Beauty From Pain

Chapter Twenty-One

Draco stopped in the middle of the street and felt entirely unimpressed. Tucked between a bar and a flower shop, of all things, the front of the shop was barely wide enough to hold one window and one door, and it looked entirely forgettable. The silhouette of a howling wolf head made of weathered iron hung over the stoop, the only indication of what lay inside. The small glass window was brimming with a display of sunflowers which prevented him from seeing the interior of the shop, but the wooden door, though faded and blending into the brick building, was inviting nonetheless.

He read through the shop hours displayed on the door countless times as he tried to calm his nerves. There was no way to predict how Hermione would react to seeing him, and he hated unknown situations. His stomach clenched tightly at the remind of how much he must have hurt her. Her face, the look of horror and pain when he had stepped into that atrium... Rolling his tense shoulders, Draco huffed. He wasn't going to get any closer to gaining her forgiveness if he spent the entire morning outside the shop. He had faced Death Eaters, giants, werewolves, and dementors. Surely he had the balls to knock on a damned door.

Before his inner voice that sounded far too much like his mother could lecture him about bravery, Draco stepped up to the door and knocked twice.

The door flew open before he had the chance to fully pull his hand away. He had to tilt his head down to see the woman who had opened the door, she was rather short compared to him. Her curly dark hair formed a wild halo about her head, and the vibrant green top she wore was nearly as blinding as her smile.

"Hullo, stranger! Welcome to White Wolf Designs. I'm Miranda. What can I do for you today?"

Mind spinning at her sudden appearance and how quickly she spoke, Draco tried to process what this woman had said.

Mistaking his silence for nerves, Mo smile gained a gentler light. "Is this your first time? Nothing to be worried about, sweetie, everyone gets nervous the first time around, but Jacob's a sweetheart and will take great care of you."

Draco shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment, trying his best to focus on what she had said. Miranda seemed to think he was a customer. "No, ma'am, I'm not. I've actually come to see a friend of mine, though I'm not sure if she's here today or not."

Something in her face changed almost imperceptibly as Mo heard his last sentence. Almost as if her smile took on a hardened edge to it. "She?" she asked.

Draco eyed the small woman. Though she most likely would have a hard time even reaching his shoulder, something about her struck a small amount of anxiety in him. "Yes," he spoke carefully, watching for further reactions from her. "Her name is Hermione."

"Ah." Miranda's smile all but disappeared as she stepped back from the doorway and gestured him inside. "You can wait in here while I fetch her."

He tried to ignore the icy notes in her voice. It was a safe assumption that Hermione had told this muggle at least enough for her to resent his being here. Draco made his way into the shop and stood only a few steps away from the door. It wasn't because he needed the option of escape, he told himself. He was just too anxious to sit down.

Miranda vanished through a door behind the front desk, and Draco took the opportunity to examine the shop.

He blinked. And then blinked again.

Muggles weren't capable of magic, but had he been asked Draco would have sworn an expansion charm had been placed on the interior of the tattoo shop. From the outside he would have guessed the shop was the size of a coat closet, and that was being generous, but the room he was standing in was spacious and welcoming. Light bulbs, much like the ones he had seen in Muggle Studies, hung from the ceiling and bathed the room in a warm, yellow light. You could hardly see the crimson color donning the walls due to the multitude of tattoo designs that were framed and hung haphazardly across every available wall space. The eclectically mismatched furniture and various potted plants made it feel more like someone's home rather than a professional work environment.