the back of Harry's neck stand on end. But then the coolness was back just as quickly. "Wouldn't recommend it. Rains three-quarters of the day."
"So why else are you here, Malfoy?" Harry persisted.
Draco popped the remaining bit of pasty into his mouth and took a long swig of pumpkin juice. He closed his eyes for a moment, savouring the simple, familiar comforts. Harry wondered how long it had been since he last had something decent to eat.
Presently, Draco sat back in the chair and regarded Harry with a challenging expression.
"I've come back for my wife."
Chapter Fifty
"Happy birthday," said Hermione to her foggy reflection over the bathroom sink.
Outside, the world was trying to drown itself. It was raining fat, hard summer rain that fell straight down to the ground in the breezeless air.
The woman that stared back at her from the mirror didn't look particularly thrilled by the birthday announcement. But then it was seven in the morning and Hermione had never been very functional before nine and at least one cup of tea.
She brushed her teeth, making a mental note to do another load of laundry that evening as she stared at the growing pile of towels in the hamper behind her. Or maybe not. It wasn't good weather for drying laundry.
At least the cottage garden was getting a bit of a watering. Her landlady had been alarmed at the brown flower beds and yellowing grass that summer.
Perhaps moving into Ginny's London flat would have been the wiser decision. A cottage was always going to require more maintenance than an apartment. In the end, it was Crookshanks who settled it. He was getting on in years and could no longer sprint up a flight of steps with his usual agility.
Ginny's flat was at the top of four flights of steps, which was challenging at the best of times. And so the small, two-bedroom, renovated Edwardian cottage had been too charming to pass up. In the warmer months, the catnip and cat grass grew rampant along the sun-faded brick path in the backyard and this was heaven for an elderly cat who still fancied himself a romp every now and then.
It had been squeaky clean, but very Spartan when Hermione had signed the lease. She had needed to purchase a larger bed, a fridge and a gas stove. Harry lamented the lack of a television when he came to visit, but Hermione assured she had always been able to do without. One room was to sleep in, the other was a makeshift office and library, only her collection of books had outgrown the shelves her mother had contributed.
They neatly lined one wall; great teetering piles that Ron joked were in danger of doing mortal harm to Hermione or Crookshanks should they ever topple on top of either of them.
Her landlady was a kindly widowed Muggle woman who had insisted on donating new curtains and the warm, colourful rug in the small lounge area. She only lived down the road and came by for tea and gossip after Church almost every other Sunday. The nearby village was Muggle, as was the cottage, but it hadn't been difficult to register and then hook up the two fireplaces to the Floo Network.
Ginny continued to nag that Lavender Brown was the world's most unreliable housemate and if Hermione ever changed her mind about living the life of a recluse
But that wasn't going to happen any time soon.
Hermione had pondered over her reasons for wanting to live alone, and quietly attributed it to the fact that she was an only child who enjoyed her own space. And after attending boarding school for seven years, a bit of privacy was welcomed.
There was truth to that, anyway. She would hang on to that reason.
The staring face in the mirror was pink cheeked from the hot shower. Short, curly, wet hair framing a delicate, heart shaped face that was perhaps a little leaner than it had once been. Dark ringlets clung to her hairline and the nape of her neck. The hairstyle made her eyes appear even larger, and she never really noticed how much of a tilt there was to them until after the hair cut.
Eager for a change, Hermione had shorn off her heavy, shoulder-length hair more than a year ago during an unusually hot summer. She hadn' t looked back since. Short hair wasn't really low maintenance, she discovered, as it took quite a bit of grooming in the mornings to tame the mass into