Chapter Text
A happy, wailing James Potter was the first thing that Hermione encountered when she stepped into the Potters’ living room. Just short of two years old, he was at the point where he could walk for extended periods but he still had moments where his head threw off his balance, sending him careening forwards with dangerous speed. He was just about to go headlong into Hermione’s legs when Harry swept him off his feet and up into the air, earning himself a delighted scream.
Grinning as he arranged his wriggling son in his arms, Harry eyed the cake and wine in Hermione’s. “Lemon cake and wine? Oh, you are most welcome, Hermione Granger, bringer of peace and joy.”
“Hello, mister,” Hermione said fondly, leaning towards James to give him a kiss. He hid his face in Harry’s neck, abashed, and Hermione laughed.
“Sorry,” Harry grinned, clearly not sorry at all. “He’s been really attached to me this past week. Ginny’s absolutely furious about it. Keeps threatening that she’ll raise the next one to be on her team. Whatever that means.”
Turning, Harry began walking out of the room, speaking over his shoulder to her. “Ron and Ginny are in the kitchen.” Hermione trailed after Harry and, to her amusement, spied James peeking at her over his father’s shoulder. She stuck her tongue out and he ducked down again, a messy tuft of black hair and two pudgy hands the only evidence that he was there at all.
“Hermione’s here!” Harry called, pushing the door to the kitchen open.
Warm greetings from Ron and Ginny met Hermione as she followed Harry into the kitchen. Before she could even register where their voices had come from, they descended on her, Ginny plucking the cake from her arms while Ron grabbed the wine.
“You are a gem ,” Ginny said, cradling the cake over her large belly like a practice baby. “I’ve been thinking about this all day.”
“And I’ve been thinking about this all day,” said Ron with a fond look at the wine as he pulled glasses from a cupboard on the opposite side of the kitchen.
The Potter’s kitchen was much larger than Hermione’s but that was the benefit of having a three-bedroom house in Godric’s Hollow over a one-bedroom flat in north London. Although they had spent the first years of their marriage in Grimmauld Place, when Ginny had gotten pregnant with James she’d managed to convince Harry to leave the house he’d inherited from Sirius.
Hermione hadn’t been there for the discussion but Harry had told her that Ginny had cited the “creepy vibe” of Grimmauld Place, as well as the less-than-stellar relationships of its former family, as evidence that it was an unsuitable place to raise children. Hermione couldn’t say she disagreed with Ginny but it was, she thought, a testament to how much Harry loved his wife that he’d been willing to leave the place for her. The incompatibility of Walburga Black's portrait and sleeping children probably helped him make the decision too.
From Hermione’s perspective, their home in Godric’s Hollow was much more suitable. Warm and welcoming, it was as much home to her as her own flat. Perhaps more so. With a pleased sigh, Hermione sank into one of the chairs at the large table in the centre of the room. Her fingers rubbed over the well-scrubbed wood, appreciating the lack of parchment littering its surface. She wondered if it was odd that she enjoyed coming to the home of her toddler-rearing friends for its comparatively soothing neatness.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I had my last meeting with Malfoy today so I ended up starting on the cake a little later than I intended.”
A noise of disgust from just over Hermione’s shoulder signalled Ron’s presence. He set a glass of white wine in front of her before sliding into the seat to her right with his own glass. “I still can’t believe you let the ferret in your flat.”
“Well, where would you rather we go, Ron?” Hermione asked, picking up her wine and rolling her eyes. “Someplace public where everyone can stare at us?”
“I think having as many witnesses as possible can’t hurt,” said Ron darkly.
“Malfoy wouldn’t dare hurt Hermione, Ron,” Ginny said from across the room, where she was lifting the lemon cake from Hermione’s tin to deposit it in one of her own.
“Not with the eye the Auror office still has on his family,” Harry added as he struggled to settle a wriggling James into his high chair at the far end of the table.
Hermione shook her head, swallowing a large gulp of wine. It had taken a while for her friends to come to terms with her desire to interview Malfoy. She’d spent numerous weeks repeatedly explaining the purpose of their meetings and what they’d mean for her oral history. Eventually they'd accepted it. Unfortunately, they still couldn’t quite grasp the idea that she actually didn’t mind Malfoy on a personal level.
The only person who seemed remotely understanding was, surprisingly, Harry, who mostly avoided outrightly criticising Draco. Hermione supposed it had something to do with the fact that he had spoken up for Malfoy and his mother at their trials following the war and liked Hermione’s assurances that he had done the right thing. But Harry didn’t often speak up when Hermione attempted to defend Draco to Ron and Ginny. She imagined he thought it wasn’t an argument worth having; Weasley and Malfoy enmity went further back than their own school days, after all.
“I’ve already told you, Malfoy is fine . I like spending time with him.”
“Mental,” muttered Ron with a shake of his head. “Absolutely mental.”
“Spending literal weeks of your life with someone, exploring their memories and emotions, is a highly intimate experience, Ron,” Hermione snapped. “It’s perfectly natural for some kind of empathy and mutuality to develop. You might want to try something similar sometime.”
Ron choked into his glass and hurriedly brushed droplets of wine from his t-shirt as Harry and Ginny snickered at him.
“Please, Hermione,” he said, raising a palm in a plea of mercy as he coughed. “Don’t mention Malfoy and intimacy in the same sentence again. I have a highly fertile imagination.”
“Moving on ,” said Ginny, lowering into the seat across from Ron with a huff and a quelling look at Hermione, who had just opened her mouth with a very nasty look in her eye. “I’ve ordered Chinese food so I hope you weren’t hoping for a home-cooked meal tonight.”
Once Hermione and Ron had backed down and assured Ginny that Chinese was exactly what they wanted, the evening followed its usual routine of drinking, talking and, once the food eventually arrived, eating.
As Harry, Ron and Hermione opened a second bottle of wine and the chatter began to get too loud, James attempted to draw the room’s attention back to himself by flinging his food at Harry and screaming excitedly. It was only after Harry was hit with a sixth boiled broccoli floret, much to Ron and Ginny’s delight, that he got to his feet with a tired sigh to take his son to bed.
“You know, Hermione,” said Ginny in a tone that Hermione found suspiciously casual given the predatory intent with which she speared a piece of chicken on her fork. “Harry told me that Terry Boot was asking about you today in the Ministry lunchroom.”
From the corner of her eye, Hermione saw Ron’s head bob up to look at Ginny, a long noodle dangling from his lips.
“The Ravenclaw?” Hermione asked with a frown. Reaching for a napkin, she passed it to Ron for his chin without even glancing at him.
“That’s the one.” Ginny cast a faintly disgusted look at her brother. “Works in the Ministry’s archives, although you'll obviously already be aware of that. He asked Harry how your project is coming along and how much longer you might be on sabbatical.”
Hermione took a sip of wine, her eyes narrowed as she tried to see where Ginny was trying to take the conversation. “That’s...nice, I suppose?”
“It is, isn’t it?” said Ginny cheerfully. “I think you should ask him out.”
“Ginny, no!”
Eyebrows raised, chin drawn down into her neck, Ginny looked back and forth between Ron and Hermione, both of whom had shouted her name at the same time. Glancing at one another, they then immediately focused on their plates as though their meals had suddenly become incredibly interesting.
“I’ll get to you in a minute,” Ginny said to Hermione, before turning to her brother with a stern look. “First, you .”
Ron audibly gulped as Ginny raised a finger to point at him from across the table. “It’s none of your business who Hermione asks out, Ron Weasley. You two aren’t going out; you tried and it was a disaster. In fact, I don’t know if Hannah—your current girlfriend , remember?—would be all that pleased to hear that you’re having a jealous little fit over the idea of Hermione developing an interest in someone else.”
“It’s nothing to do with jealousy ,” Ron muttered, his ears and neck rapidly reddening. “It’s just...it’s Terry Boot, innit? Bit of a drip. Think Hermione could do with someone that’s got a bit... more to them.”
Hermione couldn’t help the fond smile that Ron’s words brought to her face and she gently elbowed him in the side. He shifted away, embarrassed.
They had tried a relationship immediately after the war but it just hadn’t worked out for them. A combination of extreme busyness in the rebuilding efforts, Ron’s staunch certainty about his plans for the future and Hermione’s dissatisfaction with her present had led to their relationship falling apart after four years. It had been extremely difficult but, since then, Ron had started seeing Hannah Abbot and, as far as Hermione could tell, he was very happy with her.
At first, it had been odd for Hermione to see Ron with someone else but she’d come to notice that Ron and Hannah were never impatient or aggravated with one another the way she and Ron had often been. In the immediate aftermath of their breakup, Hermione had been keen to lay the blame for all of their arguments solely at Ron’s feet, citing his short fuse and general argumentativeness. But seeing how calm and patient he was with Hannah had made Hermione realise that the fault couldn’t possibly lie with just one of them; it had simply been the way they were together as a couple. They weren’t compatible.
“I appreciate your concern, Ginny. Really, I do. But I don't want to ask Terry Boot out. I don’t want to ask anyone out.”
“He won’t reject you, Hermione,” Ginny assured her with a sympathetic look. “Your hair is much better now.”
Ron snorted into his wine as Hermione flushed a deep pink. “It’s not about rejection , Ginny. Or my hair. I just don’t have time for dating right now. I took my sabbatical from the Ministry to compile this oral history and I need to focus my efforts on finishing it. I’m coming up on two years away and Kingsley strongly hinted that was as much time as he would be willing to give me.”
“But you told us you’ve finished your interviews with Malfoy,” Ginny pointed out hurriedly, hoping to trip Hermione up. “So, surely that frees you up a bit. You need to have some fun , Hermione. A couple of dates can’t hurt. Besides, Terry Boot is cute ! And you know that must be true because it rhymes.”
Hermione shook her head, managing to laugh at Ginny’s persistence. “No . Anyway, I might be starting a new set of interviews soon, so I have to prioritise those. I can’t be sure how much of my time they’ll take up.”
“More interviews?” asked Ginny, waving her fork in a fit of disbelief that sent rice flying across the table. “Who the hell else could possibly be left?”
“Peeves?” Ron suggested. “Oh, or maybe that bloke that sells those weird little amulets outside the Three Broomsticks, you know the—”
“It’s Lucius Malfoy.”
The uproar was instantaneous. Ginny dropped her fork onto her plate with a clatter while Ron sloshed wine all over the table, each loudly and hastily talking over the other. There was something truly alarming, Hermione thought, about having two wide-eyed Weasleys leaning into your face, their words running together so as to be practically incomprehensible. She could only hear snippets of what they were saying but phrases like “got to be joking”, “evil bastard” and “absolutely mental ” broke through.
“What are you lot shouting about?” came Harry’s irate voice from the kitchen doorway. “I just got James to sleep so if you wake him then I will cry and that is so much worse.”
Ron and Ginny turned to him, both speaking at once while Hermione looked on with her mouth slightly open. Harry held up his right hand to stop them, his left pushing up his glasses so that he could pinch the bridge of his nose. “One at a time. Please.”
“Hermione is going to interview Lucius Malfoy for her oral history thingy,” Ginny finally managed to say, her cheeks pink. “Tell her how stupid and terrible that is as an idea.”
“I’m not definitely doing it,” Hermione interjected quickly. “I’m just trying to make it happen.”
“Wait, this is a thing you’re trying to force ?” asked Ron. “He doesn’t even want to do it? Hermione, are you okay ?”
“I’m fine,” Hermione said through gritted teeth.
“Honestly, Hermione, Malfoy junior was bad enough,” Ginny said, her hands cradling her stomach as though protecting her unborn child from Hermione's bad decisions, “but Malfoy senior ? I don’t remember any of those books about the Goblin Wars we read at school offering the perspective of the goblins. I mean, I don't actually really remember what those books said full stop. But the point still stands: no one wanted to hear what they had to say, so why do you want to hear what he has to say?”
“Maybe those books should have offered that perspective,” Hermione said with a sigh. “Besides, I’ve already told you, I’m not doing this to establish a narrative. I’m doing it to record personal, contrasting perspectives side-by-side. It’ll help us create a fuller record of events. We don’t know all that much about the Death Eaters, you know, not really. His perspective would be pretty unique.”
“Uniquely twisted,” muttered Ron, reaching for the bottle of wine.
Ginny pointed at Ron. “Exactly! Why would you want his perspective? We already know how utterly evil he is; why do you need to hear it from his own slimy mouth?”
“She wants his perspective because she’s Hermione. And I'm pretty sure we went over all this with the other Malfoy.” Harry spoke from the doorway with a knowing look at Hermione who mouthed her gratitude, hoping the the others wouldn't see her face. “After that, surely you both know she’s going to go ahead and do exactly what she wants regardless of how loudly you both shout at her, so give over.”
“Well, I just think that some perspectives aren’t worth having,” said Ginny. “And if he has any sense he’ll keep his foul mouth shut .” Seeing Harry looking at her with his eyebrows raised, Ginny held up her hands. “I’m done, I’m done.”
Keen for the evening to return to warm and friendly fun, Hermione elected not to tell Harry, Ron and Ginny what she was offering Malfoy to tempt him into speaking with her. There was, she felt, no point in having a bigger argument over something that might not even happen. Accepting Ron’s offer of another glass of wine, Hermione tried to ignore the unsettled feeling that was stirring low in her stomach.