Love and Other Historical Accidents
Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Hermione Granger
Rated M for swearing and mild sexual content
Tags: romantic comedy, Regency romance, time travel, pining, miscommunication, slow burn, selective obliviousness
WIP 136,000k+, 12/13 chapters + epilogue
An ear-drum needling, dog-whistle whine emanated from the center of the kitchen table. Hermioneās ears throbbed.
āSteady on, lads!ā Martin punched the steering toggle of his powered-down chair with a closed fist, like he meant to burst forward at top speed. āHold the course! Youāre doing real magic now, you boys!ā
Stray energy churned through the room, causing every object in the cottage to ripple and wobble as though it was underwater. Books shivered in their clothbound hides, Hermioneās teeth hummed unpleasantly, and the chalk lines Draco and William etched over the surface of the table that morning quivered into woolliness.
Grix ground his teeth. āTheyāre going to blow the windows out.ā
Hermione hated paired incantations. She wasnāt musical, but imagined it was rather like playing an instrument alongside another person, in one of its punishingly precise forms: a piano four hands divertissement rather than an all-comers drum circle in a municipal park. It meant relying on oneās partner to hit all their notes on time while missing none oneself.
It made her extremely cross.
The only person sheād ever actually enjoyed duetting beside was Draco: equally exact, equally sharp, and, for all his affected apathy, equally practised.
He and William stood at opposite ends of the kitchen table, wreathed in neon-yellow hoops of fizzling, improvident magic. Watching them, Hermione almost felt a pang of envy.