Wearing a black Chinese silk robe and slippers, Hermione crossed the room and drew the door back, and for a moment, when she saw Draco standing there in the doorway with the torchlight behind him turning his hair into a silvery halo, she felt a sour-sweet ache at the back of her throat, and swallowed hard against it. He was wearing dark robes and his hair was damp, as if he had come straight from the shower. He smelled faintly of soap and lemon zest. 'Draco. What is it?'
'The last of the ingredients,' he said, and held out a diffident hand towards her. He was holding a dark- brown wrapped parcel, and Hermione smiled as she reached and took it out of his hand.
'Rosemary, spiderwebs, dried forget-me-nots,' she said, peeling back the wrapping on the parcel and peering inside. 'That's everything. Well, almost everything.'
Draco leaned against the architrave. He seemed disinclined to come into the room, and equally disinclined to leave. 'What else do you need?'
'You,' she said, without thinking.
He raised his eyes up to hers, and she felt herself flush at the momentary wicked flash of almost-laughter that brightened, then darkened his expression. It was easy sometimes to forget, with Draco, that spark of dangerousness that threaded behind his every expression like a live current.
He held his arms out, crossed at the wrists, and smiled blandly at her. 'Whatever you need,' he said.
She didn't reach to take his hands. 'Go sit on the bed,' she said.
He went obediently and sat on the bed, where he clashed horribly with the pink, flower-sprigged duvet cover. Hermione scooped the remainder of the Pensieve ingredients up off her bureau and went to sit opposite him. She placed the shallow white bowl between them, dropped into in it the ingredients Draco had brought her, mixed with a Memory Potion she had made the day before and some yarrow root. The mixture smoked and steamed a little before settling into a greenish paste.
She looked over at Draco, who looked mildly anxious, as if he were about to have his pulse taken. 'Now it's up to you,' she said.
'Usually you'd need a wand at this point, but I suppose in your case you can do it without. Just concentrate on the memories you want preserved in the Pensieve, then draw them out and put them in the bowl.'
'Thanks,' he said, his silver eyes unreadable. She sensed that he wanted to be left alone for a moment, so she stood, retrieved her dress, stockings and shoes from the bed, and went into the adjacent bathroom to change, closing the door firmly behind her.
The dress she had chosen to wear that evening was modeled as closely as memory allowed on the dress Narcissa had given her to wear at the Mansion so many months ago — still her favorite article of clothing she had ever owned, albeit briefly. Only the color was different: a dark rich cinnamon brown instead of lilac. It had the same fitted bodice, lacing up the back, the same full skirt and wide scooped neck showing rather more of her shoulders and the top of her chest than she was generally used to. With it went sheer silk stockings and a dramatic pair of high, strappy shoes. She glanced at herself in the tiny mirror over the sink but it gave her back only a tiny part of her reflection, so, gathering up her full skirts with one hand, she went back into the bedroom.
Draco was still sitting on the bed, staring down into the Pensieve, in which a whitish smoke was now swirling. When he saw her, his eyes widened and then darkened, and although all he said was, 'All dressed up, then?' she knew he admired the way she looked, and, more than that, remembered the original dress that this one was modeled after. Of course he would. Draco noticed things like that.
'You're done,' she said, indicating the Pensieve with a jerk of her chin.
Draco nodded. 'Mmm. It was easy.'
She went over to the larger mirror that hung over the vanity table.
She looked at herself briefly, then picked up the necklace she'd been planning to wear that night — a topaz on the end of a silver chain -
and reached to drape it around her throat. Feeling unaccountably nervous, she fumbled the clasp.
Draco stood up, putting the Pensieve down on the bed. 'You want help with that?'
'Oh. If you don't mind.' She hesitated for a moment, then reached around and put the necklace into his hand. He looped the slender chain, bowing under the weight of the smoky topaz charm, around her throat, and paused, his hands just brushing the curve where her neck met her shoulder. She felt the tiny hairs all up and down the sides of her arms prickle as he looked at her, his eyes gone dark and serious, and suddenly she saw herself as he saw her — the smooth curves of pale-peach skin rising from the bodice of cinnamon silk, the very dark curls of hair, so carefully arranged, looping like hyacinth tendrils around her face, her wide dark eyes, her full lower lip, trembling now with nervousness. The feel of his hands on her skin was familiar and not familiar — he was so much a part of Harry, although he looked so different. If she closed her eyes, she had to remind herself whose hands were on her. Silver hair not black, gray eyes not green. She spun around in the circle of his arms and heard the snap as he closed the clasp of the necklace, and stepped back and away from her.
He was breathing quickly. 'Done,' he said lightly.
'Draco — '
'Don't,' he said, and then, 'You look beautiful.'
And she knew she did, maybe more beautiful than she would ever look again. She spoke then without thinking. 'Is there something between you and Ginny?' she heard herself ask.
The words hung there between them, and for a moment she saw him look suddenly vulnerable — he had gained back some of the weight he'd lost during the past months, but his shoulders still seemed narrow under the thin cloth of his shirt, the planes of his face very sharp. He said, weighting his words carefully, 'For there to be something between me and Ginny, there would have to be something of myself I could give her. And I don't think there's much of me left to give anyone right now.'
'Draco. You're the wholest person I know.'
'More so than Harry?'
'You're the same.'
He shook his head. 'I have to wait.'
