Angel on the cover

Hermione stirred her tea absentmindedly. The sound of Ron washing the dishes accompanied the rustling of papers as she rifled though them. Reforms and appeals were all pushed aside as she lightly fingered the parchment. Slightly worn from the constant perusal and written on official Gringotts letterhead was the final missive Harry had left.



She read it out of habit, having memorized its contents after the first 20 times she had read it.



I, Harry James Potter, approve a monthly stipend of 1500 galleons directly into the account created solely for the use of one Draco Malfoy. This arrangement will continue unless it is cancelled. In the event of the death of Harry James Potter, all the funds from the primary account will be emptied into the secondary one in a final transfer.



It was dated and stamped the morning they’d last seen him. He’d taken the day off from work and they all had assumed he would accompany his boyfriend to the final trial before the decision regarding the latter’s fortune. It was only when she returned to work that she found out, along with the rest of their department, Harry had no intention of returning.



With a sigh, she spread out the other documents in what Ron had dubbed her ‘Stalking Harry’ folder. “Hermione, if he wasn’t our best mate, I’d really wonder about all this,” the red head announced as he sat down at the table.



“I need to know why; it just doesn’t make any sense. He had a promising career and a boyfriend he loved,” she continued, ignoring Ron’s choked murmur about ferrets. “He was settling down; there’s no reason for him to just disappear.”



“It’s Harry. He was practically married to that snake; nothing he did for a while made sense,” Ron sat across from her, biting into a blueberry muffin, not pausing to chew

“Chew with your mouth closed, Ronald,” she automatically replied, not bothering to look up from the notes that had compiled on their missing friend. The red head’s comment brought back the original reason for her troubled thoughts that evening: the tow-headed Slytherin was refusing to have any contact with her- or any one else in the Order for that matter. Reaching over, Hermione grabbed the letter from the stack in front of her and ran her thumb over the bank seal’s raised lettering.



“You sent him a notice; that’s all you had to do, Hermione. I wish you would stop looking at that.”

“I’m sure he hasn’t read it.”

“That’s not your problem. Harry was stark raving mad when he came up with that idea any way. All those galleons a month! Malfoy won’t have to work a day in his life- just like he always planned to!”

“Ron, you can’t hate him for being privileged.” he looked at her incredulously.

“He used to call you Mudblood! I have more than enough reasons to hate him!” He didn’t attempt to calm his growing anger as he tore his third muffin with his fingers.



“He used to Ron. Once he and Harry came clean about their relationship, he referred to me as ‘Granger’. We’ve been over this, Ron. You can’t hate him for taking Harry from your sister; he was never hers anyway. You can’t hate him anymore for all that pureblood tripe he talked- he didn’t know any better. We were kids then, Ron. He learned what those prejudices really lead to. You saw how he would get sick when we brought war victims. He could barely stand up long enough to take orders from Poppy that first time!”

“He grew out of that quickly enough,” Ron retorted.

“Ron, can you really grow out of that? He just learned to disguise it better.”

Eyeing the scattered crumbs on their tabletop, she looked up earnestly at the red head, pleading with her eyes for him to understand.



“Ron,” she began softly, “this was important to Harry. He could just as easily had the solicitor give this to Draco. He wanted us to deliver this to him, probably to give us a chance to offer him our support. He was always surrounded by money, but now the Ministry has been trying to break him by pulling every archaic rule, stalling down the proceedings as long as they can. He doesn’t know about Harry leaving him the money. How has he been supporting himself these months?”



“By being the first Malfoy in history to get a decent job,” Ron said dryly.

Hermione just laughed. It seemed that some of what she said had gotten through to him as he calmed down. “Doing what, Ron? It isn’t likely he’d find a job with the Ministry seeing as how that would be a conflict of interest, and I can hardly see him working at a shop in Diagon Alley. He’s not really qualified. What kind of job could he possibly get?”



Ron tried to think of all the options that the blond had. Without the Ministry or his money, all he had was himself. Begrudgingly he admitted that the pale man was attractive, if one liked high maintenance whiners. Suddenly, Ron had an image of a nude Draco covered only by a thin sheet on a bed in some sleazy motel room, grasping the fabric to his chest as a man left the room, tossing some Knuts on the bed. Then the image shifted to another where he only saw the back of that distinctive blond head, level with the crotch of some unknown man in an dark alley way.

“Hermione? You don’t think that he’d get roped into some type of rough trade do you?” he whispered, with an intense look on his face.



“We’re going to have to limit your television intake.” She interrupted whatever platitude he was going make for that comment. “I’m not even going to ask how you know that term, but I’m sure that Draco is not working as a prostitute. He has far too much pride.” The witch tapped her finger on her chin and said, almost to herself, “Besides, I remember Harry mentioning that Draco was extremely particular and wouldn’t allow anyone to touch him. It seemed to please Harry that he was Draco’s first and only.”



“Uggh! Hermione! No more! Too much information!”

“Grow up, Ron. I’ve been thinking about his options. He wouldn’t work with Poppy because we go back and forth from the Ministry to Hogwarts and he wouldn’t want to see us.” She didn’t hear his retort of ‘I wouldn’t want to see him either.’ “And she already has Severus to ship her medicinal potions. I guess he could make potions for private apothecaries…” she trailed off, resuming her notes in the “Harry” notebook she kept.



Ron looked at his wife and shook his head, knowing it would be a while before she would come to bed. It was times like these he would remember the bushy hair that would stick out from the tops of old texts that were the width of her torso, the nights she would spend reading forward in their textbooks, and, later, researching for the war. He accepted her distracted kiss goodnight and made his way up the stairs.



So much had changed during their final years at Hogwarts, and the war had changed everything. It had all began with the suicide of Malfoy’s mother; she had chosen to die rather than be used as a tool to force her only son to do the Dark Lord’s bidding. Harry seemed to have grown obsessed with the blond. He had even taken to following the pale boy everywhere he went. Harry would disappear at odd hours of the day. Ron thought he was sneaking off to pulverize the git in private, but now he cringed to think of what they had probably been doing.



Deciding he’d had enough disturbing thoughts for the night, Ron changed into his nightclothes and went to sleep, leaving the lamp on for when his wife finally came to bed.



***



Downstairs, Hermione stared at two pictures side by side; she liked to think of them as before and after. In one, she, Harry, and Ron stood at the second year leaving fest, caught on camera by Colin. Their eyes were wide with childishenthusiasm and the accomplishment of the school year that had just passed. The other held their seventeen-year-old selves with a noticeable addition. The innocent fullness of youth had faded, slimming into the more adult lines that graced their faces today. Their eyes were haunted by the horrors they’d experienced, but the smiles on their lips were genuine as they stood next to their best mates. She looked at Ron, who had finally stopped growing at 6 foot three. Even Harry had shot up surprisingly between the summer of sixth and seventh year to a respectable 6 feet. Her own smooth haired self smiled back at her as she glanced over picture to focus on herself.



The blond really was photogenic; he stood on the left side of the picture next to Harry. His head only came around Harry shoulder, the leanness of his body complimenting Harry’s stockier one. The picture made such an impact on her because she knew that Draco had been facing the photographer at the time of the photo with no expression on his face, but since its development, picture Draco had turned to Harry with a breathtaking smile on his face. Picture Harry would respond with his own besotted smile and pull Draco closer to his body.



Hermione may not have been privy to many of the facts of their lives together, but sometimes she wondered how Harry had found the time to fall into love with their former enemy. Those details were made unimportant in light of this picture, which defied the laws of magic as she knew them and proved their love for one another was sincere. It intrigued her and she was famous for being the type of witch that needed to explain the unexplainable. Harry had waited his whole life to have a love of his own, but his departure was a mystery. She was determined to get to the bottom of. In the meantime, she had to follow through with the unspoken request her best friend had trusted her with.



Draco had barred her from his house, but he couldn’t stop her from seeing him elsewhere and accepting her help. It was about time that she extended a sincere offer at friendship….