One Cold October Morning

A/N: Try mac’n’salsa! Hermione’s right, it’s really good!

Disclaimer: Na, I own nothing but the little grocery store.

She ran into him one cold October morning, when the sky was a crisp blue, the kind that makes your eyes ache if you stare at it too long, and the wind was a crisp breeze that danced around your face and tickled your nose with your own hair, and the trees were a crisp golden and purple that made you smile because they looked so pretty. It was a crisp sort of day.

She’d gone to a little grocery store down near the river past the intersection on Mulberry Street. It was one of those places where you step in and are immediately hit with a sense of déjà vu, because everyone has gone to a grocery store like this. It is as cozy as a grocery store can be and still be a grocery store instead of a shop. It was small, with only a few aisles, and kind of dark but well-lit. It had all the basics and the oddest accessories.

She came here because it was one of the few stores that carried curry, tofu, ginseng, and chicken all at the same time at reasonable prices, or at least that was what she told her mother. She knew perfectly well that she really came here because it was the only store that carried that perfect brand of salsa and macaroni and cheese that go perfectly together. Mac’n’salsa. It was daring, adventurous, and a little homey all mixed into a sort of god-like taste that she enjoyed.

But then, she couldn’t tell to her parents, or Harry, or Ron. What could she say? There’s that little something in the salsa and macaroni here that make it just right? Even in her head she sounded like a sappy commercial or, here she giggled, Professor Trelawney. That’s why I drive ten miles when there’s a perfectly good grocery store two minutes from my flat?

She had been reaching for a jar of salsa. There were only two on the shelf now, and so she’d been reaching for it quickly, before another avaricious shopper stole her rightful quarry from her. Halfway she’d been met with another hand, which had been quickly withdrawn. She’d retrieved the jar of salsa, and felt the usual flash of satisfaction, and carefully held it before looking up because the jars were so slippery here, looked up, and promptly dropped the jar of salsa anyway.

A pale hand shot out and caught the jar on its descent perfectly, with reflexes she had seen in only a few other select people her age. Harry was one. His wife Cho was another.

Seeker reflexes.

For some reason, it was the Seeker reflexes and the jar of salsa that clinched it for her. Not the platinum blond hair, which he had grown out long to his shoulders and tied back conservatively, not the milky white skin she remembered slapping in third year, not the impossibly gray eyes. The Seeker reflexes and the jar of salsa.

Which was ridiculous of course.

How could she walk up to Cho, nursing little Lily, and say, “I found Draco Malfoy in my favorite grocery store today and I know it was him and not just a Muggle look-alike because of Seeker reflexes and a jar of salsa,”?

It was preposterous.

But somehow, she was sure it was him.

His eyes were carefully guarded, as always, like a window that has been shuttered so tightly that not even a crack of life shines through.

Her mother had always said that eyes were a window to the souls. Ron had looked confused when she had said it, so she had categorized it—wasn’t she always categorizing everything?—as a Muggle saying. Then she had grown older, and realized that wizards were missing out on a lot even they didn’t have that saying. Harry’s eyes were green, and intense, and vivid, full of passion and life. They were—undiluted, she thought. Everything shone through with equal fervor, never muted. He just lived. Ron’s eyes were blue, warm, trusting, and friendly. Loyal. Simple. Uncomplicated. The one bulwark that would always be the same.

His eyes were gray. Not intense. Not passionate. Not warm, certainly, or trusting. Just—gray. And looking at them now, in Aisle Number 6, clutching a basket with tofu, ginseng, curry, chicken, and a box of that perfect macaroni, his hand holding out a jar of salsa in a moment of perfect stasis, where the world flowed around them, and time itself froze down, she knew that he had never just lived as Harry had. None of them, really, she thought, had that pure and undiluted joy in living that Harry had, but they could all—let themselves go, at times.

Not that she meant being adventurous. She was never adventurous. Or reckless. He was. Reckless, she meant. Passionate and intense, but always, even in the throes of anger or joy, carefully, carefully contained. Controlled. Hidden. Windows behind bars.

She stared at him until he said, “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that it’s rude to stare?”

His voice was faintly amused; it was still the smooth, sleek, silvery drawl, but it had changed somehow. The aristocratic, perfect, well-bred accent was still there, along with the faintest hint that you were just too funny, but there was something missing, and something new.

Perhaps it was the faintest hint of jaded cyniscm that made it so different, the knowledge that the world was not fair, and it never would be, and after all he didn’t give a damn, because no matter what, Draco Malfoy was better than you and always would be, and what did you want to make of that? The hint that the pride and arrogance of self-assured Pureblooded-ness was gone, replaced by a sort of desperate clinging to pride, the fact that Draco Malfoy was better than you because he had to be, as a sort of last bulwark over everything else that had changed and was changing.

“Draco? Draco Malfoy?”

Upon retrospect, she found that it wasn’t the most articulate, or coherent, or even reasonable response to his earlier comment about her manners. It was, in fact, totally random, something she had rarely, if ever, been in her life. She was too logical to be random, unlike Ron, who at totally weird moments would say, “I think beef jerky tastes better than teriyaki children,” or something equally odd and food-related.

“The one and only,” he said, but his voice was, if possible, even more reserved now. Wary. And she was sure that he didn’t recognize her.

Because at first, he had thought she was a Muggle.

Why else would the sudden wariness pop up?

And then after that, she thought it wrong that he had to be automatically nervous around his own kind. Not bad. He had been a Death Eater after all. Just wrong. Not in the order of the universe. Out of place. Different. Strange.

And then she wondered why he hadn’t noticed her. She hadn’t changed that much—or had she? She hadn’t turned into any raving beauty, no Witch Weekly for her. Unlike Parvati Patil, who, much to the amazement of others, had suddenly turned gorgeous and was now a full-time model for the latest dress robes.

She’d changed slightly, she supposed. Her hair was still long and rather bushy, if not the wild jungle it had been, but it was black now, the result of a Potions experiment gone radically wrong. At first Harry and Ron had laughed—Hermione Granger get anything wrong? But then, it had been a Masters level Potions. And then they got worried when she told them she couldn’t get it off.

Oh, she was sure that somewhere in the world of rich Wizarding families, there were mediwizards who could undo this kind of damage. But she had no reason to go shelling out big bucks—or Galleons—to change her hair color. Besides, she rather liked it this way. Ever the frugal bookworm.

Her eyes had gone darker too. But then, they all had, after the War. And her picture was still on the front of the Daily Prophet, along with Harry and Ron, almost everyday, especially since now she was known for inventing spells and charms in her own right, not just as the friend of the Chosen One.

She should be—and was—easily recognizable to just about any Wizard.

Except for him.

He looked at her and she could sense, somehow, that she was an enigma to him that he was trying to figure out, a difficult Arithmancy problem he was trying to unravel. And then he got it.

She saw recognition widen his eyes, saw everything falling in place, saw him matching her high wide cheekbones, saucy nose, slightly triangular face and bushy hair click, and saw his gaze fall on the few paperbacks in her basket, and saw his eyes wander to the slight outline of a wooden stick in her jeans pocket. And because she was watching him so carefully, she saw his face pale.

It wasn’t much, something she would have missed if she hadn’t been looking for it, just a little white where there had been white before, only now it was slightly chalky as opposed to milky. And his eyes turned iron-steel with fear.

If she had missed that, there was no way she could have missed the next sign. Carefully, as though approaching a dangerous beast, he approached the third shelf on Aisle Number Six, almost sidling forward to gently, precisely place the salsa jar back where it had come from to keep company with the other salsa jar, then backed away, one foot at a time, like a man retreating from an angry lion, until he had reached the back of the aisle.

Then he fled.

Didn’t Disapparate, as she had half expected him to do. He didn’t full-out run. Malfoys didn’t run. Instead he walked rapidly, until he was almost trotting, almost running, but not quite. Stalking, his long legs covering great huge strides that ate away at the ground.

Dream-like, she reached out and picked up the jar of salsa and placed it in her basket. There. Her grocery list was complete.

Then she snapped back to the present and went chasing after him, her basket sliding helter-skelter on her arm, the objects inside flying past each other on crash course on obstacle avoiding that sooner or later, one of them was bound to fail and end up smashed.

“Wait!” she called. She saw him look back, saw his eyes widen until she saw the whites of his eyes, saw him look almost like a hunted rabbit, saw him walk even faster, until if he was anyone else but a Malfoy, he would have been running.

She caught up with him because an old lady with a grocery cart and three bags of apples was slowly hobbling in front of him. By the time he could run again, she had pounced on him and cornered him, his back to the wall, his pale pointed face paler than ever, his aristocratic features filled with ill-concealed fright.

“Why are you scared?” she demanded. “I just wanted to talk to you!” her exasperation died suddenly as she saw the chin rise in the air in a gesture of defiance which belied his air of resignation, his gray eyes saying, ‘go ahead, do it, I can’t stop you.’

“I said, why are you scared?” her voice was sharper than she had intended it to be, and against his will he cringed ever so slightly, pushing back into the wall as though he wanted to merge into it.

“Tell me!”

There was no answer.

She should have just walked away then, walked away with her jar of salsa and her macaroni, and gone home to her flat next door to Harry and Cho’s, and invited them over for dinner as they munched on mac’n’salsa and watched reruns of The Bachelor.

But she had to know.

Because it was wrong.

Draco Malfoy didn’t cringe. Draco Malfoy didn’t frequent Muggle stores. Draco Malfoy wasn’t scared. Draco Malfoy was better than you.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, and she missed the way his eyes squeezed shut at those words for a moment before opening them to dare her to do her best.

“Legilimens!”

She saw the frantic squirming, saw his mouth automatically form the words to drive her out, saw him reach for his magic, his Occlumency—saw him come up with nothing.

And a barrage of memories swept through her.

Draco, apprehended. Draco, standing in front of the Ministry during his trial, a sea of unfriendly faces jeering at him, glaring at him from every side. Draco, taken away to Azkaban for holding purposes. Draco, huddled in a corner of the cell with tears—tears!—running down his face as the Dementors reminded him of the people he had killed. Draco, watching as the guards took his wand. Draco, watching as the Minister himself snapped it in two. Watching as his wand of polished maple cracked, watching as the dragon heartstring remained firm, watching as hope dawned, watching as the impossible hope faded as the faithful heartstring snapped in two. Draco, letting the guards take him away without a struggle. Draco, going resignedly and empty.

The memories switched, came faster now.

Draco, cornered by two wizards—Neville Longbottom and Justin Finch-Fletchley. Draco, backed into the wall like she was doing to him, sneer pasted over his fear. Draco, afraid, Draco, hurt, Draco, hexed so badly he could barely stand, Draco unable to break the curse, Draco, lying immobile and petrified, aching for days in a back alley until they finally wore off, Draco, cornered yet again, this time by Hannah Abbott and Lavendar Brown, Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas, jinxed and spelled until he almost died, Draco, trying to fight back, Draco, being called up for brawling and disturbing peace to the Ministry, Draco being heavily fined and warned by the Minister, Draco, stung by the injustice, Draco, going short for a while because of the fine, Draco, clinging desperately to the fact that Draco Malfoy is better than you because it was all he had left.

She broke off, panting, watching as he whimpered slightly from the pain, from the invasion, from his total lack of privacy, as he curled up into himself away from her, into the wall, helpless. Defenceless. Weak.

Draco Malfoy wasn’t weak.

She dropped the jar of salsa. The label tore slightly, right between the ingredients and the nutrients, the green sticky bit clinging to his robe, the jar hitting and glancing off his shoulder and rolling to the floor unbroken. The jar was heavy. It must have hurt.

It was strange. For one brief instant, all she could think was, ‘Good, guess I’m gonna have mac’n’salsa after all.’

It was totally and utterly selfish.

But she felt it.

And then her gaze snapped back to the half boy, half man who was part-curled, part-crouched, part-standing in front of her, not even cradling the injured shoulder, just—waiting. Waiting for the next blow, she realized with a sort of sickened feeling.

It was nothing, really, nothing compared to the hundreds of people she had seen tortured during the War. She had seen their bodies twitch and thrash about on cold stone floors and dirt earth, and cave ground. She had seen their arms wildly flailing like a sort of grotesque windmill, seen their back arching until she thought their spine would break, seen their heels drum the ground uselessly from the searing, aching pain, seen their head loll to the side with red, red blood trickling out from the right corner of their mouth in a horrible parody of face paint. Felt it herself.

And yet, it was everything.

Because you see, the War was over.

And then she grew angry. The War was over, damnit! Over! She’d fought and she’d suffered and she’d even killed, she’d seen her friends die and enemies die and wept for both, she’d starved and she’d worked, and sweet Circe, this was not what she had worked for!

She knelt down and offered him a hand. He stared at it incredulously for a moment. She put her hand on his shoulder. He flinched, and she winced at that incredibly instinctive move. She bent over ever more, and he recoiled, back-pedaling now without a hint of Malfoy dignity or pride, because he was stripped of all that now—he only wanted to live.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said, and knew that he wouldn’t believe her.

She spread her arms wide. “See? No wand? It’s in my back pocket. I can’t reach it like this, can I?”

His lips soundlessly formed something, and she knew what it was. You don’t need wands to hurt people Muggleborns like Justin had preferred to use their fists.

“I’m a girl. I can’t hurt you. You’re stronger than I am.”

He shook his head, and whispered, “The Ministry.”

She knew they wouldn’t punish her for hitting him, or let him defend himself.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Please. Just—take my hand.”

She looked at him.

She was a nice lady. Nice and she didn’t hurt him like the other ones did. She had a jar of that salsa so she couldn’t be all bad. She was nice. Nice nice nice nice nice. Nice was good was good was nice. He couldn’t think when there was the M-word around. No! He’d promised he would stay together and be a good boy and not use it. But then they’d hurt him. But she was nice.

She’s Hermione Granger! His old self yelled at him. She’s Harry Bloody Potter’s friend! She’ll kill you!

His new side, the one that came up sometimes after the girls and boys hexed him, whined, but I like her! She’s a pretty lady! She’s nice! Nice is good. Nice doesn’t hurt. They weren’t nice.

He looked at her. Her hand felt good on his shoulder. It was odd, somehow, having someone touch him, even if it made his thoughts go child again, and made him incoherent. He was willing to put up with that if she’d put her hand on his shoulder again.

He took her hand.

She ran into him one cold October morning, when the sky was a crisp blue, the kind that makes your eyes ache if you stare at it too long, and the wind was a crisp breeze that danced around your face and tickled your nose with your own hair, and the trees were a crisp golden and purple that made you smile because they looked so pretty. It was a crisp sort of day.

He smiled at her and she smiled back. They took two jars of salsa because one wasn’t enough. They went out of Aisle Six and to the counter, where he laboriously counted out five pounds in Muggle money—he still wasn’t used to that!—and handed it to the nice lady at the counter. The door was opened for them, and that little bell that hangs on the handle tinkled with a sort of ting-ling to it, and they walked out to face the blue blue sky. Together.