Eight and Eighth--Chapter 18
Title: Eight and Eighth
Author: Marmalade Fever
Characters: Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger, and more.
Genres: Romance, Drama, weird combo of in-Hogwarts and post-Hogwarts, and Humor. I can't write a fanfic without humor leaking its way in.
Spoilers: DH (though no epilogue)
Overall Rating: PG-13
Summary: Up from the ashes of seventh year grow the roses of the eighth. Eight students return for their final year at Hogwarts, and Hermione Granger would never have thought Draco Malfoy would or could be one of those roses.
Eight and Eighth-Chapter 18-Grow the Roses of Success
Hagrid was very happy to have a visitor, especially during the Christmas season, and he very graciously stuck an entire stack of rock cakes before Hermione, as well as a pot of loose-leaf black tea. They talked a bit before he stepped out to feed one of his pets-a creature Hermione was entirely sure was illegal, dangerous, and apparently a bright shade of pink.
As the half giant ducked out the door, she took a final gulp of her tea, looked down, and very nearly shrieked.
There was a heart at the bottom of her tea cup.
She didn’t need to have finished her Divination training to be able to discern what a heart might signify, and she quickly refilled her cup in order to swirl the tealeaves back into a flurry of disorder.
Today was just not her day.
O
Days went by, and Draco found himself somehow missing the Deputy Head Girl, despite the fact that they slept next door to one another. She was eluding him. He didn’t even see her at mealtimes, meaning she was either eating earlier than him, later than him, or was getting to know the few restaurants in Hogsmeade rather well.
There was also the possibility that she’d changed her mind and had left the library in his keep after all.
That theory was easily dispelled by a brief conversation with Madam Pince, who confirmed, albeit gruffly and with much suspicion, that Granger had been in a few times to check out books and leave again.
She was becoming the new definition of “playing hard to get.” He’d call it a game of cat and mouse, except she, having a wand, was much more catlike, at least in the claw area.
And so it was that Draco found himself desperately bored for an entire week before Christmas Eve came. At which point, a plan began to unfurl within his brain, and he made haste to bring it to fruition. Sitting in his bathtub, he very carefully performed a small conjuring spell. It perhaps wasn’t the best gift, nor the most impressive or even all that thoughtful-which was arguable, actually-but it was a gift.
Now all he had to do was hope that Granger A) didn’t figure out that he’d used magic to procure it, and B) was by far more girly than previous evidence would suggest.
He hated having to resort to acting like a romantic sap, but it did seem to be a well-established method of gaining proximity of a young female’s graces.
O
Hermione rolled over in her bed, mumbling sleepily about a particularly difficult Arithmancy equation that she had spent the majority of her evening worrying her lip over. Why did the answer always come out as five when it was, by necessity, an even number? Whoever heard of a set of magidic pairs with one magide left over?
It was only when the sound of Crookshanks scratching at the door reached her that she opened her eyes.
Funny how she’d been dreaming about maths when it was Christmas morning. Sitting up, she found that Father Christmas had not forsaken her, nor had her parents, it seemed, despite their current location. It was already shaping up to be a better holiday than the year previous.
Much to her surprise, there was a lumpy package that turned out to be a Weasley jumper. It was off-white, and a wand had been knit into the upper left corner. There was no note attached, and Hermione was forced to come to two possible conclusions, neither of which was entirely explanatory. Either Mrs. Weasley had finished knitting early enough that it would have been a waste not to send it along its merry way or the woman had finally heard the truth, that Ron was a bit of a cad.
The next package was revealed to be a new set of robes from her parents, who did most of their shopping for her by catalogue, entirely thankful that Madam Malkin accepted both muggle post and owl post. There were several more gifts from them, as well.
Harry had sent her a book she’d pointed out to him during their shopping trip together, so that wasn’t entirely surprising.
Ginny had sent a cat brush.
Hermione was just about to reach for what she presumed was a package from Ron-which made her slightly uncomfortable-when Crookshanks made a good leap toward the doorknob in an attempt to turn it. “You smell a mouse, don’t you?” she murmured, padding across the room to let the furry beast out. No sooner was the door open than Crookshanks made a bound up the spiral stairs, chasing some unseen quarry.
Hermione was about to close the door again when she caught sight of something pale sitting in the darkness.
It was a clump of flowers. With one wary glance at the other door at the bottom of the stairwell, she bent and picked it up, moving inside to get a better look.
The flowers were a pale lilac color, and the leaves were large and rounded, but what caught Hermione’s attention was the tag that had been looped around the stem.
“This is an ivy-leafed geranium. Look it up.”
She really didn’t need to recognize the handwriting to guess who the author had been, despite the telling nature of the scrawl. It was decidedly too lazily elegant to belong to anyone else.
In one of the several Herbology books stored beneath her bed, there was a section on Floriography, better known as the Language of Flowers, which had been used in the Victorian era and was one of the few trends that wizards had adopted from Muggles, though wizards had made a few minor additions to the list. A flowering mandrake, for example. Hermione flipped through to the G’s, moved on past garlic, and settled on Geraniums.
Geraniums in general had several meanings, varying from a true friend to stupidity. But he’d been more specific than that. Her finger glided past apple geraniums to ivy, and she raised an eyebrow. “Your hand for the next dance.”
It was just so… specific, and she was struggling not to read too much into the message. There were no more dances planned for their Good Grief class; however, that was not to say that the two of them might not both be in attendance for some other dance someday. Worse was the really nagging suggestion that poked and prodded the back of Hermione’s brain like an overzealous lobster. He could mean, dare she think it, what Amorell had suggested during their little dance party. That they might dance together at their wedding.
Her stomach turned.
She was definitely thinking too much. He couldn’t possibly mean that. He was just making an allusion to the fact that they had danced together and that he might not mind dancing together again.
She fought against her mind’s automatic response of quoting the oft said, “It takes two to tango,” and forced herself to think of more logical matters. Such as where Draco Malfoy might have procured a flower in the dead of winter.
He might have gotten it from the Greenhouses, she reasoned, though she couldn’t remember ever seeing something so ordinary as a geranium in any of them. He could actually have a house plant in his room, though she doubted Harry and Ron would have restrained themselves from snickering to her about that. Or he might have ordered it or even asked a staff member or fellow student to use a variation of Orchideous to conjure it.
Such a thing was probably listed in Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches, which Hermione had been slightly disgruntled to find in Ron’s possession.
Speaking of whom…. She reluctantly turned her attention from the cryptic flower to the last package on her bed.
It was wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string, but unlike a certain nun named Maria, this was not one of her favorite things. Or perhaps it would have been one of her favorite things a few years prior, but now, under the circumstances, Hermione could not choose to take it as such. It was too much.
Too much because Ron hadn’t taken the price tag off of it. As if his ability to spend twelve galleons on her made the least bit of difference in her affections.
It was a thoughtful gift, she acknowledged. It was a brand new, dragon hide-bound journal with pages edged in gold leaf. Honestly, though, it looked as if it were meant for someone who merely wanted to put it on display under a glass case rather than actually use it or appreciate it. Perhaps not the best analogy, but she somewhat equated it to giving a bowl of wax fruit to someone with scurvy.
The inside cover revealed it to be monogrammed in gold lettering, but it was what Ron had written at the top of the first page that she found puzzling.
Dear Hermione,
After all we’ve been through, I’m sorry it had to turn out this way. I’ve done some thinking, and I’d like us to go back to how we used to be, as friends. Hopefully, you’ll be able to forgive me someday, for everything.
Hope you enjoyed your Christmas,
Ron Weasley
What was puzzling was that he had, apparently, given up on regaining her affections. So what, then, was the point in giving her such an expensive gift?
There was no point in dwelling on the matter. She’d find out sooner or later, she was sure.
The clump of flowers still sat on her bed, almost taunting her.
When had her love-life gotten so dangerously out of whack? Ron wanting to just be friends and Malfoy wanting to kiss and dance with her? Even if it were reversed, she’d still be surprised if Malfoy wanted to be friends with her and if Ron actually wanted to dance.
O
This was the most pitiful assortment of presents Draco had ever received, and he very much wanted to throw a temper tantrum like the ones that had gotten him many, many sweets from the House-elves when he had been young.
Unfortunately, a temper tantrum was seen as unbecoming of someone at the age of eighteen, even if he were alone in his room.
Besides, Granger might hear. How embarrassing might that be?
His mother had sent him two gifts, and that had been it. No one else had sent him a thing.
She’d sent a hamper of baked goods, which he had a strong suspicion she had actually baked herself. Without magic. This suspicion was mostly based on the fact that the crust of a pie was extremely burnt while the pumpkin filling was still runny in the center. He’d tried a biscuit that looked fairly safe, but he spat it out almost immediately. It was like a ginger-flavored block of salt.
The other gift wasn’t nearly so abnormal, as he got at least one every year. A set of robes.
He couldn’t blame her, really. She wasn’t allowed to make withdrawals from Gringotts without actually being present at the bank, and because she wasn’t allowed out of the manor, she couldn’t exactly do that. So he assumed she had saved up and sent for the robes. The food, on the other hand, was slightly easier to procure. The manor did have a yard and a greenhouse, after all, and pumpkins kept for many months without spoiling. His mother had been spending much of her extra free-time developing her green thumb and not enough of it developing her cooking skills, it would seem.
The tantrum urge diminished, to be replaced by saturnine thoughts, which bloomed into life as he thought about his mother.
His mother. And his father.
He’d been purposely trying to think about anything but for quite a while now, and so he suddenly felt guilt for not dwelling more on the fact that his father was empty. Just a body somewhere, not seeing or thinking or doing, just being. Probably soiling itself.
What was it that witch had said at the Kiss ceremony? That the soul is immortal. That it requires a soul to enter the afterlife. Was his father’s afterlife doomed to be at the pit of a dementor’s large intestine?
There had been a time, many years ago, when Draco had woken on Christmas morning, and his father had still been in the process of levitating presents onto the foot of Draco’s bed. They’d shared a moment, just sizing one another up, until his father had smirked and told him not to tell his mother that he knew Father Christmas wasn’t real, because she relished the idea of her little boy being little.
And somehow, that had made him feel like a man at the wizened age of six.
He wished he could feel like a man now. Despite all he had been through and his legal status as an adult, he was still a teenager. Just a kid, really.
Moving out of the bedroom and into the loo, he sat down on the tile floor between the bathtub and the toilet, relishing the cool, even if it were freezing down there. He felt ill.
It was unlike him to lie down somewhere that urine could have easily been, but he gave into the urge and rested his head near the door. His brain felt as if it were whirling, and he felt flushed, warm all over. Maybe he was going to faint. Those funny black dots were starting to creep into his vision.
His mother hadn’t poisoned him, had she?
No. He’d felt like this before. Maybe Moaning Myrtle would float up through the U-bend and listen to his troubles like she had the last time.
The dots faded, and the heat melted away into shivers, except for the heat at his eyes.
Draco cried.
O
Hermione separated her hair into three sections, carefully beginning a loose braid. She’d gotten dressed, now wearing the Weasley jumper and a new pair of pants, feeling slightly festive, if a bit disgruntled by being so alone today.
As she began to tie a ribbon at the end of the braid, the oddest sound floated through the wall to her right. It was sort of a choking sound, and she wondered briefly if Crookshanks was coughing up a fur ball on the stairway.
But that wasn’t the right tone. This wasn’t so guttural. It was… nasal.
Doing a brief calculation in her head, she realized that the other side of the wall did not house the spiral stairs at all. It was the boys’ lavatory. And that wasn’t the sound of choking. It was sobbing. Quiet sobbing, as if the one doing it didn’t want to be doing it but had to anyway.
She wondered if this was how Harry had felt in their sixth year, realizing what he’d walked in on. Surely, the sight of Draco Malfoy crying had to be worse than just the sound, but the knowledge itself was plenty.
Malfoy. Crying. It was surreal.
She hesitated for a moment. She had a weird, motherly intuition to go to him and ask what was wrong, but that couldn’t possibly be a good move. If he tried to kiss her when he was like that, she’d probably go ahead and let him, and she couldn’t allow that to happen. Besides, comforting him would be awkward. Horrendously so.
But she had to do something.
And so, Hermione succumbed to what was probably a very dangerous game.
She sent him a flower.
O
There was a knock at the door, and Draco sat up. Now she came to visit him, of all times. He rubbed the back of his palm across his eyes, sniffling. He took a breath, glanced in the mirror to find that his eyes were a brilliant shade of red, decided there was really nothing for it, and opened the dormitory door.
Unless her cat had developed a sudden ability to knock, no one was there. He was just about to close the door when he happened to glance down.
It was a blue flower. Several teardrop shaped petals extended from a base with many curved pistils, stamens surrounding them, and all along the stem were soft spikes that branched out in every direction, like a fennel. He’d seen these before, but he didn’t know the name. Good thing she’d included a tag.
“This is a Love in a Mist. Don’t read too much into its name; just look it up.”
Despite himself, he was smiling. She’d sent a reply. How very cooperative of her.
He shut the door and retrieved the helpful Herbology book he’d been using before, quickly turning to the correct page. Just above Love-Lies-Bleeding was Love in a Mist, his much preferred choice between the two.
The entry was short and to the point. “You confuse me.”
He covered his mouth to block a laugh. It was almost surreal to laugh right then. He was slightly dizzy still from lying on the floor, and crying sometimes had a chilling effect, like a small cold, and that was exactly how he felt at the moment, shivery and ill. So the laugh was odd, bubbly somehow. Out of place.
It helped balance him, in a way.
He briefly considered sending her another flower in reply, but he realized quickly that it would be too dangerous. The secret of Bathtub Magic needed to remain secret, even if what he was doing was relatively harmless considering how little space he had to work in. If anyone found out, it could easily mean a trial. He might even trigger a change of heart and get himself shipped off to Azkaban.
At the very least, the fluke would be corrected, and he rather enjoyed the tiny oasis he’d discovered.
If he were going to keep up the floriography, he’d have to wait so that she’d at least be able to assume he’d procured the flowers from somewhere other than the drain in his shower-tub. Great Merlin but that sounded off….
He went over the list of messages he could convey with a flower, and settled, finally, on something that could only confuse her more.
O
It was a full week later on New Years Eve, and Hermione had managed to almost completely evade him. She’d been eating in the kitchens, reading in the empty Charm’s classroom, where she could sit on a large cushion and loaf with ease, and spending the rest of her time either in her room or exploring Hogsmeade and the surrounding area.
She’d almost completely evaded him. Almost.
She had noticed him near one of the greenhouses on her way to the village, though she was fairly certain he hadn’t seen her. It looked as if he’d been wandering around them for some time, his cloak dusted with a thick layer of snow.
That same night, she found a green rose on her doorstep, and she didn’t even have to look up the meaning of that one. Who could forget?
Draco Malfoy had just admitted to being from Mars.
O
AN.: There are, apparently, several varying lists of flower meanings, but the one I used came from www. victorianbazaar. com/meanings.html. It seemed like every list said something different for geraniums, and the one other site that listed ivy geraniums said “bridal favor.” Not really the same. I must admit I read something the other day that mentioned the Language of Flowers, but I can’t remember now if it was a fanfic or a text book. Please forgive me if I’m inadvertently stealing someone else’s plot bunny.
The chapter title comes from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. “From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success. Oh, yes!” And, you know, from the plot summary.
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