Potter wore the piercing expression of a disappointed parent as he held the door open and Draco dragged her inside.
When Draco had her safely in bed with all her new cats, he tried to explain. Potter snorted and said, "At least she didn't jump you to Northern Ireland. Ron lost his elbow once chasing her."
Potter pulled him into the kitchen to help heal the nastier scratches
"I probably should have mentioned. Hermione doesn't really have impulse control when she's drunk," Potter said as he dabbed stinging antiseptic along the side of Draco's neck.
Draco glared as he clenched his teeth. "It would have been helpful if you had."
Potter gave a thin smile and spelled the cut closed. "To be fair, I didn't think you two would last long enough that it mattered."
Draco looked away.
"Cats are pretty minor, relatively speaking," Potter said as he poured the stinging liquid across the back of Draco's hand. "One time, she disappeared so long, Ron and I reported her missing. McGonagall found her in Hogwarts, having an argument with the house-elves. Another time, she robbed Borgin and Burke's because she wanted to know how a cursed amulet worked. There was also—" he winced, "—one time she apparated into Downing Street to scold the Prime Minister about a policy decision she didn't like. It was a mess. Worst birthday I ever had."
"You and Weasley are both unbelievable," Draco said, rolling his eyes and standing to leave.
"Just watch out, when she hums, that's usually the only sign she's about to apparate."
They reappeared in the Kensington Gardens. Draco was gripping Hermione's hand, stomach roiling violently from the abrupt disapparition as he tried to regain his bearings. He discovered that his cashmere scarf and three buttons on his shirt did not appear to have survived the journey.
It was raining there. A light drizzle misting down on them as they stood in the dark and empty park.
Without releasing her hand, he studied Hermione, trying to determine what she might do next. Slipping her wand away from her would be ideal, but Potter and Weasley had several horror stories about the potential consequences of trying to relieve her of her wand. Drunk Hermione was apparently uninhibited and creative in her choice of defensive hexes.
She simply stood glancing around.
"This is one of my favourite places," she finally said. "My dad and I used to come here on Sundays. He used to travel, you know."
Draco hadn't known.
Her parents were in Australia, and it was, he had learned, not something she liked to talk about.
"Itchy feet, my mum always said." The corner of her mouth curved into a wistful smile, and her eyes were far away as though she wasn't seeing the empty park but something distant and lost in the past. The misting rain was catching in her hair and lashes, and she looked almost ethereal, so effortlessly lovely that Draco couldn't have turned from her if he'd wanted to.
"When we came here, he always told me stories about all the places he'd been. We had a map at home, marking all the cities he'd visited. I always thought I'd travel after school. Even when I went to Hogwarts, I still planned to have a gap year so I could see the world before I settled down with a job, but—" she looked down, "I needed an extra year to graduate, and by then, financially things weren't exactly—
She stopped.
"It wasn't in the cards anymore," she finally said.
"I'm sorry."
Whatever You Want
Start from the beginning
