Chapter Text
Chapter One
The world felt loud until Hermione found the empty stretch of shoreline. Sand crunching between her toes, she breathed in the salt air until her lungs couldn’t take in any more and followed it up with a swig of firewhiskey. She knew the tide wouldn’t solve her problems, but it always helped her carry them differently. Even four years after the war, Hermione’s body was constantly tense and exhausted. Her Ministry desk job certainly didn’t help with that. That’s why she got away as often as she could.
That's why she'd left Ron, too. They'd fallen out of love (or maybe they'd never been in it to begin with) and into the familiar rhythm of roommates who argued more than they spoke. But still, Hermione could never relax. Moving out had helped at first by allowing her to breathe, to experience silence. But her new studio flat was dreary with a pathetic view of a brick wall. No amount of paint or patterned pillows seemed to brighten it up. Her cubicle at the Ministry was just as depressing. And her body carried the score of the war.
So, each weekend, Hermione found herself somewhere new. Lately, it tended to be the sea. The places she stayed on the weekends were never too far from a pub, or at least somewhere she could purchase some firewhiskey, and always private. She was too old for communal hostels or anywhere too busy. She needed silence.
The beachside village in the South of France certainly fits her checklist. The beach itself was completely empty. Hermione didn’t know if that was because of the fact that it was a balmy evening, or because it was private property, but she didn’t particularly care.
Stumbling slightly, she caught herself with her free hand and eased herself into the soft sand, careful not to spill a single drop from the bottle in her other. The brown paper bag had disappeared at some point, leaving the bottle exposed, but there was no one around to see her public intoxication anyway. In fact, there was no one around to see her at all. And that let her breathe.
Eyes closed. A deep breath. Another. Hermione tried to practice the meditative breathing that her therapist had insisted she do twice a day. But she was so hot. Was it the firewhiskey, or was it just a hot summer night? Both? Either way, no one was around (not that Hermione was very modest when she drank), so off her tank top came. The gauzy blue fabric fluttered in the evening breeze. Hermione lay back. In the morning, she would regret this choice when the sand was stuck in her curls. For now, she was tired.
She didn’t know how long she lay there breathing, eyes closed, listening to the ocean. Occasionally, she would prop herself up on her elbows to take another drink from the bottle. Often, she would feel herself nodding off. But the oppressive heat in her body was driving her insane. Her shorts were off next, then her bra. Eventually, her nude form relaxed fully into the sand and drifted off.
—
Draco’s beach cottage was completely silent, and that was what he loved most about it. It was the only place he could find the solitude he needed to work, to read, to sleep, to exist. Healing may not be possible for him, but at least he could make it through the day without being interrupted by anyone or anything, not even the house elves, as he did not employ them here.
Though Draco was no longer on house arrest, he didn’t leave much. That is, aside from spending time at his different homes. He was obligated to manage things at Malfoy Manor for a good portion of each month. But on weekends, holidays, and when he simply couldn’t stand being on the estate any longer, Draco Malfoy roamed from family property to property. He did try to visit each home at least one night a month to make sure it was being kept up and hadn’t been completely razed to the ground by someone out to get revenge on him.
But this beach cottage was his and his alone, and Draco found himself here more often than anywhere else. The French seaside village was sparsely populated, the majority were muggles, and it felt untouched by time. He’d purchased the cottage shortly after his house arrest had ended, when he realized he would never be able to stay at Malfoy Manor permanently. It was hardly a cottage, but it was much smaller than the estate he’d been stuck at for those three years.
He’d spent the last thirteen months or so working with his hands. Something about using the muggle tools, sweating, using every ounce of his strength, and renovating the cottage himself was the closest he had come to beginning to breathe again after the war. He didn’t know how to heal his soul, but he did know how to saw, sand, hammer, paint, stain, build, and transform the cottage room by room.
This morning, Draco found himself in need of a break. He was sore from scraping the popcorn ceilings in the upstairs bedrooms. He’d spent hours straining and stretching over the last few days. He’d been unable to finish the last room, a small, awkwardly shaped room adjacent to the primary suite. As he looked up at the ceiling, he scanned to estimate how much time it would take to finish. He’d nearly calculated it when his eye caught on a speck of something small on the beach down the hill.
Draco stepped over the scraper and walked toward the window. The cottage was rather high up on the cliff above his private beach, making it hard to make out what he was looking at. Had something washed up in the tide? Or worse… someone? Was that a person?
Panicking, Draco almost dropped his mug of tea before slamming it on the sheet-covered dresser and quickly making his way toward the back door. He could not have a body on the beach. If he were accused of murder, he would be sent right back to Malfoy Manor on house arrest, or worse, Azkaban, the hellhole his father was.
Draco didn’t bother with shoes, but he did grab his wand and shove it into the back pocket of his jeans, pulling the white-collared button-down out of the waistband and over the wand to conceal it. His feet hit the sandy wooden steps in a rapid rhythm down the cliff toward the figure. He could barely make out the shape from the distance he was at. Dark hair, and… breasts. A woman. Definitely a woman.
“Hello?” he called out as he hit the warm sand at the bottom of the stairs. He trudged through the soft sand as fast as he could. “Hello!”
The woman stirred, bringing her knees up to reveal her bare to the sand and sea. Draco shielded his eyes as best as he could to protect her privacy and dignity while still spreading his fingers to allow him to see where he was going. He could make out long, dark curls sprawled across the woman’s back and shoulders as she propped herself up, groaning and putting a hand to her forehead.
“This is private property. I must ask you to leave,” Draco said carefully. “I understand you may not have realized this, but again, I must ask you to leave.” He came to a stop, closing his fingers even more, glancing toward his feet. He could hear the woman shifting in the sand, moaning and groaning groggily, patting the firm, damp sand around her.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” a familiar voice exclaimed, taking the breath out of Draco’s lungs. “The tide’s taken my clothes!”
Draco dropped his hand from his eyes and scowled, carefully training his eyes on Hermione Granger. Or Hermione Weasley. Whatever. “What the fuck are you doing here, Weasley?” he growled.
Hermione’s groggy eyes snapped open, locking on his, and she frantically covered herself with her hands. “What the fuck are you doing here, Malfoy? And stop looking at me!”
Draco averted his eyes, pointing up at the cottage on the cliff. “This is my private property, Weasley. So I’ll ask you again. What are you doing here?”
Hermione paused, scoffing, before stumbling over her words. “I- I was-”
Draco kept his gaze trained angrily on his home. How dare she? It was always her. How dare she ruin this safe haven for him? He hastily began unbuttoning his shirt, practically ripping it off his arms, before turning to shove it in her direction. “Cover yourself.”
Hermione glued her mouth shut (for once), and he grimaced at her as she hastily grabbed the button-down from him and draped it over her front. “I’m not wearing this,” she choked out, and Draco couldn’t help but laugh at her sandy, freckled expression.
“You already took it from me. Put it on.”
“No.”
“So you’re just going to wear it like a blanket?”
“No.”
“You already are!” Draco practically yelled before he caught himself and lowered his voice. “Listen, I don’t care what you do with the bloody shirt, as long as you cover yourself up and get the hell off my beach.”
Hermione made to stand up, ready to yell back, but quickly fell to her knees and vomited in the sand near his feet, clutching the shirt close to cover her rather large breasts from him. He absolutely did not notice. Draco grimaced, silently waiting for her to finish. That was when he noticed that her back was significantly paler than the front of her. In fact, there was a distinct line of sunburn all down her sides, marking where she was burnt across her front. Had she been here all morning baking in the sun? Longer?
Hermione wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and scowled up at him. “What are you looking at, Malfoy? Planning to insult me? Hex me? Curse me? Go ahead.”
Draco’s eyes narrowed as they locked in on hers. She had sand streaking across her freckles. Across her tomato-red face. “You’re sunburnt. And ill.”
“Hungover,” Hermione corrected. “And I’m just a little pink.”
“The whole front of you is beet red,” Draco corrected.
Silence. More heaving. More silence.
“Put the shirt on, Gr- Weasley. I have a potion that would help with the sunburn. Otherwise, you’ll need a doctor.”
Hermione buttoned it up, but of course, protested further. “I don’t trust you,” she said, taking a drink from a nearly empty bottle of what looked like firewhiskey.
Draco rolled his eyes. “Drinking won’t cure your hangover. I’ve got something for that as well. And I’m not trying to end up in Azkaban. Come in, take the potions, and then you need to leave.”