Remain Nameless

Chapter 18

After a quick shower, Hermione emerged from her bedroom dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt to find Draco taking stock of the framed pictures on her living room mantle. He had re-dressed in his suit trousers and dress shirt from last night, but damn if he didn't still look perfectly put together. Not a wrinkle in sight.

She watched him as his hand reached up and plucked a frame down to inspect it closer. Frowning, he stared at it for a few moments before shaking it and then inspecting it again to look for any movement.

"It's a Muggle photo," Hermione explained as she approached him. He looked up, startled, and flushed slightly at having been caught handling her things.

"Your parents, I presume?"

Hermione looked down at the photo he held and nodded. It was from her parents' wedding day, both of them smiling widely at the camera, her mother clutching both her bouquet and her new husband's arm tightly. The Grangers looked so young and carefree, and Hermione had trouble remembering a recent time when they'd looked that happy, that unburdened.

"You favor your mother," remarked Draco, lifting the photo up next to Hermione's face. "Though I can see now where you get the hair," he teased and Hermione chuckled. Before her father started losing his hair, his head was covered in the bushy curls that Hermione eventually inherited.

She wondered what Draco was thinking as he carefully replaced the frame on her mantle and his gray eyes swept along the rest of the pictures accumulated there. There were two more of her with her parents: one from her fifth birthday and another from their holiday in France when she was 13. All the rest of her framed memories were of the wizarding variety: several from Hogwarts, all the Weasleys in various images, Harry and Ginny's wedding day, Harry holding an infant Teddy, and the prized photo at the front and center of her with Ron and Harry. Hermione couldn't remember for the life of her what Ron had been saying in the photo, but she and Harry were throwing their heads back in giddy laughter, Harry removing his glasses every few moments to wipe tears away. Luna's husband Rolf had taken the picture at the Burrow several years ago and Hermione loved it for the hope it inspired. After everything the three of them had been through, school stress, arguments, running for their lives, keeping secrets, romantic relationships, loss of family and friends, more life-threatening scenarios than they could count, they could still laugh this freely with each other. They could still love one another, unreservedly.

She had a sneaking and sad suspicion that Draco did not have any personal keepsakes like these displayed in his home.

"I think I'll take my tea now, did you want another cup?"

Draco shook his head and flushed again. "I, uhh, haven't had any either." When Hermione gave him a quizzical look he explained, "I didn't know where you kept the milk and sugar and didn't think you'd appreciate me rummaging around your kitchen."

Hermione almost smacked her forehead in exasperation at her own thoughtlessness. When she'd told Draco to "make himself at home" while she showered, she should have realized this might be slightly uncomfortable for him. Hermione's townhome was a mixture of the magical and Muggle, but her kitchen in particular was almost entirely Muggle. Having learned to cook without magic, she relied on the comforts and ease of Muggle technology like her electric stove, refrigerator, and microwave. In her opinion, all the stasis charms in the world couldn't compete with the convenience of a refrigerator.

Hoping he hadn't felt too foolish around the unfamiliar devices, she led him back to the kitchen. He took a seat on one of the stools at her marble island and Hermione busied herself with fetching tea so as to occupy her mind and hands. Though she wasn't looking, Hermione could feel his eyes on her as she opened her fridge to get milk and then pulled some sugar from an overhead cupboard.