I love love love this gif aesthetic from @micbonbon for my FINAL drabble for @dramioneldws! This concept is one of my absolute favorites from the competition!
Lost & Found
Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Hermione Granger
500 words, Rated G
Prompt: Time Travel
#
Down the British Magical Library’s central aisle, beyond the study carrels, past flobberworms (592.3), and scrying telescopes (681.4), up a flight of poky stairs and behind a decrepit door, you’ll find the Department of Wayward Books.
Fill out a request slip. Slide it through the slot.
Response time for Western works lost 4th-21st centuries CE: six weeks.
For volumes with significant temporal, safety, and/or sociocultural considerations: expect delays.
*
Title: Margites
Author: Homer
Location: Athens, 4th Century BCE
*
Observe: an argument in the agora.
“I am not,” the woman hisses, ”your concubine.”
“Nice Athenian women don’t do the shopping.” The man bites into a dripping wild plum.
She draws a pendant—a tiny hourglass mounted in gold rings—from her bodice.
“That’s it. This retrieval is all yours, Malfoy.”
“Come on, Granger. I’m sorry.” (Note: he does not appear remorseful.) “I adore you in a peplos.”
“You adore eating figs and goading me.”
“Those, too. Stay.” He wipes his chin. "I’ll let you name our third illegitimate son after Harry.”
*
Title: Various; complete unpublished early works
Author: Ernest Hemingway
Location: Paris Gare de Lyon station, December 1922
*
A woman dashes across the platform to buy bottled water.
Two anachronized librarians step onto the train.
“Here we are, mon canard.” The man lifts someone else's suitcase from the rack.
“My duck, Malfoy?”
Watch: he mutters, and one suitcase becomes two.
He settles the copy in the rack.
“You can call me mon petit chou, doudou.”
“My little—”
“Cabbage. The copy’s overkill. Someone else steals it in five minutes.”
“Yes, but not us.” She regards the suitcase ruefully. “Hemingway claims he divorces her over this.”
“He’ll divorce her because he’s a prick.” He holds out his arm. “Ready for lunch, ma puce?”
They disembark, then vanish. Hemingway’s wife, bottled water in hand, reboards the train to find her suitcase has been stolen.
*
Title: Cardenio
Author: William Shakespeare
Location: London, 1613
*
Consider the man’s detuned warbling as he falls up the tavern stairs.
He fights his doorknob, and prevails on a technicality.
Mark the disgruntled expression of the woman on the bed.
“The bed’s mine tonight, Malfoy.”
“Of course”—he swings inward, dangling from the doorknob—”o dainty duck.”
His doublet buttons defeat him. He faceplants across the bed.
“What have you been doing?” she asks.
He embraces her thighs. “Drinking with Will at the Mermaid. But mostly, missing your angry face.”
“Will?”
“Ask me what I’ve got in my breeches.”
“Pardon?”
He slides a rolled script from his trouser front. “Didn’t expect that, did you?”
“You’ll feel a right pillock tomorrow.”
“Mmm. That’s tomorrow.” He rubs his cheek against her hip. “Tonight, I deserve a reward.”
She bites her lip. At length, she touches his temple.
“I’ll share the bed if you behave yourself.”
His eyes lift, then narrow.
“Define behave.”
*
Title: N/A, letters
Author: Jane Austen
Location: Chawton, Hampshire, 1843
*
“What’s next?” Draco reads the request slip over Hermione’s shoulder. “Damn.”
“What?” (Note her obvious flush.)
He kisses her jaw. “I was hoping for a peplos.”