Chapter Text
To love and be loved was a daydream barely conscious within Draco’s mind.
Through his rocky childhood and beyond, he’d grown fond of the tales he’d read himself to sleep with that poetically made clear the meaning of family. His escape into the realm of fairy was a well protected pastime that he hadn’t found the peace to indulge in since the war began. Reality, therefore, had been a harsh world to live in.
Whilst Draco had swiftly returned to his books in the wake of Voldemort’s demise, his mother’s methods of finding feigned fulfillment had been decidedly more dangerous. Rather than keep her head to the ground as he had, she’d been withholding things from him and that had always tended to cause headaches. The reveal of her newest secret would be on the scale of a migraine; chronic, persistent and life-changing in ways he wasn’t prepared for.
One would expect a conniving person, such as his mother was, to occasionally exhibit signs of anxiety in their treachery, their plots and schemes. But Narcissa Malfoy, in actuality, was sweet with it. She painted on a handsome smile, held herself strongly and told him in a self-righteous tone of how heroic she was. She implored him to listen to the good she had done.
He stared at her. “You’ve done what?”
“Applied to foster an infant. A surrendered child. The baby needs a home and we have the room.”
“We have one hundred rooms, Mother. Do you intend to fill them all with unwanted strays?”
She raised an unimpressed eyebrow and sipped on the edge of her wedding china. “There is nothing wrong with making use of our privilege. Especially in ways that can help others.”
Draco couldn’t remember a time that his parents had ever encouraged philanthropic behaviour and so he considered whether his mother was in her right mind.
He sighed and scraped his hand over his features, barely believing what she was telling him as he paced the south terrace. It had to be a trick. Taking care of a stranger’s baby was not going to release her husband from jail. It wasn’t going to win her social points to take pity on a ragamuffin from the streets. “Where did it come from?”
“The child is a she, not an it. What precisely are you asking, Draco?”
The twitch in Narcissa’s lip let him know she’d already guessed his mindset. There would be no use in pretending he wasn’t thinking what he was thinking.
“What’s it’s blood status?”
She threw down her handkerchief atop the patio table. “Oh. Don’t disappoint me. Does it matter? She was barely two weeks old when her mother was declared unfit. Now she can either grow up overlooked and underloved within the Ministry’s care system or she can come here until a family member can be found. There really is no question of it in my eyes.”
If Narcissa was bored, couldn’t she have an affair or waste their fortune on the races instead? Recklessness was one thing. Filling his home, his safe space, with unwanted creatures was another entirely. If she really wanted to find purpose in her life, and give back to the unfortunate to quell her war guilt, she could do it leagues away from Draco’s home. Not precisely under his nose.
“It won’t be yours, Mother. This isn’t a daughter. This is a pet.”
He didn’t mean to sound so abrupt about it but Draco had been finding trouble articulating himself in the near-year since the Final Battle believing time to still be a limited resource. He meant that the baby was a toy - a doll - or, at least, that was how Narcissa would view it.
She eyed him warily and crept goosebumps along his spine. A fearful woman she could be but no one challenged her anymore since Draco’s father had been whisked away in chains. Someone had to tell her she was going mad. If Lucius was still around, he’d have put an end to this by now.
“The child will be neither. I am not replacing you if that is what you fear,” she said, her voice softening.
Draco tsked. “Of course not,” he said but considered whether he’d spoken too soon. Why would she say such a thing? Perhaps taking in an infant wasn’t purely for the child’s good but hers too. “Though if you think that a baby will fix your problems, you’re vastly mistaken.”
“And what problems do I have to fix, son?”
Oh she did not want the full list.
He simply rolled his eyes, declared that she could do as she pleased - she owned the Manor now, after all - and he could do fuck all to change her mind. She agreed, stating as he turned to go back inside, “This’ll be good. For all of us.”
He failed to pick up on what she’d meant by ‘all’ of them until the baby had been with them for three months, when it became clear she hadn’t been referring to Draco’s father.
The arrival of the child was a turning point in Draco’s life.
Never had he seen his mother be a mother. Not in the early, hands-on, intense days. The baby was five weeks old when she was delivered to Malfoy Manor, wrapped in a pink cotton blanket. The caseworker who brought her said very little because ‘the details have already been discussed via owl as requested’. When he’d heard that, Draco had felt immediately compelled to search the study for Narcissa’s Ministry correspondence because he was sure now that this secret had layers to it.
But he was compelled to stay until the caseworker left. Until he’d said hello to the dark-haired little girl of unknown parentage. While Narcissa smiled gleefully at his small begrudged utterance, Draco questioned whether the squishy, wrinkly thing could understand him, making the exercise pointless. He doubted she knew what was happening to her at all because he could guess, if she did, she’d have been screeching to be returned to her family.
“So what’s the plan with this thing?” He said moodily, putting stock to the age old complaint that teenagers don’t care about much.
That irritated him. Draco cared about a great deal. His personal privacy and being able to endure his misery in peace were but two of them. Soon he’d be twenty and then he’d simply be a moody twenty-year-old instead and that saying could die a death. But ‘soon’ was more than a year away. Somehow he wasn’t even yet nineteen. The wait would be endless.
“She’ll live with me between my bedroom and the nursery.” Narcissa spoke sweetly, rocking the bundle with a natural sway as though the habit had never left her. “I’ll take care of her personally.”
It was jarring how different a person his mother had become as soon as that baby was placed within her arms. Narcissa looked down into inquisitive, wide eyes that blinked slowly, taking everything in, like she had gained something priceless. Something irreplaceable. He wondered whether this was how she’d once coddled him and if so, he could no longer disbelieve her about this baby filling his place. The part of her that had been devoid of attention until now.
Maybe there was a chance that all Narcissa wished to do was to look after the innocent thing.
Maybe. He wouldn’t know unless he watched her more closely.
Sure enough, the witch never once sought the help of the house staff with any of the child’s personal needs. The kitchen maids would continue to only serve Draco and Narcissa. The housekeeper would keep stock of everything as she had always done but would not overstep unless instructed. There was minimal change to the ways the Manor was run. Narcissa was doing it all herself and it perplexed him. This was a witch of the finest breeding who had been raised to believe that children should be passed off onto a nanny for the mucky stuff. The nappies and the throw up.
Gods, Draco was quite of the opinion that she’d taken to breastfeeding the baby too.
“I am quite incapable of that as you would know if you’d paid attention during life studies,” she scolded him after he’d accidentally said his thoughts aloud.
“I did pay attention.” Learning about sex was the most interesting class he sat at Hogwarts and the one that had come in handy the most up to now. “Fetch for a wetnurse. It’s better than those potions you’re feeding her. That artificial swill.”
“Do you have opinions on my raising of Rose?”
What a bland name. A muggle name. There was a high chance the child was muggleborn or a squib. But if so, she defied all logic. The portraits within this house despised anything less than a half-blood and sometimes even half-bloods weren’t able to escape their vulgar comments. But they didn’t say a word about the child and Narcissa had taken to parading the girl through the corridors night and day to settle her. Either his mother had cursed the portraits into silence or the baby was more important than she looked.
So who the fuck was she?
“It’s hardly an opinion,” Draco huffed. He didn’t want to appear like he cared. He didn’t. The beast had taken to screaming in the evenings when he liked to read in bed and the wall between his bedroom and his mother’s wasn’t soundproofed. She was a nuisance and a problem that would soon be gone from this house. The question was: when? “I just think that a wetnurse would be the best way to provide the baby with the nutrients it needs.”
Narcissa hummed. “Perhaps you’re right.” All of a sudden, she was approaching him, extending her arms and the baby with them. “Will you hold her while I send an owl to that effect?”
“What? No!” He lurched back.
“Just for a second, Draco. She’s sleeping. She won’t hurt you.”
He snapped. “Do you really think I believe she’ll bite me? I just don’t want to hold her.”
His mother sighed and placed Rose within his arms anyway, forcing him to lift them else the creature would fall to its death. He couldn’t let that happen since, in doing so, he’d get his mother into trouble with the Ministry and she, if not both of them, would end up rotting in the cells beside Lucius. It certainly wasn’t for the baby’s sake that he cupped her head exactly as instructed and gently bounced her as Narcissa had.
The witch stood back and smiled while Draco’s heart leapt into frenzy, scared of what to do if something went wrong. He had no experience with children whatsoever.
“That doesn’t matter. Look how perfect you are with her.”
She said it in such a way that opened his eyes to another possible reason for this farce; Narcissa wanted to groom him for fatherhood. Well that wasn’t going to fucking happen any time soon. He was too busy living his life now that he’d managed to retain it and a squawking baby and a nagging wife wasn’t on the agenda for the next few years, at least.
His mother slipped away, leaving him on his own with the thing.
Terrified to move even a finger or breathe, he continued to rock her gently, moving his upper body to do so. She was impossibly small, her tiny fingers curled into fists against his chest. He expected her to wail, having left the arms of one who cared, but she sighed weightlessly and nestled in.
Avoiding children had been fairly easy since he had no cousins he ever spent time with nor another sibling but now here was one and Draco didn’t know what to do. So he managed his panic by merely looking at her. Taking her in. Dark skinned - olive, he thought - with softly springing curls, she was a complete unknown to him. An entirely different species. She didn’t fit in here amongst the Malfoys pallid complexions, icy blond hair and ash grey eyes. She was his opposite in every way. Poor, parentless, likely non-magical and determinedly angelic.
Rose didn’t stir. She simply pushed air out through her button nose and drew it back in, comforted in his arms. If he hadn’t witnessed her screaming firsthand, he would never believe she could make such a noise as quiet as she was now.
He scowled at the open doorway, registering that enough time had surely passed for his mother to scribble down instructions for the Housekeeper to hire an additional servant. But she’d said she was sending an owl. To whom? Did she know of a wetnurse personally to request her firsthand? How could she? What women did she know who’d given birth within the last twelve months who might have been open to taking up employment like this?
It was then that Draco realised he’d been played and that his mother wasn’t coming back for a while yet. He’d fallen for it and he was now lumped with taking care of the baby until he could either hunt Narcissa down to return her or… What ‘or’ was there?
Draco sighed as he sat down on the large leather sofas in the Manor lounge. He looked around for entertainment, since this was likely to last for some time, but found none. So, angry at his mother’s meddling, he simply accepted it. He dragged a blanket around himself and lightly draped it over the baby’s middle and feet, tucking it under her back to prevent her catching a chill. Babies were difficult things to look after and so he didn’t know whether this was the right thing to do but it didn’t feel wrong and what could happen to her while he was watching her anyway? He’d do that then.
He watched her like a hawk, smiling with every purse of her lips that resulted in an unconscious raspberry or a clutch of her miniature fingers within the blanket. The world, which had always been too loud and chaotic, slowly stilled. Her steady weight, his focus on those delicate breaths, permitted a serenity which had always felt out of reach.
He tightened his hold gently as he relaxed his shoulders and settled back comfortably against the couch cushions. Rose gurgled but remained in her rest and Draco spent the next hour softly brushing that crown of curls with his thumb.
“How’re you doing?” Narcissa whispered as she opened the lounge door. “I’ll take her back now.”
“No,” he said, annoyed that his peace was broken. “No, you’re busy. There’s no need to take her. We’re fine.”
With a soft click, his mother left and the interlude to his stillness posed a new thought: “What spell have you cast on us?” He asked the tiny bundle, remembering how overjoyed Narcissa looked whenever she held Rose. Understanding now, Draco scowled playfully and delicately tickled her small rounded belly over the blanket with the pad of his finger. “Hmm? What power do you have?”
After another thirty minutes, he sought his mother out. Roses were not supposed to smell like rotten cabbages and the thought of anyone or anything doing that in his arms made him suppress a gag. The illusion of her comfort was quickly dispelled. Once and for all, he hoped.
There was nothing useful in getting attached to a thing that would be returned any day.
Narcissa, for all of her protestations that she would solely take care of the child, concocted several ways over the next few weeks to slot Rose into his arms. Whether it be a medical appointment, a meeting with Rose’s caseworker or other such nonsense, she insisted that nobody but Draco would suffice to watch her in her absence. And since he knew it would continue to happen, he began to read the baby care books in the Manor library so that he could settle his nerves and do the right thing if anything went wrong.
Like if the baby spat up and couldn’t catch her breath or if she developed colic or if she banged her head somehow. Every reason he could think of that could harm the child never came to be. Rose was what the healers called an ‘easy’ baby. She didn’t fuss much, except to scream whenever she was hungry, which he was growing used to, and she slept well through the night. He’d become fairly comfortable with her newly appointed wetnurse, Celosia, who had a six-month-old at home and had asked her every question he could think of about raising children. Though he’d begged her not to say a word to his mother about his sudden interest in the topic.
If Narcissa could have secrets then so could Draco.
Not becoming attached to Rose was a task more difficult than he thought it would be. Whenever she began to cry, he’d rush to make sure she wasn’t hurt. He’d soothe her in the way she liked best, by being rocked or being thrust at Celosia for a feed. And when her calm returned to her, so did his.
“You’ve been staying at home a lot more recently,” his mother probed.
Over the summer, he and his school friends had made a pact to be miserable together at least once a week and drink to their sorrows. It almost always resulted in them staying out into the early hours, sick-stomached and dizzy-minded. He’d then need nearly a week to recover out in the meadow under his oak tree, watching the swans nest in the reeds on the lakeside. But he didn’t need the calm out in the gardens so much anymore if there was now calm inside.
“Yes because I can’t trust you not to flit off and leave Rose. Someone has to watch her.”
“Celosia says you’ve really taken a shine to her.”
Fuck’s sake. Was nobody trustworthy anymore?
“I haven’t taken a shine to her. You just think she’s a doll to pick up and put down as you please while I see her for what she is. A risk. If something happens to that girl, we’re in deep shit, Mother.”
“You act like I abandon her daily.”
“You do,” he countered.
“The last time I asked you to watch her for me was a month ago. You’ve volunteered since then.”
He spluttered, pushing air rapidly through his nose. It wasn’t true.
Narcissa continued. “Between Celosia and I, we have her care handled but you keep offering to take her, Draco, and I don’t wish to get in the way if you have, in fact, taken a shine to the girl. I did say she’d be good for us and I haven’t been proven wrong yet. It’s been nice to see you invested in her and to have you around more often.”
Draco folded his arms over his chest defiantly. “She’s fragile. That’s all.”
“She’s growing stronger everyday but fine. You fret if it helps you. I don’t understand why you’re denying that you care for her. You’re good at it. She likes you.”
How on earth did she reach that conclusion? Rose couldn’t speak to say so. She couldn’t do anything except cry, sleep and shit. She couldn’t form an opinion, one way or the other. She was barely a human yet, rather a leech. How could she possibly like anything?
“Alright, Mother,” he said dismissively, keeping close to his chest the secret that he hoped she was right.
Draco sat stiffly in the nursery, Rose lying in his lap, the tiny brush in his hand feeling utterly insufficient for the task before him. She blinked up at him sleepily, her belly full, saying the same thing he was thinking.
“I know,” he sighed down to her. “How the hell is this supposed to get through all that hair?”
At three months old, she should have nothing more than a small dusting of hair but this girl had a thick mass of dark waves, begging the question of her genetics. Her parents had to be similarly blessed to bestow such a gift to her, or rather a curse when she’s older if the upkeep was already proving difficult.
He let out a slow breath and began running the brush through her hair, careful and hesitant to watch her reactions. The fine bristles struggled to tame them, and with each pass, another lock would spring right out of place.
“This is impossible,” he smiled, laughing lightly to himself and admiring the caramel sheen of them under the setting sun that shone through the nursery window.
She made tiny contended noises, her eyes fluttering shut, as he worked. His heart clenched unfamiliarly and he thought of her mother, whoever she was, who was missing this. What right had he to care for her where her own flesh and blood could not?
“Somebody has to.” He reminded himself of his mother’s words and continued lulling her into peace.
The tiny tot went to her cot that night with perfectly coiled curls. It had taken him some time to get them looking neat but the hour had passed to him in seconds. There was a fulfillment in this that he hadn’t found in any other venture. The work of nurturing her was difficult but it allowed his muddled mind to focus on something with a known success once completed. Smoothing down her wild hair, while a trial in itself, was an accomplishment and those were rare occurrences. So Draco thought there couldn’t be anything wrong with this symbiotic relationship. The only thing would be, if Narcissa knew of how much he’d grown to enjoy it she’d be arranging his marriage contract within the hour.
Instead, he kept up his pretence and hoped that Rose’s mother could be permitted to take her home soon before all thought of it became too hard to bear.
Until that happened, he didn’t need his oakseat anymore but now he feared how he’d ever find it sufficient again.
“Any word on the fitness of the mother?” He asked a few days later at breakfast.
Narcissa popped down the letter she’d been reading, taking off and folding her reading glasses to look over to him. “Hmm? Oh. Yes. She’s in St Mungo’s. On the mend.”
“Was there an accident or something?” He asked cautiously, not wanting to show too much concern for a woman he didn’t know and didn’t want to know.
“No,” Narcissa said in such a way that invited further questioning.
“Well–” He laugh-sighed in mild frustration. “What happened? What is she being treated for?”
“Malnutrition.”
“Mal-Malnutrition?” He stammered in surprise, expecting her to have said that she’d been cursed or worse during the war, during her pregnancy. Or that she’d become mentally unfit and unable to adequately provide for Rose. Merlin knew that the state of unemployment was despicable in the current climate. Noone would be able to blame the poor woman if she’d been unable to find work.
“She was forced to live on the streets, Draco. She gave birth there too.” His silence pushed Narcissa to carry on and with a heavy sigh, one filled with sympathy, she spoke gently as though having lived it herself. “Rose’s mother tried her best to care for her there but did the right thing by surrendering her to the Ministry and asking for help. She’s been in St Mungo’s ever since and under monitoring. I’ll be informed when she’s healthy enough to visit.”
“Visit? She won’t be coming to collect Rose soon?”
“It’s unlikely,” Narcissa said, taking a sip from her lavender teacup. “She really is very unwell. A supervised visit is best for them both at this time.”
“And there’s no family?”
The cup clicked against the fine china saucer.
“No. And any previous persons of interest are nowhere to be found.”
“You mean, the mother’s friends? Were they killed?”
Even now, so many months after the end of the war, the Ministry hadn’t finalised the death count. But it had been predicted that one in three people had either lost their lives or knew someone who had. Draco had been lucky. He’d known many who’d perished but it had been their fault for following the wrong person. His father and mother were both alive and that wasn’t something many people could say anymore.
“We don’t know,” she said simply. “The father is missing.” Gods, Draco hadn’t even considered the father. “There are no grandparents. Other connections have led to dead ends. That’s why Rose is here. To give her mother time to recover.”
“In more ways than one.”
Narcissa nodded, surprised by his quick show of empathy.
“Is that alright? She’s not too much of a bother?”
“Rose?” Was it right to lie under the circumstances? “No. No, it’s okay. For now. I mean… Where else is she supposed to go?”
“Precisely,” Narcissa lingered on the word as though there was due to be more said but her hesitation filled Draco’s head with caution. “She’s only young, you know. Like you?”
“The mother?”
“Yes… I was considering, when she’s fit enough to be released from hospital, inviting her to stay here…”
Another stranger in their home? He’d been joking when he’d asked if his mother intended to fill the house with strays but it didn’t feel funny anymore.
“Hasn’t she elsewhere to–”
“I told you already that she doesn’t and if she’s ever to be reunited properly with her daughter, which I’m sure you recognise is the best thing, it is only fair that we give her that chance. In a safe, secure home like ours. She’s only a child herself and–”
“How old is she?”
“Nineteen, I believe.”
“Then she’s older than me. Are you calling me a child?”
Narcissa hardened her tone but it did nothing to fan the flames building inside of him. How much more of his life was going to be overturned by his mother’s plans? How much more change would he need to cope with before enough was enough and he moved out to the oak tree permanently?
He would do it too. Spending so much time in the dungeons last year had gotten him used to night shivers. At least the oak tree was private. At least there he could relax.
“With how petulant you’re being, Draco, I’m tempted to. She was pregnant during the battle, she’s gone through a lot and has experienced some hard losses. She has the opportunity to reclaim her life and her baby and I will help her to do so. I don’t need your permission. I’m telling you that this will happen and you will be civil with her.”
He scowled. “Civil?”
Why wouldn’t he be civil? Such an odd choice of word. Why not ‘kind’ or ‘welcoming’? ‘Civil’ implied he had prejudgement toward her. He didn’t think he did. She would eventually, whether soon or not, take Rose away and perhaps he was a little bitter about that. But he didn’t wish her ill. He didn’t know her.
Narcissa’s throat shifted with nervousness and she adjusted herself in her chair, straightening her spine. “She’s a muggleborn.”
What, in reality, did that change?
“So?”
That didn’t put his portrait theory to bed, however. He’d asked his grandfather’s portrait if he’d been cursed or confundused and he’d spoken with the vague rambling he always did. Rose couldn’t be muggleborn like her mother which meant she likely had a pureblooded father. And that was very interesting. What self-respecting pureblood would impregnate a muggleborn? Were they even married? Not that it would improve things much if they were.
“So… That’s all.”
“That’s all? Really?” He tightened his eyes and regretted deciding not to search the study. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing, my boy. I just want you to be accepting of others from now on. I’m really trying myself.”
Ah. So this was the point: Narcissa wished to house a struggling muggleborn and her daughter to make herself feel better about her part in the mass murder of the witch’s blood-status kin. Well that made him want to retch. It wasn’t out of genuine concern that they were opening their home up. It wasn’t to provide opportunity to a witch who’d suffered the boot of the world. It was to clear up their past, their reputation and to make the front page of the Prophet.
Well, he’d have no part in it and he’d snatch away Rose on photo day to save her from that fate too if it came down to it. She was his secret and deserved protection.
“I don’t like this,” he grumbled. “Does father know?”
“Why don’t you write to him and ask?” She said snidely, folding up her handkerchief after dabbing the corners of her lips. Narcissa stood to her feet and excused herself. She had arranged to take Rose to visit some friends.
In making plans, his mother had ruined his.
He’d wanted to show Rose the swans today.
Communicating with an Azkaban inmate at any sort of pace was impossible. Lucius was permitted only one owl per week and he rarely got to the point, avoiding Draco’s questions in order to ask his own about how they were getting on. So it had taken four weeks before he’d managed to receive a proper answer about his mother’s plans.
Do you think I don’t know what goes on inside my home, boy? Lucius had written. I don’t like the idea but your mother will do as she wishes. Feel free to give her fire for it if the baby or the Mudblood become tedious.
Draco thought the slur was unnecessary but otherwise it seemed he and his father were on the same page. Narcissa had gone mad and this plan would backfire. It was certain to.
Worried that he was running out of time to supply the evidence of a formal protest, Draco rushed down to the foyer on the morning he received Lucius’ final owl. With no scripted speech, his intention was to present the letter to his mother and hold his ground. He’d allow the muggleborn to visit the Manor to see Rose but that was all. Anything more than that and his delicate balance was sure to be disrupted in ways Draco wasn’t prepared for. This was his home and his family and he had very little else. He’d grown accustomed to his routine and he liked things the way they were.
“Mother?” He called, impatient to find her to put an end to her schemes.
“Just in here, Draco,” she called as he stormed past her sitting room.
Inhaling deeply, he began his complaint as he swung open the door, holding up Lucius’ letter like a lifeline should his argument fail. Narcissa was seated in her usual armchair directly before the entrance and so he didn’t have any cause to turn his head and notice her guest. “I’ve spoken to my father and he agrees that we’re fine as we are. There really is no good reason that Rose’s mother has to move in. We can put her up somewhere nice enough if need be but I really do need to put my foot down and—“ Rose wasn’t being cradled in Narcissa’s lap as she usually was. “Where’s the baby?”
“I have her,” a young, familiar voice said sternly, dripping with disapproval. Hatred.
No. Bollocks. No.
He refused to turn. To see the truth of it. The scale of his mother’s lies.
“Draco. What did I tell you about being civil?” The witch had the audacity to say.
“You knew Rose was hers from the beginning, didn’t you?” He asked, staring her in the icy blue eye.
“Trust me, I’m not happy about this either,” Granger said, curling his lip into a sneer.
Only then did he turn, slowly to allow himself to catch a breath. An extra second of preparation time. To see Rose in her arms felt like a betrayal. He should have known. Should have seen it. Nobody had hair like that, wild and difficult to manage just like her.
So putting Rose to bed yesterday evening was the last time then. She was already gone. He could no longer be with his peace. Granger would hex him bloody if she knew how he’d been caring for her daughter and if he attempted to continue thusly, she was sure to make him pay for it. That menacing look in her red-lined, tired eyes - so distrusting, so guarded - was final.
Do not come near my family.
He woke up then. Rose was hers, not his. And any daydream otherwise was just that. Make believe.
His throat burned with the spew that was all fire and no substance. Caused by years of built up complexity, humiliation and guilt. And now, a new reason to despise her: she created something so perfect.
Of course she did.
Hermione Granger never failed at anything.
Breaking his heart was just foreplay.