Hermione stumbled into the restaurant exactly at the time they had all agreed to meet. She hadn't had much energy to dress up but had put some mascara she almost never used and had braided her hair so it would be flat enough to wear the shawl Harjeet was lending her. Other than that, she had followed Harjeet's advice and had worn some jeans and a nice blouse that matched the shawl.
Her research last night had been promising and she had left the California library with a lighter heart but one of the floos she took home was part of a potions shop she had frequented fairly often to buy her regular potions. She stepped out and grabbed her usual potion and was already handing it to the cashier before she thought it through. She stepped back and brushed a piece of her frizzy hair out of her face.
"Oh, sorry," she muttered. "I don't take these anymore... habit." She shrugged. "They are actually a tad addicting."
The cashier folded his burly arms over a pot-belly. "Addicting? It's magic, not opium."
Hermione had been trying to escape unobtrusively but her head snapped up at the last comment. She stepped closer and jabbed her finger into the counter as she said, "Just because it hasn't been labeled an addictive substance yet doesn't mean it isn't harming someone's life." She straightened, tugging on the jacket she knew she would need for the subsequent jumps. "Maybe you need a brain beyond what some government corporation tells you."
She left then. She didn't need an argument; she needed to get away from the potion she wanted even though she knew it was bad. She also needed sleep.
However, instead of sleeping, she spent the first two hours tossing in bed alternatively worrying about Draco's career and fantasizing about going back and getting a potion so all this worry would stop. She finally remembered that she had other ways to manage her anxiety and went through the extensive meditations and eventually fell asleep. She may have gotten five hours of sleep in if she was lucky and that was only because she had skipped every morning ritual she had in favor of flooing straight to WiNY.
Things hadn't been this rough lately and arrivaing bleary-eyed at something she was hoping to enjoy just added a little more resolve to Hermione's desire to come to terms with whatever issues she had from the war so she would stop doing this.
Stifling a yawn, she nursed her cup of tea she had bought next door. Around her, Harjeet and Samir rushed around the kitchen doing things that Hermione couldn't quite grasp in her morning stupor.
"Where's Draco?" Hermione mumbled to Harjeet when she slowed enough for Hermione to catch her.
"Hm?" Harjeet stopped and turned to Hermione. "Oh. He went to get a relation of his." Hermione's heart stopped for a second, imagining Lucius stepping through the kitchen door. "A little boy," Harjeet continued.
Hermione's heart started again. "Ari," she supplied in a sigh of relief.
Harjeet nodded. "He says you two have met."
Hermione agreed and then yawned again. "Sorry," she mumbled.
Harjeet patted Hermione's shoulder. "Draco did say you were a tad of a night-owl."
The back door slammed open and Hermione jumped, maneuvering herself slightly in front of Harjeet, while her hand went to a hidden pocket.
Draco stomped through the hallway into the kitchen and Hermione eased back into her normal stance.
"Draco? What happened?" Harjeet asked, stepping forward.
"Where is Ari?" Hermione added.
Draco glared at both of them before deflating. "He isn't coming." Looking at the ground, he sneered, "His father won't let him." He ignored the rest of their questions and didn't meet their eyes. Instead, he interrupted, "Don't you have something I should carry?"
Harjeet sighed and gestured towards two large pastry boxes sitting on the kitchen counter. "You can help Samir carry one of the laddu boxes."
None of them had a car and so they took the subway to the Gurdwara. It was mostly a straight shot, so they hunkered down in a corner and waited for their stop.
Hermione sat by the window and used Draco's bulk to block her hand as she cast Luna's spell to help block out the crowd. She would have never used it on herself if she had been alone, but with Draco there, even if he was sitting in a stony silence at the moment, she felt safe enough. In fact, she dozed off several times, her head bobbing back or to the side. She had just been jerked awake again by her head rolling off at an uncomfortable angle, when she felt a hand press against her head and force it down until it was resting on Draco's shoulder.
"You are giving me whiplash watching you," he mumbled.
Hermione smiled but drifted off again before she thought of an answer.
She woke up to Draco poking the tip of her nose. She brushed aside his hand and then rubbed at the side of her mouth to check for drool.
"You weren't being an idiot last night and studying for exams that are two month away, were you?" She could feel his voice rumble through his firm and rather bony shoulder.
She groaned and sat up. "I was researching you."
His eyebrow raised and his mouth morphed into a sly smile. "I didn't know you were the stalking type."
She rolled her eyes and punched his shoulder gently. "What would be the point? Your closet seems to shove all your skeletons out without me lifting a finger."
His face fell, and he glared out the window.
Hermione bit her lip, trying to come up with a way to fix what she just said, but Samir leaned towards them and waved a hand. "Come on, you flirts, this is our stop."
From then on, conversation stopped anyway. Even at eight o'clock on a Sunday morning, the subway stops were something that needed complete focus to survive, especially with two fragile pastry boxes full of laddu and a Hermione still given to panicking in crowded areas.
The Gurdwara itself was an unassuming brick building with no outward adornments or anything that even indicated what it was. Hermione followed the rest of the group into the entrance way where there were several groups of people sitting at tables and chatting over paper plates. Besides not being of Indian decent, Hermione and Draco stood out as the only ones in jeans and Hermione was happy Harjeet had let her borrow her scarf because it allowed Hermione to feel like she blended in at least a little with all the bright scarves of the other women. Draco was wearing a gold bandanna that had looked a little seedy out on the street, like he was trying to imitate the gangster style and failing spectacularly by wearing a button up shirt. However, now that everyone around them had their head covered, it didn't look that weird. The gold actually complemented the deep maroon shirt. Draco walked off to another table a little ways off there where other were arranging fresh fruit and other desserts Hermione didn't recognize. She observed the smallish entry way and decided there weren't nearly as many people as she had expected, given how much laddu Harjeet had had them make.
"Are we early?" she asked Draco when he came back from putting down the pastry box for Harjeet to arrange.
"Yeah. Come on." He grabbed Hermione's arm and pulled her towards a smaller room off to the side. "We need to take off our shoes."
Having been warned ahead of time, Hermione had worn some Vans that were easy to slip off her feet. The smaller room was basically a closet full of cubby holes for shoes. She pushed hers into the same one as Draco over his black dress shoes. He wore socks of different shades of gray and Hermione wondered whether she should comment on it. He still seemed in such a bad mood.
She nervously rearranged the shawl over her head. It kept wanting to slip down the back of her hair and down around her shoulders. "Why are we early, Draco?"
Draco finally looked her in the eyes since they left the subway and shrugged. "Harjeet had to get the laddu out for people to eat ahead of time and I figured you would want to be early enough to get a seat close to the door." He stepped up out of the shoe room and returned to Samir and Harjeet's side before Hermione could reply or even thank him. When she followed, Draco was speaking to another man with Samir.
"Waheguru ji ka khalsa waheguruji ki fateh," the man said.
"Waheguru ji ka khalsa waheguruji ki fateh," Draco said back with painful slowness.
The other man nodded. "Tuhaadaa kee haal hai?"
"Mai Theeke hai." Draco answered, this time speaking with more assurance. "Tuse kiva?"
"Mai Theeke hai," the other man answered, nodding and smiling.
Hermione looked between all of them in bewilderment. "You speak Punjab, Draco?"
Draco glanced at her and nodded slightly. "A little. This is my Punjabi teacher, Balvinder."
"Oh," Hermione said and turned and smiled as she greeted the man.
He nodded back. "Draco is a quick study," Balvinder said with a stronger Indian accent than Amar had. Harjeet and Samir didn't have one at all. "But he lacks the finesse. He speak Punjabi like it is French."
Draco colored slightly at that. "French is my second language. Pardonnez-moi si je parle avec un accent romantique."
Hermione, whose French was barely passable, snorted. "Sound of romance? I bet the poor instructor wanted to silenci- duck tape your mouth after the first day."
Draco's face was still a little dull but he smirked a little at that. "I know that's not what you want to do with my mouth."
Hermione couldn't help a fiery blush that warmed her whole face. "Must you, Draco? I'll make sure he knows which tape is the strongest."
The rest of the conversations she didn't participate in much as they were mostly about these people's lives: whose children were going to college or how a business was faring and when the next social event was planned. Hermione picked up a plate and filled it with fruit and several of the dessert-looking dishes, including Harjeet's laddu, which was a little like a churro- soft and sweet but still chewy. That was the thing about being in awkward social situations that had food. Food was an easy thing to turn to instead of actual conversation. She emptied her plate without quite realizing it until she reached for another laddu that wasn't there.
When the trickle of people entering turned into a steady stream, Harjeet gently led Hermione towards the hallway that gave way to a bigger room from which music was coming.
As she walked past Draco he put out a hand and fished with the other hand in his jeans pocket. "Here." He handed her a crumpled five dollar American bill.
A little surprised, she took it and continued to follow Harjeet out. She knew it was meant to be a donation. She had told Draco earlier that she didn't have any small American bills. When Hermione first heard she was going to be coming, she had done some reading but information about Sikhs in general had been sparse and she had had to resort to grilling Draco for what information she could get.
As she followed Harjeet down the long aislethat separated the men from women, she noticed that nearly all the women wore the same tunic and loose pants as Harjeet but in all sorts of bright colors and beautiful embroidered patterns. Harjeet had told Hermione they were called a kurta and salwar. There were some dressed similarly as Hermione in jeans and a nice blouse, which made her a little more comfortable. The men were a little more varied. Some wore traditional kurtas in subdued tans or whites but there were also those in Western suits and even a few who looked like they had come from their blue-collar job and were wearing a gold bandanna like Draco did.
At the front there was what looked like a throne covered by a canopy of rich cloth and gold fringes. She had been told that the book that sat on the throne was the Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji, the Sikh book of scripture that was treated with the reverence of being the Head of the religion. Hermione followed Harjeet and waited nervously as Harjeet bowed before the Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji and place her donation in the box. Hermione had been told she didn't have to bow, which was good because it would have been too close to being against some of her beliefs. She inclined her head respectfully and placed her rolled up five dollars into the wood box before turning to join Harjeet again.
Although the rather large room was starting to fill up, it was mostly along the edges of the room where people could rest their backs against the wall. That meant there still was a spot towards the back and along the aisle that was open for Harjeet and Hermione to sit cross-legged. Harjeet shared greetings with a woman holding an infant who stared at them with large brown eyes. The woman lovingly adjusting a mini version of the gold bandanna wrapped around his head and returned to murmuring the hymn to the child as if it were a lullaby.
The room gradually filled up and Hermione followed when the congregation stood and waited until after people were bowing and joined them as they sat down again. There must have been cues for when these were but she couldn't figure out what they were. Occasionally, Harjeet would bend over and explain in English what the hymn was saying.
"Paramaesar thae bhuliaa viaapan sabhae rog. Kaam krodh kaaeiaa ko gaalai, jio kanchan sohaagaa taalai. Fareedhaa burae dhaa bhalaa kar gusaa man n hataae. Dhaehee rog n lagee palai sabh kish paae," the man in front said in a sing-song voice.
"This part loosely means when we forget the Transcendent Lord, we bring illness to our lives, but if we answer evil with goodness and do not fill our minds with anger then we will be free of these illnesses and receive everything good," Harjeet whispered. "Draco always loved this part of the Kirtan when he understood what it meant.
Hermione glanced over to Draco who sat across the aisle a couple people ahead of them. She could still see the side of his face and it did look like he was mouthing the words. Draco had been around people who had always seemed angry and had also seemed to answer any good done to him with evil. Maybe he saw that as the source of the problems he had developed since then? If that understanding had worked the changes she saw in him now, she would have to agree.
Lost in her musings, she was a little hypnotized by the singers' voices and the thrum of the drums and was startled as everyone stood around her again. She quickly stood up and saw that they were taking the Guru Granth Sahib out and the children followed it out in a parade. Hermione had to smile at that, especially at one girl who had a tutu as bright a pink as the scarf pulled over her braids. Those same children came back out and handed out napkins while other children followed and scooped something out of a metal bowl and placed it in the napkin.
"Kara Parshad," Harjeet explained while the children made their way towards them. "It is a blessing from the Guru."
Hermione nodded and reached out her napkin in acceptance of the blessing. It looked like coarse cookie dough and she pinched off a piece with her right hand and ate it like she saw Harjeet do. It wasn't as sweet as cookie dough but it had a pleasant nutty flavor.
When everyone had received the Kara Parshad, people wandered slowly out of the room. The quiet chatter rumbling around them reminded Hermione of when she had gone to church with her parents. Everyone followed some stairs down into a room as equally big as the one above with long strips of cloth running along the floor. The people who had already gone through the line had sat down facing these clothes and had set their plastic trays laden with food on the cloth. The line passed by the opening of a kitchen similar to a soup kitchen and their group received their own plates before joining the growing number of people on the floor. The food was relatively plain with just enough spice to make it good. There was a tangy yogurt-like dish, several bean dishes, fried flatbread, and a salad. Hermione, who had only eaten the desserts that morning, quickly dug into her food.
When she had sopped the last of her meal up with the fried bread, Hermione leaned close to Draco sitting across from her and asked, "What happened with Ari? Didn't he want to come?"
Draco's eyes snapped up at her and he glared. "I didn't get to ask him, seeing as his father decided that I wasn't to associate with him anymore."
"What? Why?" Hermione asked but then paused as she remembered the newspaper article and how worried Draco had been about purebloods reading it. She looked up at him and he nodded.
"He decided I'm not respectable enough for his son and now Ari is going to become a good-for-nothing jerk like me."
"Draco, Ari isn't-"
Abruptly, Draco stood, cutting her off. He thanked Harjeet and Samir and, with a nod to Hermione, left the room.
As Hermione watched him leave she remembered what he said about Ari being the reason he was sober. Maybe he thought the only redemption for himself was saving Ari from a similar fate? What would Draco do now that he thought his one shot at redemption was lost?
She abruptly stood up and then, muttering her apologies, quickly exited the room. Draco wasn't in the entryway and, when she pulled on her Vans and sped out the door, he wasn't in either sight out there either. Frustrated, she returned her shoes to the now empty cubby-hole and made her way back to Samir and Harjeet.
"If Draco wanted to drink, where would he go?" she asked them without introduction.
Harjeet and Samir shared a concerned glance.
"He always came from the block east of us," Samir answered. "Where the street is full of pubs."
"Draco said that making sure Ari didn't go down the same path as him was the reason he went sober and now Ari's father won't let Draco near him."
Samir sighed heavily. "It is unwise to use that sort of reason for sobriety as it rests upon the changeable."
Hermione nodded and hoped that Draco had found other reasons for sobriety. She thanked Harjeet and Samir again and then speed-walked out of the Gurdwara.
...
A big shout out to @Fleurdelys21 and @jessycanarayan for voting for Signum Vitalis in the Fiction Awards!!
If you guys would like to vote for Signum Vitalis here is the direct link: https://www.wattpad.com/407146068-the-fiction-awards-2017-nominations-open
Also, thank you to my guest beta, Rajbir Kaur, for helping me with chapter 51-53. She is awesome!
Hope you guys are having a great start to your summer :) <3 Sam
Edit: Thank you to @Rashko_Styles for pointing out that I accidentally changed Harjeet's name!