Chapter Text
Hermione resented the class and its implications. But that hadn’t stopped her from reading a quarter of the wizarding textbook prior to entering the classroom for the first time. A Courting Ritual: the intricacies of the match and magik, the text read in embossed burgundy. Hermione thought it may well have read: Ensuring a Pureblood Marriage: May Blood Supremacy Always Reign.
The muggle textbook was a smidge more modern, written boldly across the front was Done with Dating: The Seven Steps to Finding Your Match complete with floating blue and white text bubbles with inane phrases like ‘I had such a nice time last night’ and ‘when can I see you again?’. Hermione couldn’t recall a single date with a muggle boy in her entire life that ended with him texting her that he had such a nice night. Not that she had much experience with muggle men besides a brief foray with her muggle neighbor after eighth year. And that primarily involved incredibly brief stints in the backseat of his car before they parted to go have dinner with each of their parents, respectively. But she supposed at least this textbook seemed to be from within the last decade.
The class, Pureblood Courting Customs and Muggle Marriage Rituals, was new, born out of a desperation to preserve tradition and shine a light on the similarities in Muggle practices. In the name of progress, of course. Instead, it felt like a futile exercise in proving that blood prejudice was a thing of the past.
The syllabus outlined the following: compatible magics, letters of intent, muggle speed dating, the gifting of family heirlooms and exclusivity in modern dating. She couldn’t fathom why the professor considered muggle speed dating of such importance that he had a whole week devoted to it. But then again, she thought the whole class was pointless so she wasn’t going to nitpick over the syllabus.
When the class had appeared on Hermione’s timetable she had assumed it was a mistake. She couldn’t imagine how a course on marriage and dating had landed itself between Advanced Botany for Healers and Diagnosing Malignant Maladies. She was a third-year healer and was only a year away from clinicals at St. Mungo’s, for Merlin’s sake. So convinced was she of the mistake that she had marched into the registrar’s office, curls and robes flying behind her, demanding an explanation.
“It isn’t a mistake,” the administrator pushed her cat-eye glasses further up her hooked nose as she slid Hermione’s timetable back across her desk without so much as a cursory glance. “Everyone’s got to take it. New Ministry requirements, you see.” Her voice was strained as though Hermione wasn’t the first student to storm in and demand answers.
“You mean to say the Ministry of Magic now requires a course on Wizard and Muggle dating practices?” Hermione questioned, her dual emphasis belaying the incredulity she felt.
The woman nodded brusquely and brokered no further explanation. This was how Hermione found herself seated in an echoing lecture hall with the words Pureblood Courting Customs and Muggle Marriage Rituals in charmed writing across the chalkboard, staring at Draco Malfoy.
Malfoy’s frame took up an inordinate amount of space. The kind of space men on crowded trains felt entitled to take while the women next to them sat with all their limbs tightly crossed and purses clutched to their chests. Legs sprawled under the desk in either direction, an arm casually draped across the empty seat next to him. Even in his slouched position, his head blocked most of the view of the petite healer’s apprentice behind him. He looked irritated, but Hermione often thought Draco only possessed two expressions anyway, irritated and self-important, so she couldn’t be sure whether it was irritation at their new curriculum or simply his default face.
To say Hermione Granger had not given Draco Malfoy much thought since their days at Hogwarts together would be a lie. After witnessing the trial, the public crusades against the Malfoys, the press’s announcement of “Draco Malfoy: Trading Death Eater’s Robes for Healer’s Robes”, and finally a drunken run-in at the Leaky where Draco had spoken to her like she was the only other person in the room; at least he did before she had enough of his fire whiskey breath and dark eyes hot on her face and had turned tail. She had made quite a bit of space in her brain for a game she called seeing and thinking about Draco Malfoy as little as possible. Which in fact, only caused her to have to think about the ferret all the more, as actively avoiding him in a cohort of only 60 healers was harder than she initially expected.
The further to the back of her mind she tried to push him, the more he seemed to appear. A flash of platinum hair before she ducked between rows of books in the library. ‘Flat White for Draco’ called out by the barista at Les Petite Choux, the cosy coffee shop she frequented, tucked between the Botany building and a row of townhomes. The lazy drawl of a man who seemed to know the answer to every question posed by the professor in their few shared lectures.
So, no, Hermione was not surprised to see the aristocratic sprawl of Draco Malfoy in a class she would’ve given her prized edition of Hogwarts: A History to have avoided him in.
Students filed in, brushing past her with mumbled apologies. She felt Padma drop into the seat next to her, brown skin flushed with the outside chill, but continued her evaluation of Malfoy. “Do you reckon we’ll come out of this with a husband?”
Hermione whipped toward her friend. “I hope to Merlin you are joking. I can’t believe we are forced to sit through this farce.”
Padma nudged her shoulder and chuckled. “Oh sweet Hermione, Pureblood witches and wizards have been sitting through lessons like this for centuries.”
“Yes, centuries, it’s archaic.” Hermione, normally insatiable in her quest for knowledge, had drawn the line at Pureblood marriage and courting customs.
Padma glanced down at the syllabus. “Besides, we are going to experience Draco Malfoy sitting through muggle speed dating,” Padma’s chin flicked toward Malfoy, Hermione watched the pointed movement catch Malfoy’s attention and she let a curtain of unruly curls fall in front of her face.
The edges of Hermione’s mouth curled up now that her face was safely hidden behind her hair, prompting Padma to continue. “Can you imagine sitting across from him for three minutes? What would he have to say? Anecdotes of his time as a Death Eater? What charm keeps his hair so blonde?”
Hermione sputtered a laugh, “Do you think he dyes it?” She couldn’t imagine the signature blonde to be anything but natural.
“No, the prat, he was born with it.” Padma rolled her eyes in faux annoyance. “Probably has to spend hours each morning tousling it just so.”
Conversation trailed off around the witches as the professor raised his wand and cast a sonorous charm, amplifying his voice to reach the far corners of the amphitheater. He was dressed smartly–a modern grey suit, fitted vest, and paisley pocket square under matching open robes and introduced himself as Professor Morrigan. With his confident tone and traditional dress, Hermione could not help but think he did not look like the type of wizard who would have any interest in muggle speed dating.
She often classified the pureblood wizarding world into two types: the first type was quaintly charming and quite enthusiastic if not slightly misguided in their perception of the muggle society. The Arthur Weasleys of the wizarding world who could hold up a rubber duckie to a group of peers and host a rousing debate over its use. And the second type–the magic is might type. All old-world glamour, aristocratic angles, and a pronounced air of haughtiness regarding muggles. The Greengrass sisters came to mind–superior in breeding and certainly thought themselves above muggles but also found the fervor of Voldemort distasteful. Of course, she wasn’t supposed to think of the world along these divides anymore.
Morrigan’s crisp tones filled the room and Hermione pulled her text on plant classification out and flicked open to the required reading from the night before: “Oxalis trangularius, also known by its common name wood sorrel, is a temperature stabilizing ingredient that is compatible–”
Hermione’s concentration broke as the word compatible echoed the amphitheater in Morrigan’s voice and for a heart-stopping moment she feared he had caught her. “–magics,” he finished. Hermione’s brows pulled together and she raised her eyes to appraise the professor.
She had never heard of compatible magic. She couldn’t picture the term in a single book amid her towering personal library that had overwhelmed the small guest room in her flat and began creeping like ivy down her hallways or during her time in the restricted section of the Hogwarts library. Hemione’s chest tightened and she rubbed a hand over her heart that suddenly felt too small. A heart that belonged to a frizzy-haired eleven-year-old version of herself who thought the more she raised her hand and recited the perfect answer, the more her pureblood and halfblood classmates would be convinced that she belonged.
“Imagine your magic as well inside you. Deep and you in its very essence. It pulls you to the people you surround yourself with.” Professor Morrigan covered the entire floor of the amphitheater as he spoke. “That instinctive pull you feel towards friends, loved ones, and family is rooted in that well of magic. It ebbs and flows.” Morrigan’s body undulated as he spoke. “Pulls you toward a partner and repels you from foe. I’d like everyone to close their eyes for a moment and feel that well inside you.”
Padma, Hermione was surprised to see, already had her eyes tightly closed. She begrudgingly closed her eyes and tried to look inward. Nothing. She could smell Padma’s honeysuckle perfume and hear someone who clearly was a mouth breather somewhere behind her. But no well of magic. In fact, a well of magic sounded a bit stupid to her now. There wasn’t a well, Hermione Granger simply was magic and could do magic.
Introspection wasn’t one of her strengths. Compatible magics sounded rooted in the mystic like divination. And despite her easy acceptance of magic at age eleven, Hermione was a self-proclaimed skeptic. When magical theory dipped beyond the realm of fact, she could easily dismiss it. But as she scanned the room for the reactions of her classmates, she found no rolling eyes or vacant stares.
Her mind turned, in spite of her firm rule, to a young Malfoy searching out Harry on the train. His eager outstretched hand. She had brushed it off as Malfoy merely being told to seek out the famous wizard by a family where influence mattered immensely, even at so young an age. But, if it wasn’t?
Padma’s lips brushed her ear, “I felt you.” Hermione could hear the smile in her voice. “Did you feel me?”
Morrigan’s voice rang out, saving her. “Pureblood wizards have been tapping into this well since they were children. As a result family friendships, old loyalties, and chosen partners are held in extremely high regard as they are formed not from a common interest but instead a deep compatibility that goes beyond physical attraction. This vested interest in compatible magic has been hidden from muggleborns.”
Hermione felt every indignation she ever had as a muggleborn child, running herself ragged to keep up with the innate knowledge wizards like Ron and Malfoy had taken from granted since birth, resurface. Despite her attitude towards the class, she found her hand creeping up. Malfoy’s gaze found her before the professor’s and Hermione watched as a smirk tugged its way across his features. She set her mouth in a hard line and straightened her arm further. She wouldn’t allow his smugness to discourage her from getting her answers. He could think she was an insufferable know-it-all and she wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. It would perhaps be the kindest of the thoughts Draco Malfoy had had about her over the years.
The professor paused and nodded to her, “Wouldn’t a Pureblood know when their magic was compatible with a muggleborn then?” Hermione questioned. “If they used this supposed well of power to find partners and friendships, it seems unlikely that none had ever led them to a muggleborn wizard.”
“Valuable point,” Morrigan gave her a grave nod, “But prejudice is a funny thing. If you have already deemed the being in front of you as lesser, then you certainly will make no effort to look inside of yourself to see if your magic calls to them.”
“If it can be ignored, then how strong can the pull of compatible magic really be?” Her old insecurities tugged at her. Was she so undeserving that no one’s magic has ever been compatible with her.
The professor chuckled, seemingly undisturbed by her impertinence. “And that is the perfect segue into a demonstration, I think.” He plucked a small wooden chess piece from his pocket. “When compatible magic was simply a theory, there were a fair few skeptics,” he gave Hermione a graceful nod of his head, “And so a spell, compatibilis dilectium–” his wand flicked in an upwards arc and the class erupted in nervous titters as his chess piece soared out of the room, “–was developed to test it for those who haven’t been taught to identify the pull they feel. That chess piece is a talisman and I suspect somewhere in the greenhouse it is peskily nudging my husband because our magics are drawn towards each other.” Padma let out a wistful sigh in the seat next to her. “Tomorrow, I will ask each of you to bring in something special to you and only you and we will run a test of our own. Class dismissed.”
Hermione reached down for her bag and dropped her books inside with more force than necessary. This was ridiculous. There was no magic within her that drew her to another person. That chess piece had flown itself right into the bin next door for all she knew. She would be paying the registrar another visit that was for certain. She stood and said a gruff goodbye to Padma, unable escape the feeling of unease prickling across her nape.