The Potions Mouse

Chapter 6

Hermione left Hogwarts the next day.

For a time, keeping up with her was easy. The intense public interest persuaded her to do a limited interview with the Quibbler, reprinted with permission and a hefty fee by the Daily Prophet. She gave no more information than Sprout had. Predictably, it was not enough. Nothing would have been.

Term ended, the summer solstice passed, and the Prophet continued to run stories any time she left The Burrow. Hermione made headlines just by visiting the Weasleys' joke shop in Diagon Alley or venturing into Muggle London by way of the Leaky Cauldron.

Public interest waned over the summer, thanks to society's shortening attention span and a salacious scandal involving the Department of Magical Transportation and the owner of a troubled broom manufacturing company. Hermione's forays into the world moved to the second page, then the oft-ignored human interest section.

By the start of next term, Draco had stopped searching for her name in the papers.

The physical distance between them had provided clarity. He had grown attached to Sylvie the mouse; he acknowledged that. But in the early days of Hermione's transformation back into a human, there had been no separating the two. Sylvie was Hermione, Hermione was Sylvie. Affection for one was affection for both.

He thought he'd been in love, but he knew as much about Hermione as she knew about him. The bond they'd formed over their month together, though unique, was not one that could serve as the foundation for a relationship.

But it hadn't left him unscathed. Whether she remembered or not, Hermione had given him a taste of unconditional love, and there was no going back to a life without it. So, he adopted a cat. A selectively affectionate shorthair named Crystal with a bite out of her ear and an inch off her tail. She didn't do much more than stare at him for the first few months, but late in November, when his dungeon-adjacent room grew cool and his windows rimed with frost, she deigned to crawl onto the foot of his bed to sleep.

It was a start.

~*~*~

Draco trudged the path to Hogsmeade with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. A blizzard had dropped six inches of snow on Hogwarts and the surrounding area, inspiring a feeling of hibernation he wished he could indulge.

Unfortunately, he had agreed to meet his mother at Madame Puddifoot's for afternoon tea. He didn't mind the walk; it gave him time to think. Narcissa had pulled back on her insistence that Draco find a wife, but the reprieve was temporary. A strategic adjustment due to Hermione's reappearance and his mother's shrewd, almost arcane knowledge of his emotional state.

He tapped his boots on Puddifoot's threshold. Bells tinkled above his head as he entered, ringing a tinny, Yuletide tune. Not a single table was occupied. The girl behind the counter glanced up from her Witch Weekly.

"You Draco Malfoy?"

He pulled the balaclava down from his chin.

"Yes."

"Your mother Firecalled. Told me to tell you she isn't going to make it. Came down with a cold."

She cracked her chewing gum and turned back to her magazine. Draco bit down on his irritation. It wasn't like his mother to cancel last minute.

He stood beneath the tea shop's awning and surveyed the street. Hogsmeade's main thoroughfare had been cleared for pedestrians, and couples walked arm-in-arm, off to lunch or to finish their Christmas shopping. He had none of the latter to do, but a pint at the Hog's Head would at least warm him for the walk back to the castle.