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Back when she studied at Hogwarts, Hermione intended to spend her life climbing the ranks at the Ministry of Magic. She’d had the secret hope of one day answering to Minister Granger, something she revealed to no one, so as not to sound as though she had an over-inflated ego. And because it felt like a dream, like the moment after blowing out your birthday candles and meeting the eyes of your guests: if you spoke of it, it would vanish.
Ten years after the war, her dream had indeed vanished without being said aloud. Or if not vanished, then put off for a time when Hermione could put the work into making them a reality. At the moment, she didn’t want to sit behind a desk at the ministry, or attend Wizengamot sessions about taxes, or prepare reports that no one read. She’d thought she would like it up until began her job there only to find that no one was passionate enough about improving the lives of beasts and beings, and the people who ended up in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures were obviously there for the paycheck or because they’d been kicked out of their previous departments for incompetency. If there was one thing Hermione couldn’t stand, it was sitting around doing nothing, and people who were content to do so.
Those first years out of Hogwarts, she’d spent her days at the office and occupied her nights and evenings with growing the S.P.E.W. foundation. She’d been a fourth year when she’d unofficially begun S.P.E.W., but in the months directly after the war, it gained new life. Honoring Dobby was only a part of it. Hermione had arrived in the Hogwarts kitchens to request food for the people temporarily staying at Hogwarts after the battle and came face to face with the damage Death Eaters wrought to the kind, wonderful elves who’d had no choice but to stay and serve them.
Hermione had been outraged. She had been angry for months, for years really, ever since Voldemort returned and she had to grow up, tie her hair back, and work to put him back in the grave because she refused to let her best friend die. All throughout the war, she’d been so angry, helpless, and afraid by turns until relief swept her off her feet at Voldemort’s death. Discovering the situation the house elves were in had put her firmly back on her feet, as she’d realized just how much more needed fixing. It wasn’t enough that they’d defeated Voldemort. It only meant that now they would have time to fix the other issues in wizarding society.
Harry had been the first to donate to her efforts, saying that she couldn’t do it alone, and she didn’t have to. Ron had donated his time, Neville various potions and plants, and most of her Gryffindor yearmates had given what time or money they could spare.
In the middle of that first year after the war, when she received a large sum for the S.P.E.W. foundation from the Malfoy family, she’d grit her teeth, considered sending it back, and kept it instead. House elves had more need for the Malfoys’ galleons. Her pride wasn’t worth more than house elf welfare.
The second year, when funds from the initial donations had nearly dried up, a second donation from the Malfoy family arrived. Unlike all other donations, Hermione didn’t send a thank you note. She added it to the foundation’s new Gringotts vault, added it to her meticulous bookkeeping, and didn’t give it another thought.
The fifth year, when she quit her ministry job, heart beating fast from nerves and determination, a fifth pouch of galleons arrived with a note that it was to be used for the foundation. Hermione noted Draco Malfoy’s name at the bottom, and the address that was not the Malfoy manor. Past that, it wasn’t important. She’d accepted his apology for her capture and torture at his home during the war. Hermione had grudgingly decided not to hold a grudge. As far as she was concerned, leaving Hogwarts meant putting the whole Malfoy family in the rear view mirror, except for the yearly owl.
It was remarkably well-timed owl. She had been hoping to set up office space off of Diagon Alley and work on the foundation full time. As a charity without ministry funding, S.P.E.W. relied heavily on donations. Much of Hermione’s paycheck went into supporting the charity, but without her job, she was in freefall.
The pouch of galleons slowed her descent. Hermione’s gaze lingered on the signature for a long moment, then she tucked the letter away.
By her seventh year, she was the chair of S.P.E.W., and the yearly Malfoy donation was expected.
Three years later later, Hermione was chair of a board of five people as passionate about house elf rights as she was, her membership had doubled, and she had a dozen active members of the society. Once again, she emptied the Malfoy donation pouch on her desk and shook her head at the amount that Malfoy was willing to donate. Across from her was another desk behind which sat Mint, her partner in the foundation and the only other full-time employee. Mint’s desk was messier than her own and her chair was raised to accommodate her height, which was short even for a house elf.
Hermione sighed as she stared at the money. She was annoyed.
There was no good reason to be annoyed at Malfoy’s generous patronage. She was anyway.
“I should write him a thank you note,” she said aloud, flicking at the galleon closest to her. It gleamed under the lamplight, not a speck of dust or dirt in sight.
The eagle owl who brought the donation was a handsome fellow, fully grown but on the young side, with tufts of black feathers around his eyes and a sharp gaze. Down in the basket beside her desk, Crookshanks eyed the owl with interest, but was getting to the age where throwing himself at birds no longer had the same appeal as receiving a treat for good behavior instead.
“Hermione should write a very long thank you note,” Mint agreed. Her eyes were wide and her ears twitched as she scanned the pile. With a wave of her hand, the pile arranged itself in neat stacks, the result of which impressed Mint even more. “Does Mr. Donor wish to join the board of directors?”
Hermione’s scowl deepened. “Malfoy hasn’t mentioned wanting to do more than donate. I haven’t seen him at any meetings. He’s not even a proper member of the society.”
“Has Hermione invited him?” Mint asked, unerringly perceptive.
“No.” Knowing she would be judged for it but perhaps needing the judgment to send her into action, she added, “I’ve never even sent him a thank you note.”
The judgment on Mint’s face was severe. “Miss Hermione.”
“I know,” Hermione huffed. Mint only called her Miss when she was annoyed. “Could you help me compose the letter? I’ve tried, and it only makes me sound like I’m ungrateful.”
“Is Hermione ungrateful?”
With a deep sigh, Hermione pushed her scroll of almost-thank yous toward the other desk and buried her face in her hands. “It’s not that. I just don’t know why it has to be him, that’s all. Why couldn’t it be Parkinson instead?” Hermione considered it for a moment, then said, “No, never mind, I’d rather it be Malfoy.”
With Mint’s help, she managed a letter that didn’t sound like she had just received her term paper back with red marks all over it and was bearing a grudge. Or maybe just a little. Unlike with other letters to donors, Hermione didn’t manage a single positive adjective, nor a superlative, as she might have added with other large donors. It was a simple statement of acknowledgement and gratitude, couched in formal language like a shield against Malfoy’s galleons. It was ridiculous. Hermione knew herself to be better than this, but somehow Malfoy’s name always brought back the version of her who punched him back in third year. That version of her would have never thanked him.
But she was an adult, and adults did many things they didn’t want to do.
In this case, it meant abandoning the version of her that punched him and instead trying on for size a Hermione Granger who would willingly meet with him. A day after sending her official letter, Hermione held up Malfoy’s response and waved it in the air. “Can you believe him? He wants to set a meeting to chat about the foundation. The gall!”
Mint’s green eyes did not resemble Harry’s, nor did her nature. If she had, she would have understood instantly that Malfoy must be up to something. Instead, she said, “Hermione should attend and invite Mr. Donor to our meetings. House elf school does not pay for itself. Mint has read the accounting book. Mr. Donor is very generous.” With a sly smile, she added, “Hermione should dress nice for Mr. Donor.”
“Absolutely not,” Hermione replied, horrified.
A week later, she left the office before lunchtime and returned to her flat to freshen up. She wore her second-best robes not because she needed to impress Malfoy but because she was aware that the foundation needed all the help it could get. It meant that she must look professional and authoritative without seeming desperate or judgmental.
Many owners of house elves assumed her to be judgmental of them. She was. But that wasn’t conducive to cooperation.
Her mirror complimented her appearance. Hermione despaired of the world. She threw floo powder into the fireplace and called out, “Home of Draco Malfoy.”
It was a smaller home than his parents’ manor, which Hermione judged by the fact that the ceilings weren’t so unnervingly high. She was not greeted with a chandelier high above her, nor was it as dark and imposing as she remembered the manor to be. And yet it had a receiving parlor and a sunlit room to take tea in, so Hermione could hardly forget that the home belonged to a Malfoy. The house elf who guided her to Malfoy was dressed in a small, clean white dress, and greeted Hermione cheerfully. Hermione knew her as one of the elves who attended Mint’s school, and as one of the two dozen free elves who worked in their former masters’ homes for a wage.
As for Malfoy himself, he stood when she entered the room, and his dark robes were an ever-present contrast against his pale skin and blond hair. She hadn’t been at such close a distance to him since Hogwarts; Hermione was annoyed to find that he had grown into his pointy features, and he no longer had the gaunt, haunted look he’d had during and directly after the war.
After stilted greetings on both their parts, Hermione sat at the little tea table and watched the teapot hover from its place on the table. It flew over to fill her teacup. She could see the influence of Narcissa in Draco’s tea set. At least, it must have been Narcissa, since she couldn’t imagine Lucius being particular in the arrangement of biscuits and light sandwiches.
Hermione put her best face on and said, “I’d like to thank you for your continued support of the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare. It means a lot to us that you donate each year. Your funds have gone toward research into house elf history, legislation regarding their welfare, and the small school we set up to educate any house elves who are willing to attend.”
“You’re welcome,” Malfoy replied. He didn’t look too haughty as he said it, but a part of her still thought about punching him. It was a vestigial thought, fading under the light of the bay windows and the sip of excellent tea. “I was surprised when you didn’t throw my donation in my face the first time I sent it.”
“I considered it. It was tempting.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Malfoy said. He looked annoyingly sincere, right up until he said, lips twitching with amusement, “I assume previous letters of gratitude were lost in the mail.” In the same breath, he gestured to the platter of biscuits. “Take one. They’re rhubarb. Rilly’s specialty.”
Hermione did. It was good. She credited Rilly and blamed Malfoy. “They weren’t lost in the mail.” She huffed, and spoke the question that had plagued her since Malfoy’s first donation. “Why did you donate? Why did you keep doing it? It couldn’t have been to gain public support. House elf rights aren’t popular, try as I might.”
“It was a Malfoy elf who saved Potter’s life during the war.” It was a nonstatement, a reply instead of a reason.
“Dobby was a free elf.” Hermione shook her head. She took another biscuit. “You’re not doing this in Dobby’s memory.”
“No, I’m not,” Malfoy agreed.
He paused, seeming to gather his thoughts, and Hermione was content to wait. Sunlight hit his hair through the large windows. Hermione decided she must be spending too much time inside if she kept paying attention to Malfoy’s hair. Her other big S.P.E.W. donors were to a one over fifty and considered eccentrics. Hermione had never sat across the table from someone who both had the kind of money that Malfoy donated and was a contemporary of hers. Hogwarts felt like a lifetime ago. Malfoy had returned for an additional year, same as Hermione, but if they had interacted rarely in the previous years, then their interactions that year had been scarce. It was a year dominated by trials and the rebuilding of magical society. There had been no room for childish squabbling over houses and pride, as had been the entirety of their previous interactions. And now there was this: a witch and a wizard, a tea set, and Malfoy’s confounding and longstanding interest in house elf rights.
Eventually, Malfoy spoke. Hermione had no idea what she expected—words of guilt, perhaps—but that wasn’t what came. “I saw a lot of cruelty during the war. That summer and winter break, I spent in one house with the Dark Lord and his most faithful, including Greyback and Aunt Bellatrix. During the school year, I studied under the Carrows. It was the worst time in my life. I felt powerless to do anything about the things I saw. I know, the Gryffindor response is that I should have tried anyway and damn the consequences—”
“It’s not,” Hermione allowed. She looked away for a moment, but that was all the time she gave herself. She was not in the habit of looking away. Not from pain, or darkness, or people who look at her like Malfoy was now. “Gryffindor or Slytherin, brave or cunning, foolhardy or cowardly... they were schoolyard boundaries that lost their meaning in war. All we could do was survive.”
Malfoy’s gaze felt heavy. “And to my surprise, I did survive, my parents, too. We found each other after the battle. I felt like I could finally breathe for the first time that year. In the same courtyard, you were yelling about house elves.”
“I wasn’t yelling.” Hermione cast her memory back. “I was speaking passionately.”
“At a loud volume. Slughorn tried to shush you.”
Hermione grit her teeth unconsciously. “I had some choice words for him.”
“I remember. Everything quickly changed after that. The trials, the pardons for my mother and myself, the decision whether to retake my final year at Hogwarts. I wanted to leave, but Gringotts was slow to reopen and even if another school would take me, I wouldn’t be able to pay. And I didn’t want to leave my mother.” He took a long sip of his tea, his hands large compared to the dainty cup. “She was distraught. My friends were either dead or grieving or angry. Everything had changed. I didn’t know how to live in this new world, so I picked up my books again and applied myself to my schoolwork. I was in the library when you started your S.P.E.W. campaign.” He said it like she did, sounding out the letters of S.P.E.W.
“Re-started it,” Hermione said, recalling her fourth year. “With the Triwizard Tournament, it wasn’t the time for it, but that final year at Hogwarts I needed a project and the house elves needed an advocate. I don’t remember you being there.”
“You were involved in an argument with Finch-Fletchley for most of that afternoon.”
“I argue with a lot of people.”
“It’s one of your best qualities.” Before Hermione could even internalize his words, Malfoy continued speaking. “After everything, I had trouble seeing good in the world. And there you were, being passionately, loudly kind.”
Hermione had the terrible feeling that her cheeks had gained color. “That’s not usually what people say.”
“Don’t they?”
“I don’t do it because I have a soft heart. I do it because it’s wrong, and I’m not going to live in a world where people can legally do such a thing. Bossy is how people usually see me,” Hermione said with a reluctant smile. She could do little else. Malfoy looked mystified at the thought that not everyone saw her as warmly as he seemed to. “And a bitch, of course. How dare a muggleborn interfere in a pureblood’s right to beat his slaves?”
Muggleborn wasn’t the word the worst of them used, but Hermione won’t put that word in her mouth, no matter if she bore a scar on her arm with that word forever. With the amount of darkness in Bellatrix’s spell, it healed slower than a proper scar, and even years later Hermione preferred robes to tank tops. She was proud of who she was; that didn’t mean she liked the reminder of one of the worst times in her life.
“I think the better question is how dare someone try to stand between Hermione Granger and what she believes in. Even the Dark Lord couldn’t manage. You spent countless hours talking about house elves at Hogwarts. I couldn’t do much else except listen. And when Gringotts returned to operation, I sent my first donation.” With a roll of his shoulders, he added, “Some of it was guilt. My father treated our elves badly.”
“He did,” Hermione agreed, no give in her voice. “Your father and people like him were the reason I started S.P.E.W.”
“I did, too.” Malfoy’s gaze didn’t stray from hers. “Kids don’t have a particularly well-developed sense of empathy, and I grew up privileged, for lack of a better word.
“No, that’s the word.” A half-smile had formed without her permission. “You were a brat.”
“I learned from the best,” he said with a huff, shaking his head. “My parents didn’t place importance on learning to be kind to anyone considered lesser than us, which I took to mean everyone. I made my apologies to you, Potter, Lovegood, others. House elves don’t want apologies and Dobby was dead, so I made a donation instead. I continued donating because it seemed like the right thing to do and I didn’t want you to stop giving passionate speeches in the middle of Diagon Alley, scandalizing poor grandmothers with the idea that they were evil for owning house elves.”
Hermione had seen him a few times. She’d thought Malfoy had been similarly scandalized, despite his donations. But he wasn’t. “I’ve toned down my rhetoric, but I still go out and proselytize.” One good turn, Hermione thought, and shared her own mistakes. “I didn’t understand house elves when I was fifteen and learned Hogwarts relied on them for food preparation and cleaning. I was a horror, knitting them clothes and trying to free them. I hadn’t talked to a house elf in my life with the exception of Dobby, who was an exception to the rule. I do better now.”
“I know. You have your own house elf school now, Professor Granger.”
“They mostly teach themselves, and by my partner, Mint. I work on adding elves to my database, collect genealogy information, badger everyone I know owns house elves to send them to me for health checkups and schooling. The creature department and S.P.E.W. are still working on approval for a bill that states that only adult house elves can be willingly bound into the service of a family. We’ve had more luck with our education measures.”
“First school, then freedom?” Malfoy asked.
“What they do with their education is up to them,” Hermione said primly. “My role is to listen, ensure their good health, and make sure every house elf in this country knows they have options besides serving their masters. S.P.E.W. was instrumental in passing the law against house elf violence.” By now, the creature regulation department was almost entirely populated by members of S.P.E.W., the others having been deliberately pushed out. One of Hermione’s goals was that by the next decade, anyone working with creatures would be either a member of S.P.E.W. or sympathetic to their cause. “It’s slow-going, but it’s going. And I’m not stopping anytime soon.” She took a sip of her tea. “Witches and wizards live long lives. I hope that by the end of mine, there won’t be a single house elf who is content to live in slavery, but at the very least, they’ll live in good conditions within voluntary bonds.”
“Like I said. Kind. I’ll continue to donate for as long as S.P.E.W. exists. You don’t have to worry about having to convince me.”
“I’m not worried. You should come to the next S.P.E.W. meeting,” Hermione offered, finding that she meant it. From her pocket, she took out a S.P.E.W. badge that she always carried. This particular one was hers, but she didn’t mind sliding it across the table. It would go on to be worn by a man who could appreciate it, which was all Hermione needed.
Draco looked delighted to hold it in his hand. “Do you mean it?”
“Yes. Meetings are held every last Wednesday of the month at seven pm at the S.P.E.W. offices. Space is tight, but we make do. If you want to get on everyone’s good side, bring food.”
It was odd, looking at Malfoy and not seeing the kid he used to be, not feeling the kid she used to be. Up until today, she hardly gave him much thought. Now Hermione considered the idea of S.P.E.W. meetings with a Malfoy in attendance and found it wasn’t a horrible thought. In fact, she was looking forward to it.
Her available time drew to a close. She had to be at the office soon. Malfoy walked her to the floo, throwing the powder into the fireplace for her. As the fire turned green, Hermione said, “I’ll see you in two weeks.”
With a bare kind of hope in his light eyes, Malfoy said, “And if I asked if I could see you sooner?”
To discuss elvish welfare? Hermione thought to say. It would be sufficient to derail that line of questioning. She hadn’t come here with romance on her mind. She had a feeling that if she did derail him, he wouldn’t bring it up again. He had sent donations to her organization for years without requesting membership. It could be a small, easily forgotten blip in their partnership of beliefs and charity. Hermione hadn’t gone on a date in a while. Passionate interest in house elf rights did not endear her to everyone, and she preferred not to date those already active in S.P.E.W. to avoid any awkwardness that could arise.
But there had been worse feelings than awkwardness between her and Draco once upon a time. It hadn’t stopped them from finding themselves standing beside each other on the edge of something strange and maybe wonderful. Hermione was an optimist if only because one could not operate a charity without great optimism that one day good would edge out greed.
And there was goodness there in Draco, and he was handsome, and Hermione found she didn’t want to say no. “Owl me. I can make room in my schedule.”
Draco was better-looking when he smiled. It had been a long time since Hermione had seen him do so, if ever. “I will.”
Hermione stepped through the floo. Mint would have a lot to say about this. So would Ron and Harry, but for now at least she held her happiness close to her chest, and mentally flipped through her schedule to see when she was free.