Chapter Text
Part 1: A Pouring Out
Hermione didn’t like beer. It was weirdly flat but also not and looked like pee and tasted like, well, pennies or something. She didn’t understand why her parents liked it so much. They hadn’t before Australia, but she knew well by now that repairing her parents' memories hadn’t removed their memories of being the Wilkins or their new hobbies.
Her dad had taken up genealogy in a vain attempt at tracing the Wilkins line. Despite the failure to trace his own non-existent family, Wendell Wilkins became known among friends as the history guy and some would even give him permission to do some light digging into their families. When the dust had settled after his return to David Granger, he was finally able to start on his project of tracing the Granger family tree, and he spent hours poring over the library’s microfiche archives.
Monica Wilkins had picked up carpentry, of all things. It started with her frustration over the cost of flat pack furniture that she was certain she could make herself for far less cost, and she was right. From there her little side business took off; custom pieces mostly, and she didn’t turn much of a profit because she didn’t really need to. She was still a dentist first and foremost, after all. Needless to say, Hermione had several Amanda Granger pieces in her apartment and had helped her mother set up a little online shop to help her sell more as she began to cut her hours at the practice back to prepare herself for retirement.
So her parents had gotten new hobbies. Did it make Hermione feel slightly uncomfortable - like she didn’t really know her parents anymore? Yeah, if she was honest with herself, but she couldn’t begrudge them living their lives. Even it felt strange and sad to feel distanced from them, she could only be happy when she realized how untouched they were by the trauma and bloodshed she’d experienced. They’d gone on to find things to make them happy - to fill the space that she imagined she might have occupied before she’d ripped herself out of them.
But beer? Her parents had always been wine people - maybe scotch after a relatively rough day. They had been of the mindset that beer was déclassé before. Now they were of the mindset that claiming any drink was better than another was simply not possible because everyone had different tastes and really, saying one was better just because it was more expensive was just discriminatory against those of lower socioeconomic statuses who had more access to beers as opposed to wines. Hermione might have even conceded to the point if she hadn’t seen the absolutely bonkers cost of some of the beers they bought, but she supposed their heart was in the right place with the argument.
After much prodding and poking and flat-out begging, Hermione had agreed to accompany them to one of the many local breweries. Their favorite local brewery, in fact.
“You’ll love it,” David said as they settled themselves in their seat at a high top by the front window. A perfect spot for people watching if any of them got bored. “Drake is the best server. He’s an apprentice brewer here, too, and he really has a knack for finding something for everyone.”
The hostess who was laying their drink menu in front of them smiled. “I’ll let him know you’re out here. He’s assisting at the bar today, but I’m sure he’ll be willing to run drinks and apps for you.”
“Thanks, Jess,” Amanda said before turning her attention eagerly to the drink list.
A few minutes later, a voice from just behind her called out as it approached, “Mandy! Dave! Haven’t seen you in a bit! How are we doing, then?”
It was a voice that Hermione recognized despite the 5 years since she’d last heard. There was very little about Draco Malfoy that was forgettable. Hermione went rigid in her seat. What was the little shit doing around her parents? He didn’t even notice her as he walked up to the table to speak to her parents, and the view of him even from the back was enough to confirm his identity. That perfect shade of platinum blond couldn’t be bought. Hermione slowly slipped her hand into her purse and wrapped her fingers around her wand.
After exchanging pleasantries, Amanda waved in Hermione’s direction, “Oh, and we’ve brought our daughter with us, too.”
Draco turned a dazzling smile toward her. A dazzling smile that disappeared as soon as he saw her. His eyes went wide and his face blanched. Hermione’s grip on her wand loosened. He… hadn’t known they were her parents.
“She doesn’t like beer,” her dad said, oblivious to the clear tension between them. “Work your magic and find something to turn her to the dark side with the rest of us beer lovers.” He wiggled his fingers as he said the word magic, and normally that would have made Draco laugh. The reference to the dark side, especially with a hero of the light sat right there, made his skin crawl. He broke into a cold sweat that he hoped Mandy and Dave - the Grangers, he supposed - wouldn’t notice. Not that they’d give a fig for him long once Granger outed him for everything he was.
Hermione cleared her throat, “Well, Drake? I’ve heard no one gets by you without one beer they like.”
Draco swallowed and forced a customer service smile to his face. “Of course. What’s do you fancy, then?”
Hermione arched an eyebrow, fully pulling her hand from her bag to rest her chin on it with what she prayed was an air of nonchalance. “Aren’t you supposed to tell me?”
“I can’t read your mind,” he paused where he’d normally throw out her name - Granger.
Sensing the pause, her dad helpful piped up, “Her name is Hermione, by the by.”
Draco took a steadying breath, “I can’t read your mind, Hermione. I need to know what your tastes are. Food, drink, sweets.”
She stopped herself from asking if he really couldn’t read her mind. She knew he could if he wanted to. His accomplishment as a legilimens was what had kept him and his mother alive during the war. Instead, she said, “I prefer savory foods to sweets. I can’t stand frosting on cakes, honestly. Drink my tea black and my coffee with a splash of milk. Oh, and I prefer Shoc-O-Chocs to Sugar Quills.”
Her parents looked at her funny, not aware that these were the names of wizarding candies. Hermione wasn’t really one to share her candy consumption with her dentist parents growing up as she was pretty sure they’d have her brushing three times a day if they’d found out.
Draco simply nodded, before saying, “I’ll get you a flight of tasters. I’ve got a pretty good guess of which you’ll prefer, but I’ll throw a more out-there choice in there, too, to give you a bit more of a choice.”
Hermione nodded. No thank you. None of the manners or respect her parents had taught her to show to servers present. She didn’t think it necessary.
Draco turned to her parents and Hermione watched as his shoulders relaxed just a bit and his smile became a bit easier. He liked them. He called them Mandy and Dave, for Merlin’s sake. And they let him! Despite having never been called that in their lives, they let him. She watched as Draco leaned over the table slightly, his grown-out, floppy hair falling a bit in front of his eyes as he looked at which beer her mother was pointing out.
“Do you think I would like this pumpkin beer?”
“No,” he said very seriously before breaking out a winning smile. “I think you’ll love it.”
Her mum - Mandy - giggled and said she’d have it. Her dad said he’d leave his drink to Drake.
Oh, God! Her parents liked him, too. There was a comradery here that unsettled Hermione.
Draco gave Hermione a sort of weary glance before he walked away to grab their drinks.
Hermione’s mum leaned across the table. “What was all that, then?” she asked.
“What was all what?” her dad asked, leaning forward too.
“The tension, David! Did you not notice the tension?” her mother said, slapping his arm and then turning to level Hermione with a rather significant look.
Oh no. Dear God. Her mother thought she was attracted to Draco Malfoy. Well, to be fair, her mother thought she was attracted to Drake, the nice beer boy. It didn’t matter how she thought of it, though, because it was wrong on so many levels.
“We went to school together! Hogwarts…” She blurted out. At her parents' shocked expressions, she knew it was only a matter of time before they started piecing together that they weren’t exactly mates at school. For some reason, that turned something acrid in her chest. “He sort of disappeared after… after the war. He’s only really seen around wizarding London when he’s visiting friends or his mum, and that isn’t often from what I understand. I suppose, well… I suppose we were just shocked to see each other, is all. It’s not often you run into someone you know from the wizarding world in the muggle world without planning, you know?”
Her mother seemed to relax at that explanation a bit, though she may have been a bit crushed to have her matchmaking scheme so quickly squashed before her eyes. Her father, though, still seemed horrified.
“Dad?” she asked, tentatively.
“You mean all those jokes I made about him being a wizard with drinks… a right magician with ale…?”
Hermione suddenly burst out laughing. She didn’t know where it came from, and she really didn’t laugh with that much abandon anymore, truly. Still, the idea of Draco Malfoy putting on his best muggle performance and still being called a wizard - a magician with card tricks and birds in hats - was hilarious. “Dad! I can’t - cannot - believe you!”
David buried his face in his hands, blushing and embarrassed. It was around then that Draco reappeared with two pints in one hand and a wooden plank balancing four tall shot glasses in the other. He slid the plank in front of Hermione before using his free hand to place a pint in front of each of her parents. He turned back to Hermione and pointed at the last glass on the plank. “I think you like them all, but you’ll prefer the middle two, and favor the last.”
“Order of worst to best, then?”
“Good to better to best would probably be more accurate.”
Hermione was tempted to drink the last one first just to spite him, but if it really was the least bad option she didn’t want to blow it. It could be used to get rid of the other foul tastes. She picked up the first shot glass.
“I’ll check on you guys in a bit, but wave me over if you need me before, yeah?”
Her parents promised they would and when he turned to look at her, she simply nodded.
When he was back behind the tap bar, she sipped her first taster. Definitely better than the beers she’d had in the past, but she still couldn’t say it was good. Bearable. If Ron and Harry were insisting on going out for drinks, she could nurse one of these all night with little issue. She set it back in its little groove in the plank and picked up the second.
Ignoring her parents staring at her as if she were a test rat in a lab, she sipped the second. Good. Better than the first. Seemed Draco was telling the truth. This one felt thick on her tongue and tasted sort of like salted caramel but without the sweetness. She ran her tongue across her teeth in an attempt to scrape the taste off before trying the next one. Really, he should have offered them water.
The third beer actually made her eyes widen in shock - or Choc-O-Shoc, if you will because that’s exactly what it tasted like! A Choc-O-Shoc! She took another tentative sip and relished the taste, thinking of her nights gorging on Honeydukes hauls with Ginny. She couldn’t understand how that was beer. It was rich and just spicy enough to keep the chocolate taste from becoming overpowering. She set the glass back and eyed the last one. Best?
Her parents were still watching her like she was about to take her first steps or say her first word. She took a sip, and her eyes slightly watered. Sour. And delicious. She didn’t know how he could have known that she would like that, but he had somehow. She loved tart things. She loved the way they made her mouth tingle and eyes water. She took another sip and found herself conceding to Malfoy for the first time in her life. That wasn’t just a good beer, it was the best.
Her surprise must have been evident on her face because her parents smiled at one another before her dad waved Draco back over.
“I think she’s picked out which one she wants, Drake!” he said with a slap to Draco’s shoulder.
Draco smiled at him before turning to Hermione and letting his smile dim slightly. He awkwardly pawed at the order pad in his hands. “What can I get you?”
She tapped on the plank by the (empty) fourth sample. “Seems you were right. I’ll have a pint of this, please. What’s it called?”
“Cheeky Cherry Gose. Not officially on our menu until fall, but they’ll give it to you if you ask for it by name.” He nodded towards the other servers at the bar. “It’s my mastery project so to speak. I have my general certificate in brewing, but once I’ve officially received my diploma in brewing next month more of my brews will be available on the menu.”
Hermione nodded, digesting just how much muggle education Draco was undergoing. Before he could walk away, David grabbed his arm and squeezed. “Hermione here told us you know each other from school, and I… well I just wanted to say I’m sorry for all the magic man jokes I made. Those probably weren’t as funny as I thought they were.”
Draco looked horrified. Far more horrified than he should have considering she hadn’t told her parents what a brat he was.
“Please don’t apologize to me,” he said, gently pulling his arm away. “I don’t deserve any apologies. I only owe them.”
The colds sweat was back. Draco thought he might be swaying on his feet.
“I’m sorry, dear, I don’t understand,” Amanda said, confused by his sudden uneasiness.
Draco looked back at Hermione’s parents, and Hermione knew what he was going to say but couldn’t think up the words to stop him.
“I don’t deserve any apologies from anyone. I wasn’t some innocent kid,” he squeezed the pad in his hands and licked his lips. His voice lowered to an almost whisper. “I fought on the wrong side of the war. And I was a bully even before the war. Especially to… to Hermione. So just- just don’t apologize to me.” His eyes were darting around the room now as if he was looking for an escape. Finally, his eyes settled on Hermione. “Um, I’ll have someone get your drink and take over your table.”
Without waiting for a response, he spun on his heel. She watched him as he retreated to the bar, stopping to presumably pass on her order and her table before escaping behind a staff-only door.
“Hermione, is this true?” Her mother asked, her voice shaking with emotion. It wouldn’t feel very good, she imagined, to find that you’d befriend your daughter’s childhood bully. Even worse still to find out he may have tried to kill her.
“It is,” she said without looking away from the door he’d disappeared behind.
Her dad gasped. “Why isn’t he in jail? You said they were all in jail.”
She looked at her parents and leveled them with a tired and war-worn gaze. “Because he saved my life.”
It wasn’t something she didn’t like to think about if she could avoid it. Really, she avoided thinking about the war at all if she could help it. Most people did. She certainly didn’t speak about it with her parents, so recounting how Draco had thrown himself against her to push her out of the path of a curse she hadn’t seen despite it putting him in the path of it - recounting how he’d held his wand up to her and asked him to pass it on to whoever needed it - it made her ill. Telling her parents about his trial was worse. She tried to spare them the details because, despite her being their first concern always, it was obvious that Malfoy was someone they’d come to care for.
Her mother wouldn’t let her skimp on the details, though. Hermione practically gulped at the Cheeky Cherry that some other server had hesitantly placed in front of her. She told them about the less violent memories that had been retrieved from him first. The verbal abuse, threats, occasional beatings. Then she told them about the curses, the unforgivables, the assault on his mother.
She had to cast a silencing charm and a notice-me-not charm to distract from her father’s sudden and harsh sobbing. Her mother’s tears were unshed but obviously one careless blink away from dropping.
“I’m not mad at him anymore, honestly. I don’t hate him, and I don’t think he hates me. From the looks of him working in a muggle place and earning muggle diplomas and making muggle friends,” she placed her hands on theirs as she said the word friends, “I think he’s trying to reeducate himself, which is a lot more than some of the other paroled wizards and witches can say. Hell, it’s a lot more than a lot of my friends would be willing to do in the muggle world.”
“I’m sorry, Mia, I’m sorry,” her dad said, wiping at his eyes and nose with his sleeve. “I know I shouldn’t be sad for him. He was awful to you. I should hate him. I hate him.”
Hermione shook her head. “I don’t hate him. Did do when I was a kid, but not now. He’s not exactly my favorite person, but I’ve not fought a war for the discrimination to simply shift to the other side, you know. And anyway, I wouldn’t want to be judged on some of the things I did and said as a stupid kid anyway.”
Her dad took a shuddering breath and her mom blinked very slowly, willing her tears back inside her body.
“I’ve never known anybody wiser than the two of you,” Hermione said. “And if you liked him - if you saw something in him that made you want to reach out and care for him like you… like you take care of me - I think that means something. Don’t let a little childhood rivalry between the two of us get between your weird friendship with your favorite server.”
She squeezed her hands as her parents huffed at her ‘childhood rivalry’ description. They squeezed back. “It’s just a lot to digest,” her mom said.
“Fair,” Hermione said.
The three of them finished their beers, paid, and left the brewery.
-
It was two months after ‘the beer incident’ when her parents invited her to the same. She hadn’t mentioned the whole ordeal to any of her friends. Draco Malfoy had made a point to keep his life post-war out of the public eye, and she wasn’t about to ruin that by telling Ron or Harry or Ginny what had happened. To be completely honest, she was a bit relieved by the invitation. She had been haunted by the idea that she might have single-handedly ruined Draco Malfoy’s attempt at becoming a better person and integrating into muggle society.
As they made their way to the brewery, Hermione’s parents explained to her that they had gone back twice since piecing together that Drake was actually Draco, the boy Hermione who had made their daughter cry, complain, and rage over the years. They’d conspired to catch him on his lunch break and had dragged him into a booth where, sensing the levity of the discussion that was about to be had, turned a blind eye to Draco having a drink himself.
They talked about how he’d terrorized muggleborns all through school and the role he had played in the war. They refused to give Hermione any of the details he’d shared.
“Only, they aren’t our secrets to tell, Poppet,” her dad said, rubbing a hand in circles on her back. “We only pushed to know to figure out whether or not he seemed worthy of a second chance.”
“Of course, we can always find somewhere else to drink. It’s not as if London is lacking in breweries. You are always, always our first priority,” her mother said, fidgeting as if she was afraid Hermione’s willingness to come along with them was simply her acquiescing despite her own enjoyment. While that was true enough for their last outing, she was sort of looking forward to that Cheeky Cherry, and she wouldn’t say no to checking in on Malfoy. She owed her life to him after all, so the least she could do was check on him.
Besides, she couldn’t say she wasn’t curious about how he’d started his career in beer of all things. Perhaps if her parents weren’t interested in betraying his past (a mislaid loyalty, but one she could respect nonetheless) she might needle some details out of the man himself. They were going around his lunch break again because her parents thought they should all get the first awkward chat out of the way in the most spectacularly awful way imaginable.
Well, at least she could use that to her advantage. That would be the cunning move after all, and no slytherin could fault her that.
From the space between her parents’ shoulders, Hermione could see Draco’s face light up in what most would call a dim sort of way, but what Hermione knew was probably more emotion than Draco was ever allowed to show growing up bar disgust. He looked sort of nice without degradation on the tip of his tongue and some distance between his bigotry and himself.
It was with a jolt of shock that she realized he looked like a normal muggle doing his normal muggle job as a normal muggle server and - to top it all off — he was in normal muggle jeans. Jeans! Morgana, how she would have loved to be a fly on the wall the first time he tried a pair of those on! She could just imagine the horror on his face. Probably a more pronounced horror than the one that froze his smile and clammed up his skin when he saw her walk in just after her parents. At least she’d like to think it would have been more pronounced.
A hostess, seeing that Draco - Drake - had caught their attention, passed the appropriate number of drink and app menus to him and pawned the group off on him. Draco led them to a little booth far from the windows unlike Hermione’s first/last visit. The initial exchange was awkward, but her mother basically demanded he bring their drinks just before his break so he could sit and chat a bit.
He did as he was told, one of the rare (only?) times Hermione got to witness him in compliance with a non-violent source. He laid down each beer in front of them before sliding into the booth beside Hermione, his arm jostling hers.
A few sips and pleasantries in, and all of a sudden the senior Grangers simply had to dance and fled to the ‘dance’ floor - an open space that rarely hosted more than the odd bar queue.
“I suppose we’ve been left to settle things between ourselves,” Hermione said, trying her hand at light-hearted. Maybe even joking if she was willing to let herself believe she was that freewheeling.
Draco grimaced and clutched at his untouched pint. “I suppose they mean for me to make amends - as well as I can, anyway.”
“But you’ve already apologized to me! Surely they can’t expect more.” Draco’s shy disregard for her suggestion said enough. “Did you not-? You didn’t tell them? You didn’t tell them you’ve apologized already?”
Draco shrugged, shame and something heavier weighing his shoulders down. “What could it do?”
“Maybe my parents thinking the guy they’ve somewhat befriended over the past year wasn’t unendingly evil to their child? Maybe that?”
He shrugged again. He didn’t want forgiveness just because he’d managed to repent and attempted to relearn. He needed something more. So what could the forgiveness and understanding of her parents provide besides comfort?
“It would just sound like a cop out- an excuse. I don’t deserve that and neither do you and neither do your bloody fantastic parents.”
“That apology meant nothing to you then?” Hermione asked, defensive and knowing that his apology had in fact meant a lot and offended he might be implying otherwise.
“That’s not what I mean!” Draco said in a quiet but stressed tone. “Just-! I just don’t feel like your parents should feel pressured to forgive me just because I apologized to you, you know? And you shouldn’t have to put up with me just because I’m good at figuring out what kind of beer people would like.”
She could yield to that. It was a rather blunt metric by which to judge choices. She couldn’t help but respect the slight martyrdom path he’d taken with her parents, too. No doubt they would have believed him if he’d mentioned his hasty, snot-riddled apology from years ago, but he didn’t bring it up despite the clear regard he held her parents in.
What she couldn’t understand was, “Why do you care what my parents think of you anyhow?”
Draco shrugged. “They’re just so… nice. Maybe that sounds stupid, I don’t know. It just feels like they actually care and aren’t just doing all the basic niceties.”
He ran his hands through his hair and sighed, and Hermione noticed the red creeping up the back of his neck and crawling over his ears. He was flushed with embarrassment at the admission that he was a normal human who liked to think people cared about him. And her parents did. Care about him, that is.
She cleared her throat and took a sip of her drink. She didn’t really feel like mocking him for wanting basic human affection, so she steered the conversation in a different direction. “Why beer? Better yet, why muggle beer? Surely there are some breweries in Wizarding London.”
Draco huffed. “Needed something to do. No potions master worth his salt would be willing to take on an ex-deatheater as an apprentice,” he shrugged again. “Brewing sort of reminds me of potions. I got a tour of a brewery a couple of years back and that’s what really kicked it off for me. Also, there aren’t any wizard-run breweries in London, at least as far as I know. How many beer options have you seen around Diagon Alley?”
It was Hermione’s turn to shrug. “Dunno. I usually just get a butterbeer if wine isn’t available, but I know Ron and Harry get the pretty standard beers. And I think there are some fancy ones at the Leaky Cauldron?” She was pretty sure she remembered Ginny getting some dark beer that she enjoyed and that the boys, after begging sips off her, gagged on.
Draco nodded. “There are, indeed.” Some trace of smugness returned to her face. “Who do you think Abbot buys them from?”
Hermione turned in her seat to get a better look at him. She sort of wanted to laugh. “So then why have I been forced to drink some nasty swill every time I’m there for trivia night?”
His smug smiled dropped into a scowl. “Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it’s bad. Besides, I’d imagine you’d let your choices be swayed by Tweedledee and Tweedledum and trust them to pick the least complex beers.”
She rolled her eyes. At least there was one unchanged thing about Malfoy. Was it concerning that she found that kind of comforting? It made it easier for her to believe this grown-up, less shit version of Malfoy was actually the same one that had hexed her teeth and more or less threatened her life repeatedly over the course of several years.
People can change, and if people can change so can the world. That was what she told herself, but sometimes it was nice to have something or someone remind her that it wasn’t just some pretty fantasy she was feeding herself.
“You could at least be decent enough to sell her this one,” she said with a little tap against the glass.
He inclined his head but didn’t say anything. A whistle sounded from the bar, and when they looked over, the owner was waving Draco over. His break was over.
He pushed his untouched pint to her. “Not tart, but not sweet. Give it a try,” he said before pulling himself out of his seat and giving a wave in the direction of her parents.
She watched him walk away and only when he’d disappeared behind the swinging ‘employees only’ door did she take a sip of the offered pint. It was good. Not Cheeky Cherry good, but after a few sips, she found she liked the taste almost as well.