Much Ado at Nott's

Day 3

Draco, feeling better and having finally disclosed to the company that he was feeling less than 100%, was installed in a chaise on the terrace, overlooking the garden and a small alcove underneath.

He put on his sunglasses and, warmed by the sun, decided to take stock of his life.

He was 28 years old, 10 years out of school. He'd done good work as an Auror. But he wanted other things to look forward to. A life. A life with someone.

He wanted her, but it didn't seem possible. She had run away so quickly last year after the nights they'd spent together. Nights that still sometimes woke him up in a sweat, aching with desire.

All along, he maintained his image as the gentleman bachelor too busy and worldly for love. He did know that people fell in love out of the blue, sometimes. It had happened with Theo and Harry. He had seen Harry change, Theo change. Where they were once separate, distinct, would have flown leagues on a broom for their own interests, their lives were now combined.

They spent long hours talking about their life together and what it would look like. Plain talk turned into baby talk. Sometimes, they sounded a little stupid. But love had turned them into oysters, and perhaps the next oyster would be him.

But there are so many women in the world, he thought. All remarkable in their ways. Some beautiful, some wise. Some thoughtful, some rash. Could everything exist in one woman? At the least, her hair could be whatever color it wanted to be, as long as it was dark brown and curly.

He sighed and felt another dull wave move through him. Whether it was physical pain or the pain of love, he didn't know. Missing her, he tried to piece together his memory of last night. Her arm around his bare shoulders, her hands on his bare arms and chest. Her fingers in his.

But in the daytime, he could only imagine her wanting to be his healer. Nothing that happened in the night counted or could compete against the light of day, and this strange neverending battle they fought in it.

He heard voices underneath him in the alcove: Ginny and Parvati. He couldn't see them, but he could hear them perfectly. Draco was nothing if not a Slytherin and so, under his sunglasses, he prepared to eavesdrop.

The girls were playing a new song that was popular on both wizarding and Muggle radio:

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,

Men were deceivers ever,

One foot in sea and one on shore,

To one thing constant never.

Draco frowned.

Then sigh not so, but let them go,

And be you blithe and bonny,

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into Hey nonny, nonny.

Hermione, Hermione, Hermione, he thought.

Sing no more ditties, sing no more,

Of dumps so dull and heavy;

The fraud of men was ever so,

Since summer first was leafy.

The song ended. It had sounded like a cat howling pathetically for its mother. Crookshanks singing a love ballad, perhaps. Draco was pondering the sins of heavy rhyming with leafy when he nearly fell out of his chair at what he heard next.

"So let's pick it up, love. You think Hermione is in love with Draco?" said Parvati brightly.

"I know it. And terribly," said Ginny. "Beyond reason. She says she'll die if he doesn't love her back. But also that she'll die before she'll tell him. And she'll die if he loves her back, because then she'd have to stop taking his head off in front of everyone."