Chapter Text
The streets are crowded and people are shouting everywhere. A group of young girls is posing in front of an ancient building, a small audience is listening to a tourist guide explain the history behind a statue, the sun glitters on the greenish waters of the Tevere, and someone honks violently from a car when a scooter crosses the road at a red light.
“Stop laughing,” sibilates a tall, blond man, a hand in front of his face to shield his eyes from the sunlight, while shooting a killer look to his dark-skinned companion.
“You’re going to get so red,” the other man snorts as they quickly pace across a bridge, looking around them in search of a place to get some quiet.
“Stop laughing, you prat,” the blond repeats, his hiss almost poisonous.
His friend can’t really be bothered, though. “I can’t believe you forgot sunscreen. You’re already turning purple,” he grins on.
“Bloody hell, Zabini, stop laughing!” snaps Draco, slamming his open palm against Blaise’s arm.
Rome’s hot daylight is burning up his fair skin, and no matter how much Blaise is enjoying the sight of Draco close to fainting, both boys are far too used to London’s pale mornings to survive nonchalantly Italy’s torrid summer. They’re in desperate need of some water and shade.
When they finally find shelter on a bench in an alley in Trastevere, they draw a sharp breath as they fall ungraciously on their seat.
“I’m facing a very hard decision, Malfoy,” says Blaise, head thrown back and turning it slightly towards Draco.
“Huh?” he mutters in response, his index finger and thumb pressed on his closed eyes.
“There’s a drinking fountain over there,” Blaise goes on, raising his arm to point at the corner of the alley, where the narrow street meets a large square. “But I don’t think I have enough strength to…” He bursts into laughter when his friend almost stumbles over his feet to run to the fountain as though his own life depended on it.
Draco lets the water fall into his mouth, careless that it’s wetting his shirt as well: the more, the better, he thinks, given how much the weather is setting him on fire. His body is really not made for Mediterranean weather.
He rests against the column of the fountain for a while once he’s fully re-hydrated and closes his eyes. In the shade, the day becomes quite enjoyable actually: he can hear the footsteps of the tourists on the sampietrini, people shouting something in Italian, and he can smell… well, he’s not sure what he can smell but it must be something delicious.
His moment of quietness is interrupted by an applause that shakes his eyes open. Draco notices a tiny crowd on the opposite end of the square. A street artist must be doing some kind of show. He, Blaise and Theo have already seen so many of them around these ancient streets, and they’re not much different from those who populate every corner of London, but somehow they still manage to catch his attention every time.
He turns around to check on Blaise. His friend is still on the bench, eyes closed and chest rising and falling quietly.
“Zabini? Still with us?”
“Hm.” Blaise raises his hand just a bit to make sure he still has control over his limbs.
“Don’t die. I’ll be right back.” Draco leans down to drink some more water and then walks decidedly towards the crowd. Oh, it’s just another musician, he thinks as he approaches the audience and catches a pianoforte melody. He can’t help but squint his eyes and grimace, though, when he hears just how badly whoever’s playing is butchering the song. He gets closer and closer and makes his way to the first row, finally able to let his gaze fall on the pianist.
Her face is covered by a cloud of messy brown curls. Her fingers are moving swiftly on the keyboard and her legs are left uncovered by a light, short skirt; one of them is rising slightly up and down as she drums the heel of her foot to the tempo of the melody. The girl hits yet another wrong note and stops playing, letting her hands fall helplessly on the keys. She sighs and turns towards the audience with a bright smile.
Her eyes are chestnut brown and her full lips are a nice shade of dark pink. Prominent teeth, Draco notices: the kind he would have made fun of, back when he was a git in high school. She definitely had to put braces on at some point.
“Sorry! Not my lucky day apparently,” the young woman says with a laugh and a shrug. London accent. The crowd cheers anyway, evidently oblivious to just how much she destroyed Comptine d’une autre été, which happens to be the main theme of Draco’s mother’s favourite film.
A kid next to him steps closer to the girl to see the piano and he tells her something in Italian, which Draco is almost sure sounds like “Sei bravissima”.
She’s not. He raises his eyebrows in doubt, but for some reason he can’t walk away.
The young woman notices him standing there. His face must be really saying it all, because she smirks and raises her chin. “Something on your mind, you with the pepper face?” she asks with a playful tone.
“You happen to have some spare sunscreen?” Draco replies promptly. She wants to be the funny one…
“Sadly enough, I finished mine as well.”
Draco nods slightly, biting back a smile. She’s charming, he has to admit. “You do know you just tore a beautiful score down to pieces, don’t you?”
“Oh!” she exclaims, clapping her hands on her legs and looking back at the kid who’s still next to her and is hitting some random keys on the piano. “Looks like we’ve got an expert here!”
“I’m just stating facts,” Draco continues with a shrug. “So long as you’re aware…” She’s still smiling, something glittering in her eyes.
“I bet,” she says grabbing the bag next to the stool and standing up, “that you’re one of those it’s-either-Beethoven-or-it’s-not-music kind of twats.” She lowers her voice towards the end and covers the child’s ears, before patting on his back to direct him back to his parents.
“You don’t even know if he speaks English,” Draco comments.
“One can never be too careful.”
Draco hums in agreement, shifting his weight to the top of his toes and back on his heels as she approaches him. The rays of the sun cut through her eyelashes.
“And you got the twat part from…?” he gives her a teasing smile.
She studies him from head to toe, her gaze scrutinising his white shirt and his long linen trousers, and he feels his insides twist up nervously. Maybe he should have drunk some more water.
“...everything about you?” she concludes, arching an eyebrow. Then moves her voluminous hair to one side to braid it, leaving a freckled shoulder bare to sight.
“Piano’s there,” she says with a shrug. “Why don’t you give it a try, smartarse?” she whispers, leaning in slightly and eyeing the empty seat in front of the instrument.
Draco scoffs. He should leave it be. Besides, it wouldn’t be a fair game: he was born attached to a piano, after all, and has no idea if she can say the same.
But she’s looking at him with a clear challenge in her gaze, and Draco Malfoy can never turn down a challenge.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he says, gesturing for her to move aside and cracking his long fingers. She makes way for him with a smirk and twirls on herself to take his spot, crossing her arms together over her chest.
Draco sits on the stool and ponders for a second, unbuttoning his sleeves and rolling them up past his elbows, checking out the keys with serious eyes. Who even put a piano in the middle of a city square for just anyone to play? He shoots a look at the girl standing in the front row, her thick braid falling on her side and a grin curling up the corner of her lips.
“Right, then,” he whispers to himself. “Italy calls for Italian music.”
He brushes the keys with his hands, looking for the right ones to start. When he’s in position, he begins playing Nuvole Bianche by Ludovico Einaudi.
His movements are slow and steady when he commences, as if he’s waiting for the instrument to open up to him, like he’s carefully petting a stray cat. He checks a couple of times how his fingers are moving at the beginning, but once the melody starts building up, he lets his eyes close and his memory guide him.
As the crescendo of the symphony flows out of his fingers effortlessly, more and more people move closer to the piano from every corner of the square to listen to him play. They are in awe.
Watching Draco Malfoy play the piano is a mesmerising experience: he radiates a magnetic energy that can put everyone in silent contemplation of his performance. He becomes one with the piano, guiding harmonies and pauses so beautifully and smoothly that he seems almost capable of stretching time to his own will. It’s like magic.
His wrists are steady on the keys, his hands spread wide to control the notes under them, but he lets his head move rhythmically following the tempo of the music, causing his perfectly combed hair to fall messily on his forehead. The crowd grows bigger and bigger around him but Draco is blissfully unaware of it, completely lost in the rise and fall of his fingers, absorbed by the speed of the song.
The pace slows down a bit and the audience catches their breath, completely taken aback by the delicateness this young man is putting in his touches, by the way his pale fingers run on the keyboard with the precision of a surgeon. He picks up the melody again and his whole body gets lost in the music, shoulders raising and then dropping, making him curve closer to the piano.
He hits the last note, accompanying it with an almost imperceptible exhale.
The sound lingers for a long second in the air as he opens his eyes and slowly lifts his hands from the keyboard.
A moment passes.
Then, the crowd erupts in a thunderous applause, shaking him out of his musical trance and making him turn to face their cheers.
Draco stands and swiftly bows to them, thanking everyone with his eyes. A couple of old ladies approach him to shake his hand. He’s sure he can hear someone sniffle. That’s how good he is.
The last side of the crowd left to thank is the one where the curly-haired girl is, so Draco straightens up and gets ready for a provocative gaze.
Little did he know that the beautiful smile she’d give him would take his breath away. He mentally shakes his head and walks towards her, one hand raised to scratch the nape of his neck.
“Well,” he says, when they’re in front of each other again.
“Well,” she echoes, her smile taking up her whole face.
Draco feels his thoughts slip out of his mind. She’s really beautiful.
“Well,” he repeats, gesturing for the piano before burying his hands in his pockets. “That’s how you do it.”
She stares at him for a couple of seconds, biting her lip, before starting to rummage in her handbag for a notebook. He frowns at her in confusion.
“That was truly unbelievable,” she tells him, opening the scribbled pages towards the end, huffing when she sees the last one is already filled with writing.
She looks around before zeroing in on his bare forearm; in a heartbeat, she grabs it and hastily pulls it closer to write something on it with a pen. Draco startles, his eyes widen in surprise, but he doesn’t stop her.
He notices that the fingertips of her left hand are callous and her nails are cut short. String instrument, he immediately thinks. Maybe a guitar. Hands are a bit small for a guitar. Maybe she’s one of those who went big as a kid: the cello, maybe. The viola. Does she have classical training? Harp. Good old violin.
She finishes writing and puts back the cap she was holding between her teeth on the pen.
“If you’re free tonight, there’s this… I don’t know, let’s call it a party. With some friends. Maybe you can find someone there who won’t tear scores down to pieces,” she says with a wink, gently tapping on his arm with the pen.
Draco looks at the scribble on his skin and realises it’s an address. It doesn’t really sound familiar, but then again, nor does any other address in the city. Not that it matters anyway―he’s not going to go.
“You can bring a friend. Or two. If there is a friend, obviously,” the girl goes on, before checking her wristwatch without giving him the time to answer her. “I’ll be there. Ask for Hermione,” she concludes with another bright smile.
Hermione turns around to leave and Draco follows her figure with his eyes, but then she turns again and stops a few metres away from him. The sun plays with the different shades of brown in her hair. Her sudden spin on her heels makes her skirt flutter a little around her thighs.
“I didn’t catch your name?”
He briefly clears his throat. “Draco.”
Hermione smirks and he feels something in his chest warm up. “Well, I hope to see you soon, Draco.”
And in the blink of an eye, she’s gone.
***
“Your friend’s got a date!” Blaise shouts upon entering the flat they’re renting for the month in Rome.
It’s late in the afternoon but Italy’s bright sun shines until late in the evening in August, so the place is still filled with light. There’s some muffled music coming from the bathroom that stops playing as soon as Blaise’s voice booms across the place, and someone speaks.
“First of all, he’s your friend,” the new masculine voice answers sarcastically. “And second of all, does she have a friend?”
A slender young man appears in the living room, a long towel wrapped around his lower body while he’s using another one to dry his black hair with messy pats as he leans against the door frame.
Draco rolls his eyes and lets himself fall ungraciously on the sofa, kicking off his shoes. “It’s not a date. And you’re talking as if I’m planning on going.”
“You’re not going to stand a girl up, are you?” replies Blaise in a stern voice.
“That would be extremely impolite of you, Malfoy,” adds the other one, throwing the wet towel at Draco’s face.
“Thank you, Nott, but I’d prefer not to become your laundry hamper,” he replies, catching the towel before it can hit him and tossing it back at Theo’s feet.
The dark-haired man picks it up with a snort, then he heads to his bedroom to get dressed. “How did you meet her?” he shouts from the furthest side of the flat.
The answer comes from Blaise, who grabs a chair, straddles it and crosses his arms on the backrest. “She’s a pianist. She was playing in a square,” he underlines the word pianist with a change of his tone and a wiggle of his eyebrows while nodding eloquently towards Draco, who groans and rubs his closed eyes with the heel of his hands.
“A pianist,” repeats Theo, emerging from the bedroom buttoning up his clean shirt. “Silly me. Of course you’d have a date with a pianist.”
“She’s hardly a pianist,” exclaims Draco, shooting killer looks to both his friends. “She was just tapping her fingers on a piano and I happened to hear her. It was supposed to be Comptine d’une autre été…”
“The one from Amélie,” Blaise specifies looking at Theo with his eyebrows raised.
“Oh, isn’t that Narcissa’s favourite?” Theo points out, faking surprise.
They all know it’s Narcissa’s favourite. Draco knows the soundtrack of the film so well by now that he can play it at five times the regular speed without missing one single note.
“Yes, it is my mum’s favourite,” he drawls, still annoyed. “And this girl, she was just… I mean, you should have been there. There was blood in my ears,” he concludes, shuddering as he remembers the outrage.
“I’m sure you’re exaggerating,” Theo rolls his eyes as he walks towards the fridge in the open kitchen to grab some water.
“I am not!” Draco insists. “It was a mess. Truly, and…”
“And I bet you had to say something,” his friend mutters between sips. Blaise snorts.
“Of course he had to say something.”
“God forbid he ever shuts up,” Theo laughs, looking at the blond. Blaise smirks and Draco throws a pillow at him with a grunt.
“How bad was it?” Theo goes on, now rummaging in the fridge to find something to eat.
“Her performance?” Draco asks rhetorically, knowing damn well that wasn’t what his friend meant.
“Sorry, I phrased that wrong,” Theo replies, waving a hand in the air before straightening himself and looking at him over the fridge door. “How bad were you?”
Draco sighs, resigned. “I just asked her if she was aware of the butchering she had just done.” Theo gasps loudly, making Blaise almost choke on his own laughter.
“You didn’t!”
“I could have said worse!” Draco exclaims defensively, standing up from the sofa.
“That hardly justifies it,” Blaise mutters.
“You could have said nothing!” Theo agrees with his friend, causing Draco to grab a second pillow to aim at him, too.
Theo grabs a cloth on the sink to shoot back in retaliation, but Blaise stops them waving his hands around to bring the attention back to the issue at hand.
“Yes, children, be quiet now,” he scolds them. Then urges Draco: “Tell him what she did.”
Theo throws the cloth over his shoulder and crosses his arms, biting an apple and looking at Draco waiting for him to continue.
“Well,” the blond says, falling back down on his seat and putting the pillow in his lap, “first, she called me a twat.”
“Fair,” says Theo, nodding seriously.
“I agree with her,” says Blaise, raising a finger in warning towards Draco, who’s gripping on the pillow like he’s feeling lucky again.
“Piss off,” Draco mutters to the both of them. “Secondly, she told me I could have a go at it myself.”
“And?”
“What do you think he said?” Blaise looks at Theo as if he just asked whether the grass is green or purple.
“God, you’re like McFly from Back to the Future,” Theo says with a roll of his eyes. “If someone calls you a coward you just go mental. You should seek some help,” he concludes pointing at Draco with the bitten apple core.
“Look, there were people listening! They deserved a good performance, after she’d just destroyed a beautiful piece. Why on Earth should I have let it go?” Draco tells them, his arms open in dismay.
“What did you play?” Theo asks, ignoring him.
“Nuvole Bianche,” Draco mutters back. Theo scoffs.
“Show off.”
Draco shoots him the billionth venomous look of the day. “Fuck off.”
“I bet you did that thing with your shoulders,” Theo continues unfazed, before looking at Blaise. “Did he do that thing with his shoulders?”
“Can’t say, mate. I was half-passed out on a bench on the other end of the square.”
“What?! You missed the whole thing?”
“Believe me, I’m as devastated as you are.”
“Anyway,” Draco says loudly to bring the attention back to himself. He got to this point, let him at least finish the story. “After that, she gave me an address.” He rolls his sleeve up and shows his arm to Theo, who bursts into laughter.
“You should have at least introduced her to us before letting her tattoo you, Malfoy.” He steps closer to read the writing on Draco’s skin. “And?”
“And what?”
“And then? She gave you the address, and?”
“And nothing. She left,” Draco says matter-of-factly.
“No time? No mobile number?” asks Theo, a tad of incredulity in his voice.
“Nope.” Draco rolls down his sleeve, avoiding his friend’s gaze.
“She just left?”
“Yup.”
“No name?”
Draco hesitates. “Hermione.”
“Oh.” Theo seems to ponder it for a moment. “That’s a nice name.”
“I think it’s Greek,” Blaise says, reminiscing his English class days.
“Yeah, it was Helen’s daughter,” confirms Draco.
“Is she Greek?” Theo asks with a frown.
“Didn’t sound like it. London accent, actually.”
“What did she look like?” Theo asks, sitting on the sofa next to Draco, who looks at him sideways.
“Why do you care?”
“Come on, man,” Theo says, giving him a light push. “What did she look like?”
“She, uh…” Draco sighs, closing his eyes and taking his face in his hands, elbows leaning on his thighs.
Not that he doesn’t remember. He can clearly picture her fingers running over the piano. Her freckled shoulder. Her curly fringe. The glittering in her eyes, both from the sun and that peculiar something he couldn’t give a name to. Her round face, her plump lips curled up in a smirk. He just doesn’t want them to know how well he remembers her. They’re already irritating as it is.
“Not very tall, curly brown hair and brown eyes,” he says eventually.
“You can do better than this,” Theo teases him with another push.
“What else do you want me to say? I’m not bloody Shakespeare,” and he pushes him back.
“Was she cute?”
Draco looks at him with a loud exhale. “Yeah, Nott. She was cute. Happy?”
Theo smiles sardonically looking at the ceiling, before clapping his hands on his thighs. “Right, then. We’re going!” he exclaims as happy as a kid who just got chocolate without any particular reason.
“No, we’re not,” Draco mutters, falling even more into the sofa and stubbornly crossing his arms across his chest.
“Oh, yeah, we are,” Theo retorts, standing up with a jump. He leans closer to smell him and grimaces. “Get changed, you stink.”
“We’re not going!” Draco yells, slapping a hand on the couch and glaring at his friend’s back as he heads to his room.
“You have other plans, Malfoy?” Theo asks, turning around to face him.
“You can go,” he says, crossing his arms again. “I’m staying here.”
“I can’t go alone,” Theo says, drawing attention to himself pointing at his chest.
“Take Zabini.”
“Don’t throw me into this,” the other man exclaims quickly while Theo rolls his eyes. “Besides, I have plans, unlike you two.”
“That, and I can’t take Zabini, you useless prat, because he isn’t the one with an address written all over his forearm.”
“Just go alone then, I don’t care,” Draco concludes, throwing his head back on the sofa and closing his eyes dramatically.
“Christ, Malfoy! You’re going to have a shower, put a clean shirt on, and we’re going to go to this thing your new muse has invited you to. And that’s final!” Theo booms, before turning around one last time and storming away.
“She’s not―”
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” and the slam of a door reverberates throughout the flat.
Blaise chuckles at Draco’s grimace. “Cheer up, mate! It’s a party, it’s not the end of the world.”
The blond groans audibly and then drags himself to the bathroom to shower.
As he strips down to his underwear, Draco looks at the scribble on his arm, passing a finger on it, weirdly remembering Hermione’s warm touch. Her writing is precise and round; he brushes his skin following the arched letters for a few instants, before grabbing his phone and typing the address in the maps to check how far away it is from their place.
40 minutes by foot. Maybe he can still prey on Theo’s laziness and convince him to drop it.
11 minutes by car. Let the day the prick decided to rent a scooter be damned.
***
The building is in an elegant neighbourhood in a residential area not far from Villa Ada. The facade is painted in a pastel shade of pink, with geometric decorations between the windows and the balconies. There are noises coming from the visible top terrace, some distorted music and colourful lights; Draco eyes it as Theo parks the scooter in front of the entrance.
“I’m fairly certain that’s the place,” he says pointing at it with his chin. “But I don’t have a surname for the intercom…”
Theo is already at the main door, though, pushing it lightly. “Worry not, my dearest boy,” he grins. “It’s already open.”
The boys walk in through the long corridor that takes them to a small, rounded courtyard. There’s a stone well in the middle, meticulously decorated with bas-relief. Plants growing everywhere, some innocuous ivy on the walls. By the structure and the decorations, it’s clear that the place is pretty ancient and yet well looked after. Theo looks at the many doors on the sides, unsure about which one to head for: with a quick glance to the top, they guess the right staircase and take the elevator to the top floor.
As they lock themselves in the rusty lift, Draco looks at the various floors passing in front of them and he can feel an unusual sweat on his palms―definitely not eased by Theo’s relaxed stance. He scratches his arm lightly; the writing didn’t entirely come off under the shower, no matter how long he rubbed at it.
When they exit the elevator, they let the noise guide them once more towards the right door.
“Well, then,” Theo says when Draco hesitates with his finger on the doorbell. “What the bloody hell are you waiting for?”
The loud ringing of the bell is quickly followed by the smiling face of a redhead girl, who opens the door with a bright look in her eyes.
“Buonasera! Posso aiutarvi?” she asks, letting her curious gaze ping back and forth between the two boys.
Right, this is still Italy, Draco thinks, shaking his head quickly. He really just expected her to speak English. Theo is already stepping up to show off his awful―awful―Italian skills, but Draco stretches his hand to touch the jamb of the door, making him clash chest-first against his arm.
“Erm, sorry… Do you speak English? I’m Draco, I was told to come here by Hermione…” he trails off, already picturing the ginger telling them they got the wrong door, the wrong flat and even the wrong building. He knew he shouldn’t have come. Instead, the girl lights up even more and smacks her palm to her forehead.
“Oh, God, yes, Hermione! You must be the pianist!” she exclaims pointing at Draco. He raises his eyebrows, a surprised noise escaping his lips. He can feel Theo sneering behind him but decides to ignore him and to keep his focus on the hostess, who is unaware of the consequences of her words.
“Sorry about the Italian, I just… never mind. Please, come on in! Shoes off, please,” she goes on, making way for them through the door. Draco and Theo step in and leave their shoes with the countless others in the entryway.
“I’m Ginevra, by the way,” the girl says, stretching her hand out for Draco to take, “but you can call me Ginny.”
Draco shakes it and then proceeds to introduce Theo, but his voice fades away when a nebulous mass of chestnut hair appears in the doorframe and his breath catches.
“...Theo. I’m Theo,” his friend says, taking Ginny’s hand and shoving Draco out of the way. “And I’m not half as rude as my plus one is, I promise.”
Ginny chuckles. “I think he just got distracted,” she smirks, cocking her head towards Hermione, whose face is glowing with a beautiful smile as she approaches the trio.
She’d changed into a dark yellow dress that gracefully wraps her silhouette, still leaving her legs exposed. Her small fringe falls unevenly on her forehead, the shadow of her curls on her pink cheekbones. Her lips are tinted a dark shade of red, and her eyes are still flickering with that ineffable thing Draco can’t quite pinpoint. He knows―Draco just knows that Theo is having the time of his bloody life seeing him frozen on the spot. But he can’t bring himself to look away from her.
“Make yourself at home, boys,” Ginny concludes before sauntering away when she hears someone shout her name.
Hermione is standing face to face with Draco now, head tilted to the side. “Do you know about the existence of these things called t-shirts?” she asks, bringing a hand up to fiddle with the collar of his shirt.
Draco snaps out of his trance and glances away with a smirk. He’s about to come up with a sarcastic remark, but once again she doesn’t give him the chance to speak.
“Oh, so you do have a friend,” she says, turning to his friend to shake his hand. “Theo, was it? I’m Hermione.”
“Pleasure’s all mine, Hermione. My friend here,” Theo says, emphasising the word friend with a glance at Draco, “tells me you’re a pianist.”
Draco’s head snaps back to look at them and he can see Theo’s gaze holding back everything he’s dying to scream at him; it’s a challenge not to roll his eyes.
“Oh my, you’re already talking about me, I’m flattered!” Hermione says gasping and bringing a hand to her chest in mock surprise, as he clears his throat and looks around, terrified by the flush he can feel taking up his cheeks. Theo snorts and Hermione giggles at Draco’s expression, then she proceeds to show them the way to the living room.
“I’m not really a pianist, by the way,” she adds. “I was just trying something. My boyfriend―well, my ex boyfriend,” she’s oblivious to Theo’s elbow deep in Draco’s gut, “he’s the pianist and he tried to teach me a couple of songs in the past. But according to your companion here, I’m more of someone who… tears scores down. Isn’t that right, Draco?” Hermione concludes with a grin, turning around to let her back lean against a door.
“That’s what you were doing,” he nods, trying to keep his tone as relaxed as possible and his eyes on her… s. On her eyes. Get a bloody grip.
Hermione shrugs with a smile as she pushes the door open, and Draco feels his jaw go slack. The living room is huge and there’s a light night breeze coming from the opened terrace doors. There are people everywhere: some outside, some on the sofa, some other on the large carpets… and everyone, every single one of them is holding an instrument. There’s a group playing trumpets, another with flutes, and he spots a couple of oboes, too. The sound of an electric guitar comes from an indefinite place, while a man is playing the beautiful black pianoforte in the middle of the hall.
“So,” Hermione’s voice forces Draco to bring his gaze back on her. Not that it’s that difficult of a thing, at this point. “Drinks and food are over there,” she points at one corner of the room. “You guys had dinner? Ginny’s grandma prepared…” but Theo cuts her off with a yelp when he sees the large table full of incredible-looking goods and makes a beeline for it. Hermione chuckles and then looks up at Draco, who tries and fails to drive his eyes away before she catches him staring. What are you, twelve? You think she didn’t notice you staring? says a voice in his head. He tries to silence it with a harsh clench of his jaw, but it doesn’t really go away.
He mentally shakes his head, then clears his throat. “I’d like to point out that Ginevra said, ‘You must be the pianist’ when I introduced myself, so…” he smirks down at her, “you’re already talking about me as well.”
Hermione’s smile widens. Her cheekbones lift when she smiles, her eyes narrow a little. And there’s a natural flush to her cheeks that he wonders whether they’re as warm as he thinks. She raises a hand and gently passes it on his forearm, until she reaches his wrist. Her fingers linger there for a moment in which Draco holds his breath. Mouth suddenly dry, he’s sure she can feel his muscles tighten under her touch.
Hermione wrinkles her nose slightly before speaking again. “I’m glad you could make it.” Draco locks eyes with her, and it’s a second that lasts a lifetime. He draws a sharp breath and Hermione pulls her hand back with a playful glint in her eyes.
After recovering from her warm touch, Draco scans the room to try and distract himself from her presence so close to him. “So, what is it that’s happening here? When you said ‘some friends’ I wasn’t expecting a concert crowd.”
“Oh, well,” says Hermione, jumping on a table next to him to sit down. Draco notices that her knees are resting dangerously close to his torso, but she doesn’t seem to mind. “Ginny studied at the Conservatory and made friends with basically everyone there. All those people also have a lot of friends, and her house is…” she waves a hand around, gesturing to the place, “well, big. So, every now and then, we all meet here to party and play.”
“And how do you two know each other?” Draco asks mindlessly, forcing himself not to let his eyes wander to her.
Hermione scoffs and slaps him lightly on the arm. She really has no idea how much even a brush of her body against his makes his senses awaken―or maybe she does know, and she doesn’t care. Or worse, she does it on purpose. Likely, given the look in her eyes.
“What makes you think I didn’t study at the Conservatory, too?”
He tries to bite back his smile but it’s a lost cause. “Do you really want to talk about this afternoon again?”
“I swear I can play some songs!” Hermione laughs, and it’s one of the prettiest melodies Draco has ever heard. “I just don’t remember that one very well.”
“Whatever you say, miss…” and he realises he doesn’t know her surname. Which isn’t exactly ideal for him, given how Draco Malfoy would call his own parents with their surnames, had he been given the chance. “Miss?”
“Granger. Have I not properly introduced myself yet?” she responds in a coquettish tone, stretching out her hand. “Hermione Granger, pleased to meet you. Mister…?”
“Malfoy,” he says, taking her hand in his. Her palm is warm and his long fingers wrap perfectly around her shorter ones. “Draco Malfoy. At your service.”
“Mister Malfoy,” she repeats, like she’s tasting the sound of it in her mouth. “That sounds… old?”
“You implying something, Granger?” There goes the Greek name, he thinks to himself.
“Who, me?” she pouts, giving him an innocent look, and Draco’s brain falters for a second. “Nothing further away from the truth!” She smiles at him, letting go of his hand.
“Well, you’d be right if you did. It is pretty old. My father would tell you the entire story, but I’d skip that part, honestly,” he says, turning slightly so as to hide his right arm from her sight. His fingers flex to close in a tight fist. “You haven’t answered my question yet.”
“Right! Ginny. Well, no, we didn’t meet at the Conservatory,” she explains and Draco chuckles lightly, “but through her cousin. You see the redhead by the piano?” Hermione points with her chin at the small group of people around the black Steinway. There’s a ginger head standing out amongst them, with a set of piercing blue eyes looking back at the two of them. “That would be Ron, Ginny’s cousin. And my ex-boyfriend,” she adds, making Draco frown. “Absolutely fantastic keyboardist, bit of a wanker but what can you do,” she comments with a shrug.
Draco is still staring at the redhead: he’s chatting with someone, but Draco can clearly see the man’s jaw clenching. He has the sudden impulse of smiling, for some reason.
“We met when he and Harry,” Hermione goes on, pointing at the bespectacled boy with a mop of black hair sitting next to Ron, “were looking for a guitarist for their band and I auditioned.”
“Oh, so you’re a guitarist,” Draco looks back at her with a smirk.
“God, no,” she laughs. “I auditioned because I lost a bet with another friend of mine.” She points at the third guy sitting by the piano, blond and round-faced. “That’s Neville and he’s a guitarist. And an incredible one at that. Wasted with those two idiots, if you ask me,” Hermione says, raising her voice when she notices that now all three of them have turned to see who she’s talking to. Neville laughs and finger-guns her while Harry just rolls his eyes and shows her the finger. “Anyway, then Ron introduced me to Ginny and she and I became friends, so I still have to tolerate him to this day,” she concludes, her voice still loud as Ron stands up and approaches them.
“I can hear you just fine, you don’t need to scream,” he says when he’s in front of them. Hermione blows him a kiss, before moving her hand back and forth between Draco and Ron to introduce one to the other.
“You the pianist?” Ron asks, offering his hand.
Draco resists the urge to shoot Hermione a meaningful look and shakes his hand. “In the flesh.”
Hermione looks briefly at their handshake and hides a grin with a sigh. Knowing Ron, he has probably put his whole strength into that single handshake but has possibly lost the match because Draco’s grip is tight, as she has just found out. She finds Ginny’s gaze on the other side of the room where she’s talking with Theo, and her friend eloquently raises an eyebrow: she can see the sparks between the boys’ looks as well and shakes her head. Men.
With a clap of her hands, Hermione jumps down from the table. “Schubert or drink, anyone?” she asks, patting both Draco and Ron on the shoulder as scattered cheers spring up across the room. Maybe she just has no bloody idea what personal space is, Draco thinks when he feels her palm on his shirt again. Not that he’s complaining. God, no.
Truth be told, he’s beginning to hope she won’t just stop at those simple touches. There’s something there and he’s sure she can feel it, too. He just doesn’t know if they’re on the same page about what that something is.
“Does your friend here know what Schubert or drink is?” Ron asks eyeing Draco, who has to admit he has no clue what they’re talking about.
“It’s easy,” Hermione begins, as Ginny promptly drags Theo to the piano and takes her seat on the stool, cracking her fingers. “You have to play a famous classical piece by heart, and every time you make a mistake you drink a shot of whatever liquor you can find around you. We call it Schubert or drink because it first started when Ron had to learn one of his pieces for… oh, I don’t remember. We got pretty hammered. That’s the whole reason why it became a game, actually.”
“At least I learnt the piece afterwards,” the redhead comments, grabbing a beer.
“Ron is proud to call himself the only one who can get through a whole Tchaickovsky without drinking a single drop,” Hermione declares as her ex-boyfriend walks away, replaced by Theo joining them.
“Prat,” the brunet mutters under his breath, but loud enough for his friend to hear.
“You haven’t even met the guy,” Draco replies in a whisper.
“Something about his face. Red hair irritates me.”
“You didn’t look irritated with Ginny.”
“Piss off,” Theo says with a half-kick to Draco’s knee. “Besides, she’s together with the glasses guy. My luck is not as good as yours, it would seem.”
Ginny begins playing a Bach with her eyes closed, and after a couple of seconds everyone in the room starts holding their breaths. She isn’t missing a single note and doesn’t look like the good streak is going to break anytime soon, until…
She skips a B flat and opens her eyes with a loud groan as the people around her start laughing and booing. Harry grabs a shot glass and fills it to the rim before handing it over to her with a comical face.
“That’s basically it,” Hermione says with a smile, as someone else sits at the piano and starts playing a Chopin. “They’ll just go crazy with every instrument now, and in a bit,” she leans in and lowers her voice, “after the famous pieces are finished and everyone starts expecting the difficult ones, Ron will sit on the stool and catalyse everyone’s attention.”
Draco scoffs. “You two have a weird relationship.”
“Oh, we’re good friends,” she replies, grabbing a glass and filling it up with what looks like sangria. “If I really hated him, he would know. Everyone would know. Here, you haven’t touched food since you got here,” and she passes the glass to Draco.
“This isn’t exactly food.”
“Oh my God, does he have to be such a prick about everything?” she asks Theo with a theatrical eye roll.
“I gave up on him a long time ago,” he shrugs in resignation.
Someone starts playing Debussy’s Clair de lune, and Theo immediately heads back towards the piano the moment he hears the first notes. That piece is the one he prepared for his final exam at the Royal College of Music in London, and it took him countless hours sitting on the piano stool to get to the end of it flawlessly. Unfortunately, the repercussion was that both Draco and Blaise had gotten a piercing headache that still kicks in whenever they hear the song. The boy playing it misses an E sharp, so Theo shoves him out of the way to start from the beginning.
“You don’t want to be here for his brag when he finishes,” Draco tells Hermione when his friend starts playing, his hand going to the small of her back without even realising it. When his brain catches up with his body, though, he doesn’t pull away. Instead, he presses gently, feeling the light cotton of her dress under his palm. The thought that the fabric is the only thing keeping his hand from touching her bare skin makes his heart do somersaults in his chest.
Hermione ducks her head, a mass of curls covering her face for a moment. When she peeks at him from under her eyelashes, a small, satisfied smile tugs the corner of her mouth in a shape that Draco wants to trace with his fingers. He blinks away the sudden thought and guides her towards the terrace.
Outside, the night is hot and the sky is clear. There’s a half moon in the sky and the city is flickering with lights. Ginny’s place is on the last floor of the building, therefore Rome’s skyline is perfectly visible from there: from the unmistakable curve of the San Pietro’s dome to the outline of the Altare della Patria.
Draco’s breath is taken away by the beauty of it; his eyes wander between the urban yellow-ish streetlights, taking in the grandeur of the Italian capital. The buildings are uneven and coloured in different shades of brown, red and orange, plants hang over balconies, massive and ancient architectures are juxtaposed to modern constructions, and here and there the villas leave large spots of green on the cityscape.
“Quite beautiful, isn’t it?” Hermione says softly, leaning her back against the parapet. “Ginny says that her grandmother always tells her about the time when glow-worms used to fill Rome. Can you imagine? It must have been magical.” She lets her head drop back a bit and her hair falls away from her shoulders, dangling down her back.
Draco looks at her curls bounce delicately, catching the moonlight. He diverts his attention to his glass, to stop himself from grabbing a lock and twisting it around his fingers.
“Is it your first time in Italy?” Her eyes are close and her eyelashes cast a long shadow on her cheekbones.
“Actually, no.” Draco turns around and leans on the parapet next to her. “I’ve been here a couple of times with my family already, but… I don’t know, there’s something about this city that just gets me every time like it was the first.”
Hermione nods quietly. Draco turns his head to look at her. Her collarbone is exposed, her chest rising and falling evenly with her breathing. The colourful lights from the living room play with her features as her mouth stretches out in a serene smile. She has lost a bit of lipstick but her lips are still tinted with red. She looks ethereal, and content. Something skips inside Draco’s chest at the thought that it might be because of him. He takes a sip from his drink.
“How about you?”
“Ginny lives here. We’ve been coming every summer for the last three or four years now, Harry, Ron, Neville and I.” She opens her eyes and cocks her head to the side, letting her chin rest on her shoulder to look at him. “How long are you staying for?”
“We’re leaving at the end of the month,” Draco says, holding her gaze. She’s so close, an arm’s length away. Her nose is cute.
Most people have headed back inside to play or witness the performances. There’s a boy lying on the floor and staring at the sky, a couple of girls on the other end of the terrace curled up in an armchair and exchanging tender cuddles. Theo is still playing: the notes diffuse in the air unblemished and faultless as he moves flawlessly through the melody.
“I think he’s gonna beat Ron’s record,” Hermione says, her voice low. Draco chuckles lightly.
“He does know it perfectly. Had to learn it for an exam. Did you know that Disney wanted to use it in Fantasia?”
“Oh, is this your flirt talk, Malfoy?” Her tone is playful and her eyes are alive with mischief, but they hold something else, too.
“What makes you think I’m flirting, Granger?” Draco puts his glass down between them on the parapet and turns his body to face her.
“I don’t know,” she sniggers, sticking out one finger. “First, there was that whole thing with the piano earlier today.”
“It was really bad,” he smiles. She faces him, too, and sticks out another finger.
“Then you come to the party.”
“Which you invited me to.” Hermione scoffs dramatically, ignoring him and sticking out a third finger.
“Then, oh gosh, the hand on my back? What is this, a period drama?”
“The accent would be right,” he chuckles.
“Bold move,” she concedes, leaning in imperceptibly. A curl from her fringe falls out of place and Draco’s fingers twitch when he restrains himself from putting it back where it was.
“In my defence, your hands have been all over the place as well,” he responds, locking his gaze with hers. The shimmering in her hazelnut irises makes Draco’s chest warm up with anticipation. “Maybe you’re the one who’s flirting, Granger.” His voice is husky, and he doesn’t miss her eyes drifting to his lips.
“Hm,” she mutters letting her eyes wander around for several moments before burying them back into Draco’s. “Fair point. Am I?” Hermione steps closer until their chests are inches apart.
Draco towers over her: she’s tiny, almost a foot shorter than him, and yet he’s terrified of what she’s making him feel. Conflicting emotions are swirling around his mind, but all he wants to do is lift his hands, grab her waist and pull her to him. He wants to feel her. The warmth radiating from her body. Her curves. He wants to bury his face in her hair and inhale its floral scent. So inviting…
His muscles spasm under the urge to move. Every new breath he takes is heavier, trembling. He doesn’t know why he’s holding back. He’s not usually like this. Actually―he’s never like this. What he wants, he takes.
Not Hermione. She makes him feel unstable on his own feet, insecure in his own skin. There’s something about this girl’s determined look that makes Draco freeze on the spot, locked in his position until she’ll make the final move. Because he knows Hermione is going to do something: the waiting might be unsettling and draining, and yet it’s shaking him to his very core.
Hermione looks down at his left arm: with his sleeves rolled up, she can see the scribble she left there, barely visible now. Slowly, she brings her hand to his skin and starts tracing the ink ever-so-slightly, making Draco inhale sharply. She lets the pads of her fingers run down his forearm, her short nails barely grazing his skin and yet sending goosebumps throughout his body.
He still doesn’t know what instrument she plays.
Before she can reach his hand, Draco twists his arm and gently grabs her elbow, finally pulling her closer. His other hand cups her neck, his thumb brushing her jawline, and Hermione is a heartbeat away. He can feel her breathing against his cheek; flecks of gold shine in her wide, round eyes. She holds her breath when he leans down and…
“Hermione!”
Draco silently curses, then sighs heavily. He lowers his head to his arm as Hermione turns her head towards the voice coming from inside. His hand is still on the nape of her neck when she reaches for his wrist, holding onto it, and looks back at him with the beginning of a laugh on her face. He meets her eyes, his tongue running over his lips absent-mindedly. This time her eyes linger on the movement without shame and when she looks up again, he can see she’s trying to conceal the disappointment.
“Talk about timing,” she whispers with a small smile, her thumb stroking his knuckles.
Draco bites his lower lip to suppress any words he knows he has no right to say, then nods and lets her go. “Won’t keep you any longer.”
Hermione scoffs, then spins on her heels to go meet the person who called her. Before entering the living room, she turns around and with a mocking smile she bows to Draco. He rolls his eyes at her antics and leans back against the parapet, washing away the dryness in his mouth with a generous sip from his forgotten glass.
He looks at her back as she walks away, his eyes eager to drink her in for as long as he can: her shoulder blades, barely visible under the volume of her hair; the fabric of her skirt, fluttering around with every new step; her scent, still lingering in the air around him. Running his hand down his face, Draco loudly clears his throat and with his eyes follows her trail until he can’t see the mass of curls he’s growing fond of way too quickly anymore.