding.
"Then why are you being such a prat?" she demanded.
His hands squeezed her shoulders gently as he sighed. "Because I'm scared," he admitted so quietly only the people closest to them could make out the words, "I've never done this before, never felt this way about anyone."
"I haven't either," she returned; her voice just as quiet.
He leaned his forehead against hers and her eyes fluttered shut as she breathed him in.
"Do you know when I realised I was completely in love with you?" he asked suddenly.
Her eyes flew open. She leaned back and met his steady gaze. Overcome and unable to answer, she shook her head.
"It was a Sunday morning, when we were having breakfast in your flat," he began, smiling as he recalled the day. "I was watching Crookshanks and you commented on how you were sure he missed Hogwarts even more than you did, because of the freedom he'd had there that he didn't get in the city. Do you remember?"
She nodded slowly, a small smile playing her lips as well. Though no one knew what she was thinking, of how she remembered the moment as clearly as she saw him now; her small yellow kitchen with the sink piled with the unwashed dishes from their dinner the night before, the tea that was just a smidge too hot and the toast he'd burnt just a little too badly. They'd just recently begun seeing each other and he'd yet to learn how to use a toaster.
"And I thought, Crookshanks is going to love the Manor." He smiled crookedly down at her. "No would, no maybe - just certainty."
She swallowed nervously, her eyes suspiciously bright in the sunshine.
"And I could see it so clearly," he continued, his hands rising up to cup her cheeks gently. "Crookshanks being chased around the grounds by our bushy-haired children. One of them even had glasses, though far superior to the Quidditch-wrecks Potter has been sporting over the years."
The woman sniffed. "Draco, I..." Unable to continue, she instead leaned forward and pressed her lips against his.
The End
-2-
Floral Shorthand, by bookishwench
The first day of summer had arrived, and though Hermione wished she could skive off work for the day and enjoy a picnic in the park, her sense of responsibility simply wouldn’t let her. As it was, she was grateful for her work ethic because otherwise she would have missed the first day of the mystery. Sitting on her desk was a small bouquet of purple hyacinths. She frowned at them, wondering who could have left them, but plopped them into a coffee mug with some water. She had nearly forgotten about them until the end of the day when she decided to bring them home.
The next day, another bouquet of purple hyacinths rested on her blotter. Hermione pursed her lips in confusion, then put these in water as well. For the next several days, each morning an identical group of flowers was waiting for her. Several of her colleagues at the Ministry commented on them, mostly with exasperating suggestions that she had at long last found a new beau, but only Draco Malfoy offered any suggestion to what they might mean.
“You know anything about the language of flowers, Granger?” he asked, poking one of the flowers experimentally.
“I’ve heard of it,” she said, tilting her head curiously.
“You may want to research it,” he said, then abruptly left her office.
That weekend, Hermione read that purple hyacinths meant “I’m sorry” or “please forgive me.” It seemed an odd sort of message to give via flowers, and she wasn’t sure that was what the sender even intended, but it was intriguing.
On Monday, another flower awaited her, but it was an iris. Hermione raised an eyebrow, and that night found out that irises meant “your friendship is dear to me” or “wisdom and valor.” The same flowers appeared again the next morning. Hermione added them to a vase she had brought from home and charmed with an anti-wilting spell. Four irises stood proudly in the vase by the time Draco visited her once again to discuss preparations to welcome a contingency of Merpeople from the Mediterranean. He glanced at them, then at her.
“Very pretty, don’t you think?” she said, gauging his reaction.
“If you like that sort of thing,” he said, but he didn’t meet her eyes.
“I do,” she said, smiling.
The next week, yellow tulips arrived, and Hermione learned that her admirer meant “There’s sunshine in your smile.” Five tulips joined the irises, but Draco didn’t appear again until Friday.
“The meeting was a disaster,” he said, flopping into the chair across from her. “Finch-Fletchley’s Mermish accent was so bad that he nearly started a war when he asked their queen if she took one lump or two.”
They tied up loose ends, but just as he was about to leave, Hermione rested a hand lightly on his arm.
“Is it you?” she asked tentatively.
She could almost swear she saw a blush creep up his face, but he left without another word.
The next week, each day a gladiola arrived. Hermione was amused to find that its meaning was “Give me a break, I’m really sincere!” She couldn’t help wondering why Draco was being quite so subtle. However, if this was the game he wanted to play, now that she knew the rules, she intended to have her turn as well.
Early next Monday morning, Hermione quietly stole into Draco’s office and laid a single rose leaf on his desk, meaning “you may hope.”
He was in her office well before noon, smiling just a touch too broadly.
“Would you care to have dinner this evening?” he asked.
“Should I hand you a carnation or just say yes?” she asked, grinning.
Over the next weeks as their relationship deepened, Hermione found a variety of flowers waiting for her each morning, and each carried its own quiet message: magenta zinnias that told her of lasting affection, mistletoe begging a kiss, orchids saying she was beautiful, jonquils that asked if she could love him, and eventually a glorious bouquet of red roses that needed no book to translate that he loved her.
As autumn neared, she came to her office one morning to find him standing there nervously, holding two flowers in his hand. He’d never given them to her himself before, always letting the flowers speak for him, but this morning he put them into her hand himself.
“Primroses and… I’m not sure what this one is,” she said.
“Spiderflower,” he said. “Rotten name, but still…”
“What do they mean?” she asked. “And don’t tell me to look it up in a book! If you’ve got something important to tell me, say it!”
“I can’t bear to live without you and… and elope with me,” he said, sounding, as bizarre as it might be for a Malfoy, desperately shy.
Her mouth dropped open.
“I couldn’t bear to say anything at first, not when half the wizarding world still can’t think of me as anyone but the stupid kid who was mostly responsible for Dumbledore’s death, and then, this was just easier, but if you don’t want to, if it’s too quick or too soon or something…” he said, very nearly babbling until she put a finger to his lips.
“Yes.”
The flowers from the vase, mismatched and strangely assorted as they were, made a lovely wedding bouquet.
-3-
Hello, by ldymusyc
His hands attracted her first. She watched him putting up decorations in the window of the apothecary - paper chains, tinsel, red and gold and blue colored glass balls, and Scots pine cone wreaths. She would have assumed he'd use magic for it, the swish and flick of simple charms, but he did it manually. She found she was glad for it. Doing it all by hand meant she could watch his hands. Long fingers, bony knuckles, tendons dancing under thin blue veins. She was fascinated. She stood outside the window, bundled up in her cloak against the early December wind, hat losing its battle to stay on her hair, and pretended to look at the bottles and vials for sale as he worked only a few feet away, nothing separating them but glass. When she got up the courage to glance at his face, her cheeks turned deep red in an instant. He'd been watching her watch him, and he'd caught her at it.
She looked away, then back again, and this time he was smiling. He waved, the gesture hesitant and almost shy, then mouthed a 'hello' at her through the window. She bit her lip and took several moments to decide on a response. It seemed to be several moments too long, because when she looked at him again, his head was bowed as he concentrated on untangling a string of small, golden bells. His lips were pressed together, and the skin around his eyes was tight. Hermione thought he looked embarrassed. He'd put himself forward to greet her, politely, and now he was surely thinking that she'd ignored him. She moved down the window to stand in front of him, and knocked on the glass. When he glanced at her through his lashes, she smiled, waved, and said hello.
---
They talked, for a few minutes, several times over the next few weeks. They moved on to tea breaks, then lunch breaks, then dinners. It took two months before they agreed that their dinners were becoming dates, but once they'd taken that step, it felt as though everything was falling into place. He said 'I love you' for the first time on Valentine's Day, and they made love for the first time a month later. By the time his birthday rolled around in June, they were inseparable, and by the time her birthday came in September, he'd moved in to her flat. Harry stopped rolling his eyes whenever they held hands in public, and Greg stopped making disgusted sounds every time they kissed.
He proposed on the one-year anniversary of that first wave and quiet 'hello'. She'd known it was coming, despite his efforts to be sly. He was no good at lying to her, and he'd forgotten to hide the ring brochures anyway. She pretended not to know, pretended she had no idea why he wanted to take her to the same restaurant they'd been on their first official date, pretended she was clueless when he asked her to take a walk with him. They crunched across snow-covered pine needles through the woods, his arm around her shoulders and her arm around his waist. They stopped in a clearing, moonlight turning his hair to silver, and he kissed her as tentatively as he had the first time. She knew what he was planning, but when he went to one knee and held up that small velvet box, she still burst into tears. To her surprise, so did he.
---
The wedding was small, by necessity. Her parents were her only family, and his parents were the only family he acknowledged. His father glowered at her father, her mother shared handkerchiefs with his mother, and neither he nor she noticed anything except the exchange of vows. When they kissed for the first time as husband and wife, the world seemed to stop. He cupped her cheeks and slid his thumb under her lower lip. "Hello, love," he murmured, his eyes dark and shining.
She smiled and leaned her head on his shoulder. His cologne smelled of spice and winter pines, and she felt at home in his arms, with his strong hands settled warm at the small of her back. It wasn't where she'd expected to be, but she was happy. That was the important thing.
-4-
Prospect, by silvia_elisa
"Episkey!"
The loud crack of his nose mending made Draco's skin crawl, but he bit back a curse and touched his face tentatively. He peered at the witch sitting next to him on the sofa, venturing a wan smile in her general direction.
"Thanks."
Granger waved her hand. "Don't mention it."
It seemed strange to have her there, in his home, in a room very much similar to the drawing room she had been almost tortured into insanity by his aunt in. Mainly, it was her attire, or lack thereof, that stood in stark contrast with the lavish furniture all around them; it was also the mere fact that in the years they had known each other, they had never had a real conversation. Even now, after sharing a total of five earth-shattering kisses, Draco couldn't recall talking to her for more than three minutes, in his office, about the blasted bittersweet plant.
"Alea iacta est," he muttered.
The die has been cast.
"I gather you told her," Granger said, her gaze scanning the books of his personal library with a critical eye.
He nodded. "She threw china at me," he told her.
The corner of her lips curved upwards, but she didn't comment. She breathed deeply and rested her back against the sofa; Draco imitated her, stretching his arms into the air and lowering them slowly as his body fell back, not so subtly creeping his left one behind Granger's shoulders. Her small smile widened a little and she began preying on her lower lip with her teeth, suppressing a chuckle.
"What?" he asked, intent on keeping the volume of his voice to a quiet murmur.
"Draco Malfoy." She turned her head slightly to look at him. "Are you hitting on me?"
He didn't even try to hide his smirk. "Maybe," he said.
There was a gleam in her eyes that he had never seen before; she gave the impression of being faintly amused by his surreal attempt at romanticism. He had to admit he was a little puzzled by his behaviour too. He had been taught how to court a woman, but Granger was nothing like Asteria. His former fiancée had been meek and unassertive, hence his surprise at her earlier outburst of rage.
"You don't need to play these games with me," she said.
"Granger," he said softly, "I'm not playing games."
"We're already past the unspoken attraction," she countered. "I already know you want to be with me and -"
"I want to do things the right way," he interrupted.
Granger blinked. And then she blinked again. She licked her lips, almost nervously, and Draco saw the fingers of her right hand fidget on her knee. Her eyes were searching his own, though he couldn't understand what she was looking for, and when she spoke, it was a faint whisper, as if she were afraid of her own words.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
Why the sudden change? Draco wondered. Her mischievous, confident side he had had the pleasure of observing in the weeks she had pursued him had been incomprehensibly overruled by this less spirited half of her; he was slightly taken aback and thoroughly confused.
"I plan to date you properly, now that I'm a free man," he said.
Her hand gave a small spasm that his keen eyes did not miss, and without knowing the reason for it, he finally understood. It was fear. Granger was afraid of him taking control, something she had cleverly avoided dealing with in the past, making sure she was always the one to set up their encounters. However, now that she had got him to do the one thing she couldn't do herself - dispose of Asteria - she had realised she wouldn't be the one in charge of their relationship any longer; the prospect had driven all her confidence out of her.
Draco smiled.
"What?" she asked, mirroring his own previous confusion.
"Do I have your permission to kiss you?"
Granger bit her lip, clearly trying to decipher his intentions.
"I guess so..." she said.
She didn't sound convinced, at all, but he supposed in the state she was in, he couldn't bank on anything more than a diffident consent. His arm, still behind her shoulders, served as leverage to press her flush against him and he searched her fidgeting hands with his own left hand; he held her, waiting for her to figure out that he was letting her be in control of the situation. Her overactive mind was still doubtful of him though and when she moved forward, her kiss was timid and she kept her eyes half-open for a few seconds longer than usual.
Usual. Draco couldn't wait to apply that word to more aspects of their relationship.
-5-
The Full Set, by tierfal
She raised her fingers to the slick silver of the thing, and when she drew her hand away, a perfect thumbprint had smudged its way into being on the glass.
Determined things they were, fingerprints. And telling, if you knew who to ask.
That was, either a fortune teller or a forensics expert.
“Draco?” she prompted. The man in question, the trademark shock of disheveled lightning-blond hair sliding playfully into his eyes, looked up from the socks at which he had been tugging with the utmost of care and precision.
“Hermione?” he replied, and it was the unguarded openness, the automatic acceptance, bright on his face and refracted even stronger in the glass before her, that instilled in her the bravery to continue.
“Have you ever looked in a mirror…” she began, tentatively at best.
“Have I?” he cut in pleasantly, bouncing to his feet and scampering up behind her. “My dear, you behold the master of mirrors. Undisputed and unchallenged, scout’s honor. The only person in history more adept at self-involvement was one Narcissus, sketchy Greek myth character-who, if you’ll recall, bequeathed his gift for vanity, as well as his gift for bearing a name with far too many consonants, to my very mother.”
“All right, Mirror Master,” she conceded. “Have you ever looked into a mirror and wondered who you’re seeing?”
He paused, and then he moved up behind her and wrapped both arms slowly, lingeringly, and intently around her waist like a safety harness. “You, Hermione Granger,” he told her, “are the last person I know who ought to be looking in a mirror and worrying about reality and morality and identity and other words with that noun ending. You are a pillar of truth and the pinnacle of right, and you are so ideal as to encourage idolatry.”
In the crystalline honesty of the glass, she saw a blush climb her face. “Sycophant,” she said.
“You also,” he noted, “have a greater quantity of big words at your disposal than does the average English teacher.”
“You must have had some truly abysmal English teachers.”
He brushed his lips along the curve of her neck, and goosebumps raced down both her arms. She lost track of which side won. “You’re so self-deprecating,” he murmured. “Why? You’re important.” His reflection raised its hands to her shoulders, sliding deft fingertips over her skin.
“To whom?” she inquired.
A flash of ivory teeth glinted in the mirror. “There you go again, you hopeless pedant,” he remarked. She opened her mouth to protest, and he covered it with a warm hand. “You are important to me. Dreadfully important. Drastically important.”
“You’re overdramatic,” she decided.
“You’re gorgeous,” he replied.
“Oh, stop.”
“Not in a million years, darling, let alone a good eighty-or-so.”
“Really, though,” she insisted. “I’ve never been anything but an encyclopedia. No one’s ever asked me to be more than that.”
“To me,” he said, the pads of his fingertips whispering over her ear, “you are instead the Book of Marvels, every arbitrarily divided chapter, every engrossing moment, every exquisite word giving way to another just as dazzlingly coruscating as the last. If that, my darling, is an encyclopedia, I would like to purchase the full set.” He grinned. “In hardcover.”
“Cute,” she informed him, distracted still by his soft, white hands.
“As are you,” he responded.
A moment slipped away, as moments always do, caught on the sticky tongue of the second hand of the clock. They both watched in the mirror as his fingers brushed a few wispy hairs off of her forehead, and they kept watching as those hairs drifted back to the position they’d occupied before.
“You know what I see?” he asked, his voice low and quiet, still a gentle whisper in her ear, deep and subtle currents rumbling against her skin. “I should start with the beginning. I used to see a very lost, very scared, very cowardly little boy, pulled in two directions, moving in another, one step above drawn and quartered, one step below valuable. Wrought and worthless. At the eye of a hurricane that was just beginning to shift.” There was a pause-a long pause-during which he slid his fingers through her hair, engrossed with and enthralled by it, tangles snaring his fingers until he gently coaxed them loose. “Nowadays,” he went on, more softly still, “I see something different.”
He gave her a moment to prompt him, and she accepted it obligingly. “Now what do you see?” she inquired.
This time, his smile was small, sweet, cautious, and vulnerable. “I see,” he answered, “a young man who is valuable because he belongs to a woman as wonderful as this one. Because she wants him. Because she cares. And that, I think, is enough to validate an existence.”
She turned the idea over for a few seconds, watching the light play off of its facets.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“No,” he said calmly. “Not entirely. Relatively sure, I suppose. And I think that’s enough.”
“It’s enough,” she summarized, slightly bewilderedly, “to be loved?”
“Quite,” he concluded. He considered. “Which is not to say,” came the revision, “that I don’t still want the whole collection of encyclopedias. I could do with ten or twelve more of you.”
“I think one of you is plenty,” she noted contentedly.
“But think,” he insisted, “of all the kinky sex-”
“Draco!”
“-I mean, um, intellectual panel discussions… that we could have.”
“Think of it this way,” she bid him. “There would be a dozen of me to disagree with you.”
His smile disappeared instantaneously, faster even than chocolate in the hands of one Remus J. Lupin. “Oh, good God,” he said. “Never mind.”
She grinned. “Looks like I’ll have to do.”
“You,” he decided, wrapping his arms around her tightly again and meeting her eyes in the mirror, “will do wonderfully.”
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Complete rules and procedures can be found on the main voting page. To summarize:
1. To submit your votes for this category, copy and paste the code below into a comment to this post (will be screened), or send it in an email to dramioneawards[at]gmail[dot]com. No anonymous comments allowed!
2. You must vote for your top THREE favorite fics, and rank them with your top favorite fic in the #1 position.
3. When casting your vote, please use the number assigned to the fic, rather than writing out the whole title.
CODE (1c):
1c - Best Romantic Ficlet:
1. (TOP CHOICE)
2.
3.
Return to Main Page
Nominees:
-1-
Diagon Alley, by reetinkerbell
Diagon Alley was more packed than usual - it was the end of summer and the usual patrons had to share the space with parents out buying supplies with their Hogwarts bound children. The large crowd of people created an indiscernible hum as they talked to each other, enjoying the beautiful and peaceful day together.
At first, few noticed the young couple arguing. But as their voices rose higher and people began to recognise the two, several heads turned and more than a few ears perked in the hopes of catching the two notorious rowers in the act. Since it'd come out that they'd begun seeing each other, several gossipy articles had been printed, detailing their arguments - true as well as false ones - and more than one person watching wanted to sell the story of their latest row and earn a nice sum.
It looked as though the woman had had enough - she threw her hands up in the air in a clear sign of giving up, hissed something in the face of the man before she turned and hurried off down the street. The people parted the way for her, but she didn't notice or care as she walked, her head down.
The man stood shock still where she'd left him, watching her go. He too ignored the crowd, even as it'd begun to whisper and speculate as they looked back and forth between the two, wondering what would happen next.
"Your hair is just so incredibly stupid!" he cried out desperately after the woman.
She spun around, fire in her eyes as she glared at him. "What?"
"Your hair, it's just ridiculous," he elaborated as he walked towards her, not even glancing at the people who watched the new events unfolding. "When I wake up with you, your hair is always trying to choke me to death."
"If you're going to continue to insult me…" she left the rest of the threat unsaid, crossing her arms as she made a move as if to leave him standing by his own in the street again.
He was now close enough to touch her and he took advantage of that fact by wrapping his hands over her shoulder, holding her in place.
"But as much as I think you need serious help in hair care management," he said, leaning his face closer to hers, "there's nothing I want more in this world than to wake up with my face buried in that bushy hair of yours for the rest of my life."
The crowd watched, eyes wide. They were quiet as they now strained to hear the voices of the couple.
"Really?" she asked hesitatingly.
"Really," he agreed, nodding.
"Then why are you being such a prat?" she demanded.
His hands squeezed her shoulders gently as he sighed. "Because I'm scared," he admitted so quietly only the people closest to them could make out the words, "I've never done this before, never felt this way about anyone."
"I haven't either," she returned; her voice just as quiet.
He leaned his forehead against hers and her eyes fluttered shut as she breathed him in.
"Do you know when I realised I was completely in love with you?" he asked suddenly.
Her eyes flew open. She leaned back and met his steady gaze. Overcome and unable to answer, she shook her head.
"It was a Sunday morning, when we were having breakfast in your flat," he began, smiling as he recalled the day. "I was watching Crookshanks and you commented on how you were sure he missed Hogwarts even more than you did, because of the freedom he'd had there that he didn't get in the city. Do you remember?"
She nodded slowly, a small smile playing her lips as well. Though no one knew what she was thinking, of how she remembered the moment as clearly as she saw him now; her small yellow kitchen with the sink piled with the unwashed dishes from their dinner the night before, the tea that was just a smidge too hot and the toast he'd burnt just a little too badly. They'd just recently begun seeing each other and he'd yet to learn how to use a toaster.
"And I thought, Crookshanks is going to love the Manor." He smiled crookedly down at her. "No would, no maybe - just certainty."
She swallowed nervously, her eyes suspiciously bright in the sunshine.
"And I could see it so clearly," he continued, his hands rising up to cup her cheeks gently. "Crookshanks being chased around the grounds by our bushy-haired children. One of them even had glasses, though far superior to the Quidditch-wrecks Potter has been sporting over the years."
The woman sniffed. "Draco, I..." Unable to continue, she instead leaned forward and pressed her lips against his.
The End
-2-
Floral Shorthand, by bookishwench
The first day of summer had arrived, and though Hermione wished she could skive off work for the day and enjoy a picnic in the park, her sense of responsibility simply wouldn’t let her. As it was, she was grateful for her work ethic because otherwise she would have missed the first day of the mystery. Sitting on her desk was a small bouquet of purple hyacinths. She frowned at them, wondering who could have left them, but plopped them into a coffee mug with some water. She had nearly forgotten about them until the end of the day when she decided to bring them home.
The next day, another bouquet of purple hyacinths rested on her blotter. Hermione pursed her lips in confusion, then put these in water as well. For the next several days, each morning an identical group of flowers was waiting for her. Several of her colleagues at the Ministry commented on them, mostly with exasperating suggestions that she had at long last found a new beau, but only Draco Malfoy offered any suggestion to what they might mean.
“You know anything about the language of flowers, Granger?” he asked, poking one of the flowers experimentally.
“I’ve heard of it,” she said, tilting her head curiously.
“You may want to research it,” he said, then abruptly left her office.
That weekend, Hermione read that purple hyacinths meant “I’m sorry” or “please forgive me.” It seemed an odd sort of message to give via flowers, and she wasn’t sure that was what the sender even intended, but it was intriguing.
On Monday, another flower awaited her, but it was an iris. Hermione raised an eyebrow, and that night found out that irises meant “your friendship is dear to me” or “wisdom and valor.” The same flowers appeared again the next morning. Hermione added them to a vase she had brought from home and charmed with an anti-wilting spell. Four irises stood proudly in the vase by the time Draco visited her once again to discuss preparations to welcome a contingency of Merpeople from the Mediterranean. He glanced at them, then at her.
“Very pretty, don’t you think?” she said, gauging his reaction.
“If you like that sort of thing,” he said, but he didn’t meet her eyes.
“I do,” she said, smiling.
The next week, yellow tulips arrived, and Hermione learned that her admirer meant “There’s sunshine in your smile.” Five tulips joined the irises, but Draco didn’t appear again until Friday.
“The meeting was a disaster,” he said, flopping into the chair across from her. “Finch-Fletchley’s Mermish accent was so bad that he nearly started a war when he asked their queen if she took one lump or two.”
They tied up loose ends, but just as he was about to leave, Hermione rested a hand lightly on his arm.
“Is it you?” she asked tentatively.
She could almost swear she saw a blush creep up his face, but he left without another word.
The next week, each day a gladiola arrived. Hermione was amused to find that its meaning was “Give me a break, I’m really sincere!” She couldn’t help wondering why Draco was being quite so subtle. However, if this was the game he wanted to play, now that she knew the rules, she intended to have her turn as well.
Early next Monday morning, Hermione quietly stole into Draco’s office and laid a single rose leaf on his desk, meaning “you may hope.”
He was in her office well before noon, smiling just a touch too broadly.
“Would you care to have dinner this evening?” he asked.
“Should I hand you a carnation or just say yes?” she asked, grinning.
Over the next weeks as their relationship deepened, Hermione found a variety of flowers waiting for her each morning, and each carried its own quiet message: magenta zinnias that told her of lasting affection, mistletoe begging a kiss, orchids saying she was beautiful, jonquils that asked if she could love him, and eventually a glorious bouquet of red roses that needed no book to translate that he loved her.
As autumn neared, she came to her office one morning to find him standing there nervously, holding two flowers in his hand. He’d never given them to her himself before, always letting the flowers speak for him, but this morning he put them into her hand himself.
“Primroses and… I’m not sure what this one is,” she said.
“Spiderflower,” he said. “Rotten name, but still…”
“What do they mean?” she asked. “And don’t tell me to look it up in a book! If you’ve got something important to tell me, say it!”
“I can’t bear to live without you and… and elope with me,” he said, sounding, as bizarre as it might be for a Malfoy, desperately shy.
Her mouth dropped open.
“I couldn’t bear to say anything at first, not when half the wizarding world still can’t think of me as anyone but the stupid kid who was mostly responsible for Dumbledore’s death, and then, this was just easier, but if you don’t want to, if it’s too quick or too soon or something…” he said, very nearly babbling until she put a finger to his lips.
“Yes.”
The flowers from the vase, mismatched and strangely assorted as they were, made a lovely wedding bouquet.
-3-
Hello, by ldymusyc
His hands attracted her first. She watched him putting up decorations in the window of the apothecary - paper chains, tinsel, red and gold and blue colored glass balls, and Scots pine cone wreaths. She would have assumed he'd use magic for it, the swish and flick of simple charms, but he did it manually. She found she was glad for it. Doing it all by hand meant she could watch his hands. Long fingers, bony knuckles, tendons dancing under thin blue veins. She was fascinated. She stood outside the window, bundled up in her cloak against the early December wind, hat losing its battle to stay on her hair, and pretended to look at the bottles and vials for sale as he worked only a few feet away, nothing separating them but glass. When she got up the courage to glance at his face, her cheeks turned deep red in an instant. He'd been watching her watch him, and he'd caught her at it.
She looked away, then back again, and this time he was smiling. He waved, the gesture hesitant and almost shy, then mouthed a 'hello' at her through the window. She bit her lip and took several moments to decide on a response. It seemed to be several moments too long, because when she looked at him again, his head was bowed as he concentrated on untangling a string of small, golden bells. His lips were pressed together, and the skin around his eyes was tight. Hermione thought he looked embarrassed. He'd put himself forward to greet her, politely, and now he was surely thinking that she'd ignored him. She moved down the window to stand in front of him, and knocked on the glass. When he glanced at her through his lashes, she smiled, waved, and said hello.
---
They talked, for a few minutes, several times over the next few weeks. They moved on to tea breaks, then lunch breaks, then dinners. It took two months before they agreed that their dinners were becoming dates, but once they'd taken that step, it felt as though everything was falling into place. He said 'I love you' for the first time on Valentine's Day, and they made love for the first time a month later. By the time his birthday rolled around in June, they were inseparable, and by the time her birthday came in September, he'd moved in to her flat. Harry stopped rolling his eyes whenever they held hands in public, and Greg stopped making disgusted sounds every time they kissed.
He proposed on the one-year anniversary of that first wave and quiet 'hello'. She'd known it was coming, despite his efforts to be sly. He was no good at lying to her, and he'd forgotten to hide the ring brochures anyway. She pretended not to know, pretended she had no idea why he wanted to take her to the same restaurant they'd been on their first official date, pretended she was clueless when he asked her to take a walk with him. They crunched across snow-covered pine needles through the woods, his arm around her shoulders and her arm around his waist. They stopped in a clearing, moonlight turning his hair to silver, and he kissed her as tentatively as he had the first time. She knew what he was planning, but when he went to one knee and held up that small velvet box, she still burst into tears. To her surprise, so did he.
---
The wedding was small, by necessity. Her parents were her only family, and his parents were the only family he acknowledged. His father glowered at her father, her mother shared handkerchiefs with his mother, and neither he nor she noticed anything except the exchange of vows. When they kissed for the first time as husband and wife, the world seemed to stop. He cupped her cheeks and slid his thumb under her lower lip. "Hello, love," he murmured, his eyes dark and shining.
She smiled and leaned her head on his shoulder. His cologne smelled of spice and winter pines, and she felt at home in his arms, with his strong hands settled warm at the small of her back. It wasn't where she'd expected to be, but she was happy. That was the important thing.
-4-
Prospect, by silvia_elisa
"Episkey!"
The loud crack of his nose mending made Draco's skin crawl, but he bit back a curse and touched his face tentatively. He peered at the witch sitting next to him on the sofa, venturing a wan smile in her general direction.
"Thanks."
Granger waved her hand. "Don't mention it."
It seemed strange to have her there, in his home, in a room very much similar to the drawing room she had been almost tortured into insanity by his aunt in. Mainly, it was her attire, or lack thereof, that stood in stark contrast with the lavish furniture all around them; it was also the mere fact that in the years they had known each other, they had never had a real conversation. Even now, after sharing a total of five earth-shattering kisses, Draco couldn't recall talking to her for more than three minutes, in his office, about the blasted bittersweet plant.
"Alea iacta est," he muttered.
The die has been cast.
"I gather you told her," Granger said, her gaze scanning the books of his personal library with a critical eye.
He nodded. "She threw china at me," he told her.
The corner of her lips curved upwards, but she didn't comment. She breathed deeply and rested her back against the sofa; Draco imitated her, stretching his arms into the air and lowering them slowly as his body fell back, not so subtly creeping his left one behind Granger's shoulders. Her small smile widened a little and she began preying on her lower lip with her teeth, suppressing a chuckle.
"What?" he asked, intent on keeping the volume of his voice to a quiet murmur.
"Draco Malfoy." She turned her head slightly to look at him. "Are you hitting on me?"
He didn't even try to hide his smirk. "Maybe," he said.
There was a gleam in her eyes that he had never seen before; she gave the impression of being faintly amused by his surreal attempt at romanticism. He had to admit he was a little puzzled by his behaviour too. He had been taught how to court a woman, but Granger was nothing like Asteria. His former fiancée had been meek and unassertive, hence his surprise at her earlier outburst of rage.
"You don't need to play these games with me," she said.
"Granger," he said softly, "I'm not playing games."
"We're already past the unspoken attraction," she countered. "I already know you want to be with me and -"
"I want to do things the right way," he interrupted.
Granger blinked. And then she blinked again. She licked her lips, almost nervously, and Draco saw the fingers of her right hand fidget on her knee. Her eyes were searching his own, though he couldn't understand what she was looking for, and when she spoke, it was a faint whisper, as if she were afraid of her own words.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
Why the sudden change? Draco wondered. Her mischievous, confident side he had had the pleasure of observing in the weeks she had pursued him had been incomprehensibly overruled by this less spirited half of her; he was slightly taken aback and thoroughly confused.
"I plan to date you properly, now that I'm a free man," he said.
Her hand gave a small spasm that his keen eyes did not miss, and without knowing the reason for it, he finally understood. It was fear. Granger was afraid of him taking control, something she had cleverly avoided dealing with in the past, making sure she was always the one to set up their encounters. However, now that she had got him to do the one thing she couldn't do herself - dispose of Asteria - she had realised she wouldn't be the one in charge of their relationship any longer; the prospect had driven all her confidence out of her.
Draco smiled.
"What?" she asked, mirroring his own previous confusion.
"Do I have your permission to kiss you?"
Granger bit her lip, clearly trying to decipher his intentions.
"I guess so..." she said.
She didn't sound convinced, at all, but he supposed in the state she was in, he couldn't bank on anything more than a diffident consent. His arm, still behind her shoulders, served as leverage to press her flush against him and he searched her fidgeting hands with his own left hand; he held her, waiting for her to figure out that he was letting her be in control of the situation. Her overactive mind was still doubtful of him though and when she moved forward, her kiss was timid and she kept her eyes half-open for a few seconds longer than usual.
Usual. Draco couldn't wait to apply that word to more aspects of their relationship.
-5-
The Full Set, by tierfal
She raised her fingers to the slick silver of the thing, and when she drew her hand away, a perfect thumbprint had smudged its way into being on the glass.
Determined things they were, fingerprints. And telling, if you knew who to ask.
That was, either a fortune teller or a forensics expert.
“Draco?” she prompted. The man in question, the trademark shock of disheveled lightning-blond hair sliding playfully into his eyes, looked up from the socks at which he had been tugging with the utmost of care and precision.
“Hermione?” he replied, and it was the unguarded openness, the automatic acceptance, bright on his face and refracted even stronger in the glass before her, that instilled in her the bravery to continue.
“Have you ever looked in a mirror…” she began, tentatively at best.
“Have I?” he cut in pleasantly, bouncing to his feet and scampering up behind her. “My dear, you behold the master of mirrors. Undisputed and unchallenged, scout’s honor. The only person in history more adept at self-involvement was one Narcissus, sketchy Greek myth character-who, if you’ll recall, bequeathed his gift for vanity, as well as his gift for bearing a name with far too many consonants, to my very mother.”
“All right, Mirror Master,” she conceded. “Have you ever looked into a mirror and wondered who you’re seeing?”
He paused, and then he moved up behind her and wrapped both arms slowly, lingeringly, and intently around her waist like a safety harness. “You, Hermione Granger,” he told her, “are the last person I know who ought to be looking in a mirror and worrying about reality and morality and identity and other words with that noun ending. You are a pillar of truth and the pinnacle of right, and you are so ideal as to encourage idolatry.”
In the crystalline honesty of the glass, she saw a blush climb her face. “Sycophant,” she said.
“You also,” he noted, “have a greater quantity of big words at your disposal than does the average English teacher.”
“You must have had some truly abysmal English teachers.”
He brushed his lips along the curve of her neck, and goosebumps raced down both her arms. She lost track of which side won. “You’re so self-deprecating,” he murmured. “Why? You’re important.” His reflection raised its hands to her shoulders, sliding deft fingertips over her skin.
“To whom?” she inquired.
A flash of ivory teeth glinted in the mirror. “There you go again, you hopeless pedant,” he remarked. She opened her mouth to protest, and he covered it with a warm hand. “You are important to me. Dreadfully important. Drastically important.”
“You’re overdramatic,” she decided.
“You’re gorgeous,” he replied.
“Oh, stop.”
“Not in a million years, darling, let alone a good eighty-or-so.”
“Really, though,” she insisted. “I’ve never been anything but an encyclopedia. No one’s ever asked me to be more than that.”
“To me,” he said, the pads of his fingertips whispering over her ear, “you are instead the Book of Marvels, every arbitrarily divided chapter, every engrossing moment, every exquisite word giving way to another just as dazzlingly coruscating as the last. If that, my darling, is an encyclopedia, I would like to purchase the full set.” He grinned. “In hardcover.”
“Cute,” she informed him, distracted still by his soft, white hands.
“As are you,” he responded.
A moment slipped away, as moments always do, caught on the sticky tongue of the second hand of the clock. They both watched in the mirror as his fingers brushed a few wispy hairs off of her forehead, and they kept watching as those hairs drifted back to the position they’d occupied before.
“You know what I see?” he asked, his voice low and quiet, still a gentle whisper in her ear, deep and subtle currents rumbling against her skin. “I should start with the beginning. I used to see a very lost, very scared, very cowardly little boy, pulled in two directions, moving in another, one step above drawn and quartered, one step below valuable. Wrought and worthless. At the eye of a hurricane that was just beginning to shift.” There was a pause-a long pause-during which he slid his fingers through her hair, engrossed with and enthralled by it, tangles snaring his fingers until he gently coaxed them loose. “Nowadays,” he went on, more softly still, “I see something different.”
He gave her a moment to prompt him, and she accepted it obligingly. “Now what do you see?” she inquired.
This time, his smile was small, sweet, cautious, and vulnerable. “I see,” he answered, “a young man who is valuable because he belongs to a woman as wonderful as this one. Because she wants him. Because she cares. And that, I think, is enough to validate an existence.”
She turned the idea over for a few seconds, watching the light play off of its facets.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“No,” he said calmly. “Not entirely. Relatively sure, I suppose. And I think that’s enough.”
“It’s enough,” she summarized, slightly bewilderedly, “to be loved?”
“Quite,” he concluded. He considered. “Which is not to say,” came the revision, “that I don’t still want the whole collection of encyclopedias. I could do with ten or twelve more of you.”
“I think one of you is plenty,” she noted contentedly.
“But think,” he insisted, “of all the kinky sex-”
“Draco!”
“-I mean, um, intellectual panel discussions… that we could have.”
“Think of it this way,” she bid him. “There would be a dozen of me to disagree with you.”
His smile disappeared instantaneously, faster even than chocolate in the hands of one Remus J. Lupin. “Oh, good God,” he said. “Never mind.”
She grinned. “Looks like I’ll have to do.”
“You,” he decided, wrapping his arms around her tightly again and meeting her eyes in the mirror, “will do wonderfully.”
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