Chapter Text
Meet Hermione Granger
Hermione Granger lives a calm and slow life in New England and has ever since she fled from magical London almost ten years ago. As an innkeeper, she spends most of her days on tasks that keep her mind at ease. At night, she escapes to other worlds in cream-colored pages. Her curated life is idyllic and nothing like she would have envisioned for herself. But she’s content.
Meet Draco Malfoy
Draco Malfoy runs a potions company with his three best friends. His time not spent missing ingredients or selling their brand is spent with his favorite person— his goddaughter. Blaise, Pansy, Theo, and Harry (in that order) also fill his life.
Draco's work takes him to New York
But Mother Nature has other plans and he finds himself with an opportunity.
Meanwhile Hermione is cozied up at her Inn.
Until she receives a special visitor.
The fire emits an overwhelming warmth over the room as Hermione reads. A swift gust of wind causes the window before her to shake. Outside, the snow swirls, creating a white blanket over the sky.
A loud knock breaks her concentration.
It’s late, and the snowstorm fosters dangerous conditions, and she wonders who would be trying to arrive at the Inn.
She opens the door to find someone he hasn’t laid eyes on in almost ten years.
Draco Malfoy’s piercing eyes catch hers, and he smiles gently, just as he did within the walls of Hogwarts so long ago.
“Do you have room for one more at the Inn?” He asks in a friendly tone.
Hermione hasn’t been this shocked since Harry and Theo eloped. Her heart thumps in her chest, in her ears, and all over her body. She slams the large front door, shakes her head in disbelief, and then opens it quickly once again.
He's still there. His cheeks are red from the cold. A suitcase sits at his feet, snow circling in the air behind him.
“It’s really me, Granger,” he teases.
“How—“
It’s a wonder how he’s here before her until it hits her—the subtle nagging from Theo about her singleness and his single Slytherin best friend. It is a conversation he furtively brings up when he visits, always trying to bring her back to London.
“Theo.” They both say at the same time.
Draco chuckles. “I was supposed to be in New York City for work, but my original flight got canceled. He found a new one for me, and my connection got canceled.”
“And your connection just happened to be in the middle of nowhere upstate New York?”
“Is that where we are?”
“He did this on purpose,” she huffs at Theo’s ability to insert himself in everyone's lives for better or worse.
“He absolutely did.”
The ease of their conversation makes her heart ache. It aches for the time they’ve lost. Even still, somehow, the years between them seem nonexistent in the way he talks to her in the way her body still reacts to his close proximity.
“I guess it would be rude to deny you a room in these conditions.” She opens the door wider, and he takes her invitation without hesitation.
He steps into the foyer and stands just before her. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s been a while,” she says noncommittally.
“Only eight years.”
With each word, he drifts closer and closer like a sailboat finding its way back to the safety of shore.
She sees his hand lift slightly, and she knows his next move, and as much as her body craves his touch, her mind wins.
“You are probably tired. Let me get you a room.”
He doesn’t argue, just silently follows her to the oversized desk.
Hermione grabs a key and a check-in form and slides them across the surface to him.
He picks up a pen and scribbles across the paper.
“The room is upstairs. The second door on the right.”
He holds out the card for her to take. “See you tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow. Unless this is all a dream.”
“Definitely not a dream Granger.” He leans over the desk and smirks. “Although I hope I’ve shown up in your dreams a time or two. I know you have in mine.”
He winks at her, and she rolls her eyes at his attempt at flirting with her. Unfortunately, her cheeks betray her, and she feels a warm sensation creep over them.
“Looks like I can still make you blush.” He chuckles.
“Goodnight, Malfoy.”
“Goodnight, Granger.”
Hermione goes to Harry for more information
And Theo checks in with Draco
Hermione covers her legs with her blanket staring into the fire-- her finger hovers over send. It is her job to check on guests after all.
A reunion.
