Chapter 13: A Toast to Ghosts
The world reformed around them in a burst of golden light, not the crushing squeeze of apparition but a gentle, unfolding warmth. The air shifted from Scottish chill to something soft and Mediterranean. Hermione’s senses swam for a second before solidifying.
Rolling hills stretched out under a twilight sky bleeding from violet to indigo. Terraces sculpted the land, draped in neat rows of gnarled grapevines, their leaves silver-green in the fading light. The scent was incredible: sun-baked earth, crushed herbs, the sweet promise of ripening fruit, and beneath it all, the faint, tantalizing note of fermenting wine. Crickets had already started their evening song.
And there, on a flagstone terrace overlooking the vista, stood a single table. A crisp white linen cloth, two simple chairs, a lantern whose flame danced behind glass. It was isolated, private, perfect.
Draco’s arm was still firm beneath her hand. He didn’t move immediately, allowing her to take it in.
“Where is this?” she breathed.
“Tuscany. A private vineyard. The owners are… discreet.” He led her forward, pulling out her chair with an old-world courtesy that felt both natural and utterly surreal. The silk of her dress sighed against the linen seat.
He sat across from her. The lantern light carved his features in sharp relief, softening the cold grey of his eyes to something warmer. For a moment, they just looked at each other. The silence was a live thing, humming with all the words they’d never said.
“No politics,” he said, his voice low. “No past. Just this.” He gestured loosely, a slight tilt of his chin encompassing the table, the view, the space between them.
“Just this,” she repeated, testing the words. They felt fragile.
A soft pop announced the arrival of a house-elf, clad in a neat tea towel patterned with grape clusters. It placed a bottle on the table with reverent care, then two crystal glasses. The elf bowed deeply to Draco, then disappeared without a word.
Hermione’s eyes fell on the bottle. The label was handwritten, elegant script on creamy paper. The vintage year made her breath catch. It was the year of the Battle of Hogwarts. The year everything changed. It was also, she knew from Scorpius’s occasional, quiet mentions, the year Astoria Greengrass had graduated. Her favorite vintage.
Draco followed her gaze. His expression didn’t change, but a muscle feathered in his jaw. He reached for the bottle. The cork came out with a soft, sighing pull.
“This feels…” she began, then stopped, searching for the right word. “Significant.”
“It’s just wine, Granger.” He poured, a deep ruby stream catching the lantern’s flame. “Good wine. That’s all it has to be tonight.” He handed her a glass. Their fingers didn’t touch.
She took it. “You’re not very good at ‘just’, Malfoy. The location. The dress code. The wine.” She raised an eyebrow. “It’s a lot of orchestration for something casual.”
He swirled the wine in his glass, watching the legs paint the crystal. “Isn’t all of life orchestration? We just pretend it’s chaos. I prefer to be deliberate.”
“Even about forgetting the past?”
“Especially about that.” He took a sip, his eyes closing for a brief second. When they opened, they were fixed on her. “How’s the wine?”
She tasted it. It was complex, bursting with dark cherry and something like old leather and thyme. It was, unmistakably, exquisite. “It’s beautiful.”
“Good.” He leaned back in his chair, seeming to relax by a fraction. “Scorpius says you’re overhauling the fourth-year practical syllabus. Causing minor revolts with increased essay lengths.”
The shift to the mundane was so abrupt she almost laughed. Almost. It was a lifeline. “The minor revolts are led by one particularly outspoken Hufflepuff who I’m convinced is a young politician in training. Your son, incidentally, is a silent accomplice. He provides the research, she provides the theatrical outrage.”
A faint, real smile touched his lips. “That sounds like him. He always was better at working from the shadows. Likes to avoid the spotlight.” He paused. “Unlike his father. At one time.”
“And now?” The question slipped out, unbidden.
He considered it, his gaze drifting over the darkening hills. “Now I find the spotlight rather draining. I prefer… focused light.” He looked back at her. “A single lantern. Far more manageable.”
The air between them seemed to thicken again. Hermione took another sip of wine, buying time. “Why tonight, Draco? Really. The note was…”
“Arrogant? Presumptuous? Cruel?” He supplied the words without flinching.
“All of the above.”
He set his glass down carefully. “Because patience is a currency I’ve run out of. Because you looked at me after that duel not like I was a Death Eater, or a Malfoy, or even Scorpius’s father. You looked at me like I was just a man. And I found I liked it.” He drew a slow breath. “And because I saw the way you looked at that empty space on your desk next to your family photo. I have the same empty spaces in my house.”
The honesty was a physical blow. It stripped away her defenses more effectively than any spell or snide remark ever could. She had no witty retort, no academic deflection.
“This is a terrible idea,” she said softly, not looking at him.
“Almost certainly.”
“People will talk. The Prophet will have a field day. ‘War Heroine and Reformed Death Eater: A Scandal in Tuscany.’”
“Let them.” His voice was edged with a quiet ferocity. “I’ve spent a decade reading what people say about me. About my family. About my wife. I’m done letting editors and gossips dictate the geometry of my life.”
Hermione looked at him then, truly looked. She saw the lines of grief around his eyes, the weight of solitude on his shoulders, but also a newfound, weary determination. This wasn’t the boy who’d sneered on the Hogwarts Express. This was a man forged by fire and loss, trying to build something from the ashes.
“The wine,” she said, changing the course again, feeling the need to steer them to safer, if deeper, waters. “It was her favorite.”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Yes. She had a case put down the year we were married. ‘For the future,’ she said.” He traced the rim of his glass. “She was always thinking of the future, even when she knew hers was… limited. I’ve never opened a bottle before.”
The significance of the act hung in the air between them. He was sharing a memory, a sacred thing, with her. “Thank you,” she said, meaning it. “For sharing it.”
He gave a single, tight nod. “She would have approved. Of you, I mean. Not necessarily of this.” A ghost of a smirk. “She had a better moral compass than I did.”
“And what does your compass say now?”
He leaned forward, the lantern light flickering in his eyes. “It says north is a moving point. It says that after years of darkness, you find your direction by the stars you can see, not the ones that are gone.” He held her gaze. “It’s pointing… inconveniently… at you.”
Hermione’s heart was a frantic drum against her ribs. She felt unmoored, adrift in a sea of her own long-buried wants and his devastating frankness. This was the man who had once wished her dead. This was the father of her sharp, kind student. This was a widower drinking a memory, and offering her a future.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she confessed, the words raw.
“Neither do I.” He reached across the table then, slowly, giving her every chance to pull away. His fingertips brushed the back of her hand, where it rested beside her wine glass. His touch was warm, grounding. “We could learn. Together.”
The simple contact sent a current through her. It wasn’t the electric shock of the duel, but something deeper, a resonance that vibrated in her bones. She turned her hand, letting his fingers slide against her palm. A tacit agreement. A beginning.
The house-elf reappeared silently with plates of food—simple, glorious food. Sun-ripened tomatoes with buffalo mozzarella, pasta with a fragrant wild boar ragù, bread still warm from the oven. They ate. They talked. They carefully naviged around the minefields of their history, finding islands of common ground: their children, their work, a shared, dry humor about Ministry bureaucracy.
The wine bottle emptied. The stars wheeled overhead. The lantern burned low.
When the elf brought small glasses of limoncello, Draco finally asked, “What happened? With Weasley.”
It was the first direct question about the past. She could have deflected. But his thumb was drawing slow circles on her wrist, and the night felt like a confessional.
“We grew up,” she said, swirling the golden liquid. “And then we grew apart. He wanted a loud, full house, Quidditch on the wireless, everyone talking at once. I wanted… quiet. I wanted intellectual partnership. After the war, after all the noise, I think I just craved silence. He felt like silence was a rejection. Maybe it was.” She took a sip, the lemon sharp and sweet. “There was no great betrayal. Just a slow, quiet erosion. Until one day we looked at each other and realized we were strangers who shared a history and two wonderful children. It was sadder than a blow-up, I think. There was nothing left to fight for.”
Draco listened, his face unreadable. “Do you still love him?”
“Yes.” The answer was immediate, honest. “But not the way a wife loves a husband. He’s the father of my children. A part of my life’s foundation. That love is… familial. Permanent. It’s not the love that keeps you warm at night.”
He nodded slowly, as if he’d expected this answer. “Astoria and I… we were a arrangement that became genuine. It was peaceful. She was my peace. Losing her was…” He stopped, shook his head slightly. “The silence after her wasn’t something I’d chosen. It was a vacuum. You chose yours. That’s a different kind of courage.”
They had moved closer without realizing it. The night was cool now, and Hermione felt a slight shiver trace her spine. Draco saw it. He stood, shrugged out of his tailored jacket, and draped it over her shoulders. It was warm from his body and smelled of him—bergamot, parchment, that faint, clean magical signature.
He didn’t move back to his seat. He stood beside her chair, looking out at the vineyards now shrouded in soft darkness.
“I should get you back,” he said, his voice rough. “Before Minerva sends out a search party.”
She rose, the jacket snug around her. She was close to him now, closer than they’d been all evening. She could see the individual lashes framing his grey eyes, the slight unevenness of his lower lip where a old, faint scar bisected it.
“This was…” she began.
“A first step,” he finished for her.
He offered his arm again. She took it. This time, her hand settled more naturally into the crook of his elbow.
They didn’t apparate immediately. They walked slowly along the terrace path, back towards the apparition point, the only sounds their footsteps and the distant chirp of crickets. His shoulder brushed against hers.
At the appointed spot, he turned to face her. The jacket was still around her shoulders. He made no move to take it back.
“Friday,” he said. “Next week. Dinner. At my home. I’ll cook.”
“You cook?”
“I’m full of surprises, Granger.” A real smile, this time. It transformed his face, easing the years of sadness. “Scorpius will be at Theo’s.”
She understood the implication. A dinner with no buffer, no easy escape. Just them.
The fear was still there, a cold knot in her stomach. But beneath it, unfurling like a new vine, was a thrill of anticipation.
“Okay,” she said.
His smile deepened. He lifted his hand, hesitated, then gently tucked a loose curl behind her ear. His fingertips grazed her cheekbone. The touch was fleeting, but it burned.
“Okay,” he echoed.
Then, with the faintest pressure at the small of her back, he guided her into the twist of apparition. The Tuscan night dissolved, but the warmth of his jacket, and the ghost of his touch on her skin, remained.