company over? Now, he felt like the worse kind of dill, a hopeful one. He didn't wait for her to break the news to him, or worse, ask him to leave post haste.
"I apologize. I didn' t come here to make a scene." He un-slung his broom and started walking back towards the mangled fencing, wet snow squelching under his boots.
"A scene would probably require more than just me to witness it."
Hermione's rueful admission that she they were well and truly alone made him stop and turn around. She was holding open the door for him.
"You'd best come in."
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Hermione thought Draco looked ridiculous sitting in the floral, rolled-arm sofa in her living room, balancing a steaming cup of tea on his knee.
The magnolia-themed fabric on her lounge set was not of her own choosing. It came with the cottage and seeing as it was still somewhat new, Hermione saw no reason to go out and buy a new set. Muggles had become such a throw-away society. She was by no means a pack-rat, but she admitted that she was prone to sentimentality.
Except when she was busy throwing away and burning certain painful memories, she morosely reminded herself.
Neither seemed to be in a mood to drink tea, but Hermione had insisted on taking a few minutes in the kitchen to calm her nerves.
She retrieved Crookshanks from his hideout under the floor and fed him a warm saucer of milk. Something as mundane as tea and biscuits didn't suit Draco. Neither did placid, poky living rooms, apparently. It was like wearing clashing colours. His colours were soot-black, grey fire smoke, red curse-sparks and the penetrating green of Avada Kedavra.
That last thought made her shiver. She could picture him amidst staggering opulence and she could picture him in the middle of a barren desert. It was the more normal settings in between that didn't quite work.
She had always thought of herself as a rather normal, sort of in between type of girl.
He called the darkness in the room to him like some sort of black-attracting magnet. This was probably due to his colouring. Everything stood out against him in marked contrast, including her, it seemed.
The fire was in full swing, but he still had to be cold. His wet cloak was plastered to his body. She could easily make out the lines of his biceps, his arms, his chest and the way his upper torso narrowed to his waist. Strong, elegant hands held the saucer, flexing lightly as he moved. His long index tapped against the tea cup gently.
Hermione distractedly stared down at her own tea. Warm blood rushed to her extremities, which was a good thing seeing as her toes and fingers were partially numb. Her damp scalp prickled with heat, however. There was a nasty flu bug going around. Ron had just come down with something. In fact -
"We really should get out of these clothes," she blurted, and then blushed to the roots of her hair.
Regrettably, her mouth sometimes failed to wait for potentially daft statements to be vetted by her brain before saying them. Normally, she just counted on whatever she said to be accurate. Because she was Hermione, it generally was, even if it wasn't always tactful.
Ron had once said that her particular brand of brilliance needed its own PR agent.
God, she really was her own worst enemy. Hermione closed her eyes for a moment in quiet mortification.
Draco didn' t so much as raise an eyebrow. He just looked her with an expression she couldn't describe. She knew she had seen all there was to see of him. But that had been five years ago. A lot could happen in five years. She was currently trying not to stare at what had happened in five years.
There was also the fact that memories could not always be trusted in the long term. They tended to get fuzzy around the edges. Or even worse, the mind might take it upon itself to get unnecessarily creative with its memories.
Hermione sucked in a breath and stuck her big toe in different waters. If he didn' t say something very soon, she might throw a biscuit at him.
She cleared her throat. "Since you're here, I wanted to ask you something about Fida Mia. Loose ends, so to speak."
Damn his composure. How was it possible that he made her feel intimidated when it was him who had called on her unexpectedly and nearly got himself halved in the process?
"What did you