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What kind of person is miserable in Paris? Hermione Granger, as it turns out.
The trip was meant to be a couple's retreat, an anniversary celebration. She'd booked them a lavish hotel and plenty of sightseeing tours and even bought a new set of lingerie for the occasion. And then...
Well, it wasn't important now.
There were silver linings, of course. No matter the situation, there were almost always silver linings.
Silver lining #1: Hermione had a king sized bed all to herself.
Silver lining #2: She didn't have to worry that Ron would find the tours she'd scheduled boring.
Silver lining #3:
She sat outdoors at a frankly miniature table, drinking coffee topped with whipped cream because she hadn't expected the cultural barrier of asking for cream. She easily could have told the waiter it hadn't been what she'd meant when he brought the mug over to her, but her embarrassment at her complete and total incompetence at the French language kept her from admitting her faux pas. Instead she took the cup gracefully, offered the waiter a merci , and pretended not to notice him laughing at her with one of the other waiters by the cafe entrance.
She struggled to think of more silver linings. If Ron were here now, he'd probably be complaining about sitting still. She'd tell him to hush and enjoy the scenery and he'd try to do it, for her, but she would be able to tell he was restless until she finally gave up and permitted him to take her to some kind of pub that she would likely have no interest in frequenting without his insistence.
A lot of her life had revolved around making him happy. Doing things the way she thought he wanted, even when he didn't explicitly ask. She read into everything he said and did, pried meaning from even the most inconsequential of things— the tone of his hm when she showed him a new pair of shoes, when he didn't immediately shower her with compliments when she served him a dinner she'd spent hours concocting.
He hadn't been a bad boyfriend. Hadn't even been a bad man. But he wasn't right for her. She thought they complemented one another, thought that being friends since childhood and enduring sexual tension as they fought a war had to boil down to a perfect relationship. The truth was that she'd been living a fantasy.
Their chemistry had been dwindling the moment they'd won the war, their kiss in the Chamber of Secrets a peak that she hadn't realized would be the end of such passion. She told herself that relationships weren't built on passion. They were built on trust ( check ), friendship ( check ), and mutual care ( check ). But she still found herself with a hollow pit in her gut when he touched her and left no sparks behind. When he fucked her and she faked her pleasure for the benefit of his ego— yeah, no, that was amazing, I thought so too. When she tried to initiate sex and he pointed to his face and said he already had his mouth guard in, and maybe tomorrow?
It wasn't until Harry's wedding that she honestly realized that something was wrong. That she admitted to herself that they weren't perfect. It had been the beginning of the end.
She finished her coffee, mildly disgusted by the combination of it and whipped cream, left money on the table, and stood. She'd spent the previous four days going through the motions of the itinerary she'd created for herself and Ron before realizing that completing activities meant for two by herself was only giving her a tension headache. The tour guide would say in their accented English, you booked two tickets, non? and she would force a smile and reply, just me .
She wondered what they thought when she showed up alone. Did they assume the truth? Did they concoct some other version of events to explain the absence of her companion? Or, probably the most likely out of the options, did they not spare her a second glance?
Hermione was used to being noticed. After the war she'd graced front pages and headlines for months, and even when the news stopped paying attention to her every move, being approached in the street by an admirer wasn't out of the ordinary. She'd posed for photos, slinging her arms around the shoulders of strangers and smiling wide. She'd crouched down in front of little girls, clasped their tiny hands, and told them they could do anything they set their minds to. She'd even signed a man's abs after he handed her a permanent marker and lifted his shirt.
With all of her celebrity in Wizarding England, Muggle Paris felt even more foreign. To move about the city anonymously, strangers' gazes passing her face without pausing... It was both freeing and, oddly enough, unflattering. She hadn't realized she'd grown accustomed to the notoriety, but now, without it, she felt just as small as her younger self who'd fought so hard to be noticed, to be taken seriously.
Now she was just a Brit. A woman on her own in a country where she didn't know the language, where she didn't know a single person.
She sighed, hiking her purse up. The strap dug into the bare skin of her shoulder but she elected not to focus on the discomfort, instead surging forward into the street to join the clusters of tourists headed towards the most sought after destination in all of Paris.
She'd been avoiding visiting the Eiffel Tower, her imagination plagued with daydreams of Ron getting down on one knee as the structure glittered against the night sky behind her. How she might turn towards him, stumble backwards in surprise, how her hands might fly to her mouth to cover her shock. The clapping of onlookers, the flash of cameras, the cheers when she accepted the proposal and he swung her into a sweeping kiss.
There would be none of that. She didn't know how she ever thought there might be.
It was hot, the relentless sun beating down on the top of her head as she walked. She forced her arms down by her sides instead of allowing her hand to hold onto the strap of her bag; the position caused sweat to pool in the crooks of her arms.
She knew the tower would likely be crowded during the day, but even with the knowledge that her fleeting fantasy was nothing more than a foolish girl's daydream, she still felt that it might hurt to visit at night when she imagined the proposal would have taken place. She slipped her sunglasses from the top of her head to cover her eyes, immediately grateful not to be squinting any longer, and fell into step behind a couple with linked hands.
That pang of longing struck her like the vibrations of a guitar chord— loud at first, and then reverberating into gentle silence. She didn't miss Ron exactly. She more missed the idea of being in love in Paris. Of having a beau to hold her hand and visit tourist attractions with her. In truth, she was probably having a better time on her own than she would have if he had joined her, but still. It was the principle of the thing.
As she drew closer to the Eiffel Tower, the noise of the people grew louder. Children screaming, adults laughing, and the amplified voice of a tour guide spouting off facts about the structure and its creation. The strangeness of being silent in a crowd of sound pricked at her. It was as though she were a ghost wandering through the land of the living.
She finally came to a stop, staring up at the tower. It was so much grander in real life. Photos didn't do it justice. Despite that, she reached into her purse to pull out her disposable camera. Everyone in her life seemed worried about her when she informed them she'd still be going to Paris, taking the trip by herself instead of canceling the whole thing. She wanted to have tangible proof that she'd had a good time when she returned. Thus, the camera.
She wasn't exactly having a good time, but that wasn't the kind of information she was willing to admit to anyone but herself. She needed to prove that she was fine without Ron, that she was fine on her own, and that she'd made the right choice to come to Paris alone.
She wound up the camera, brought the viewfinder to her eye, tilted it up towards the tower, and then clicked the shutter button. She found disposable cameras to be rather anticlimactic. She loved Wizarding cameras and the loud sounds of their shutters, but she couldn't exactly have brought a magical camera into Muggle Paris. And so, she was stuck with the dinky disposable one.
She took in the view, blinking behind her sunglasses as the sun's rays blinded her even with the eye protection. She still felt glum. Beside her, a couple held out their own camera to snap a photo while they kissed with the Eiffel Tower in the background of the shot. They looked so happy, or at least in the photo they would.
The idea struck her then. What better way to prove to her friends and family that not only was she enjoying herself in Paris, but was also moving on from a relationship than to show off a new tryst?
The only complication would be to locate a man for the photo. She wasn't beneath asking someone to pretend with her. After all, in this foreign country it was highly likely that she'd never see another one of these people again. There was no room for embarrassment when surrounded by strangers whose paths would never cross hers after today.
She turned around and scoped out the possibilities. The men in her vicinity were mostly out of the question— boyfriends and husbands and fathers. There did appear to be some unattached men, however. She set her sights on them.
One scratched his balls through his jeans— next . Another coughed loudly, and not even into his elbow— next . Another was clearly over the age of seventy— next .
Then her gaze landed upon a man standing by himself, his back to her. His hair was a white blond and even through the black t-shirt he wore, she could tell he had broad shoulders and muscles she'd probably salivate over. She couldn't see his face, but he appeared to be well-dressed, similarly solo, and in the full minute she spent watching him, he did nothing to communicate a lack of hygiene or common public decency.
She started towards him, rehearsing what she'd say in her head and practicing how she'd react to getting rejected if such was the outcome. As she approached, her heart was beating quickly in her chest, and sweat dampened the back of her neck beneath her mess of hair. She almost stopped, almost turned around. But then her fingers lifted in the air, and she made contact with the fabric of his shirt, tapping three times on his shoulder.
"Excuse me, I was wondering if I might ask a favor?"
He turned slowly, and the familiarity registered half as fast. They stood there staring at one another from behind tinted sunglasses, her mouth having gone dry and his face having gone blank. She gaped, despite herself. She was frozen in place, but had her body regained the ability to move, she would have Disapparated on the spot, damned the consequences of revealing magic to Muggles.
"Granger?" he asked, and she physically flinched at the sound of her surname in his voice.
She could have said that Draco Malfoy was just as she remembered, but she'd be lying. He was taller now, leaner. He stood strong, no longer that cowardly, sickly looking boy she'd had passing concerns about in Sixth Year. He hadn't invaded her thoughts in such a long time that seeing him struck her speechless.
He reached out to gently rest his fingers on the bare skin of her arm. "Granger, are you all right?" His expression was one of worry, and this was what finally brought her soul back to her body.
She stumbled backwards, frantically trying to remove herself from his view, from his memory of this moment. "Sorry, I thought you were— never mind. Sorry."
She meant to turn and begin hurriedly stomping the other way, but her feet would not carry her in the direction she desperately wanted to sprint in. Instead, she continued to stare, to gape, to make a fool out of herself. "What's the favor?"
"What?"
He smiled. Such an expression on his face, one that she'd always found sharp and harsh, was disarming. "You said you had a favor to ask."
She scrambled for a way to drag herself out of the situation. Mentally yelled at herself to walk the fuck away. Instead, she remained rooted to the spot. "Oh, that? No, that's silly. You wouldn't— well, I wouldn't— well—"
"Just tell me," he interrupted, and she was grateful that his sunglasses rescued her from having to look into his eyes. If they were anything like she remembered, she'd probably be reduced to even less eloquent sentences.
"I was going to ask a stranger to kiss me for a photo," she blurted out, cheeks immediately flooding with pink embarrassment. She chastised her mouth, her lips, her tongue, her vocal cords, and any other body part that was responsible for the spilling of the truth.
His eyebrows raised in surprise, gentle wrinkles forming in the smooth skin of his forehead. "You're not kidding?"
She blinked several times in quick succession. As rapid as the beating of her anxious heart. "No. But obviously I didn't mean to ask you ."
"Why not?"
Her hands filled the space between them, gesturing at him with her palms facing up. "For starters, you're you ."
His own palm moved to his chest. "I'm wounded."
"Forget I said anything," she said, the burning of her face making her feel feverish. "It was nice to see you," she added as she finally began to back away. It wasn't necessarily true, but it also wasn't exactly a lie. It was polite, that was all.
But he stepped forward, reaching out towards her again. "Wait a minute," he said, and, without her permission, her body halted in place. "I'll do it."
She stared at him blankly. "Do what?"
"Kiss you," he answered. "For the photo."
She could have just died right there. Cause of death: unbearable mortification. "No, really Malfoy, it's fine. I didn't realize it was you. I wouldn't have asked."
"Oh, so you're scared to kiss me?"
She gawked. Spluttering, her words came out jumbled and mangled. "Scared? What— I—"
He smiled again, though now it more resembled a smirk. She felt her heart fail. He stepped another inch closer. "You were ready to kiss a stranger but you're too scared to kiss me."
"That is absolutely not true."
"So do it."
"No!"
"Why?"
"I don't want to."
"Sure you do."
"I don't."
"Come on, where's that Gryffindor bravery?"
"I—"
And maybe it was because he'd shortened the distance between them with each continuation of the exchange, or maybe it was her ego, or maybe it was something else, but she raised herself on her tiptoes, threw her arms gracelessly around his neck, and pressed her lips to his.
They were warm and clearly surprised, and when she pulled back, allowing her soles back down to the ground and standing at her normal height, she could still feel the tingle of where his mouth had connected with hers.
He was smiling broadly. "What?" she asked, flustered.
"You didn't have a camera out."
Her eyes widened. "Fuck me."
If it was possible, his smile grew. "I usually buy my dates dinner first."
She rolled her eyes, despite the fact that he probably couldn't see them moving behind her sunglasses. She looked down to her purse and tugged the disposable camera out from the pocket she'd carefully tucked it into, winding it up and holding out her arm, index finger poised over the shutter. "One more. And then I'll never see you again and neither of us will talk about this as long as we both shall live."
"I do," he said, tone teasing. "You may now kiss the bride." He was making fun of the wording of her statement, she knew, but the declaration still had her heart fluttering as he leaned down.
His hand moved to her waist, the other delicately cupping her jaw, and he gently brought his lips to hers. She felt her finger press down on the shutter, heard the disappointing click of the camera, and she meant to move away, but instead, she pressed closer to him.
Her hand found a resting place on his face, and when he began to deepen the kiss, she let him, pulling his head towards hers with her other arm— fingers still clutching the camera— hooked around his neck. His mouth tasted like pastry, his tongue moving against hers with a kind of care she'd never before experienced.
When they finally separated, she was breathless and patting down her hair in an attempt to find something to occupy her hands. She backed away, forcing distance between them. "Thanks," she said, lamely holding the camera up in the air to show what she was thanking him for— not for the kiss, but for the photo. At least, that was what she'd tell herself. "Bye." It wasn't the most articulate farewell, but such was life.
"Wait," he called, and she paused. "That was a favor. You owe me now."
She huffed, fiddling with the strap of her purse. Here was the Malfoy she remembered. "What do you want?"
"Dinner." She stared, dumbfounded. "Where are you staying? I'll pick you up at seven."
And even though it was him, and even though she was trying to tell herself she hadn't enjoyed the kiss and that it had been purely for the purpose of fulfilling a goal, she told him the name of her hotel.
"See you tonight, Granger," he said.
It wasn't until he'd walked away, leaving her to stand looking at the Eiffel Tower, that she realized she'd taken the photo from the wrong angle. It hadn't even been in the shot.