Chapter Text
Hermione is thrilled they’re at capacity. Really, she is.
“Do you have prosecco for negronis? We don’t want them if you don’t have prosecco.”
Being back behind the bar is wonderful.
“Can I get a 1942 and orange juice?”
She loves the nostalgia of it.
“I’ll have a neat bourbon on the rocks.”
She needs to hire another bartender immediately.
Lavender is great, her best really. But Hermione is going to have to come up with a permanent backup if Lavender continues to call off sick every month like clockwork. Either the poor girl suffers the worst periods known to man, or she’s a werewolf.
Neither make for good customer service.
“I got them,” Pansy says, pointing to a trio of girls as she skirts past Hermione.
“Thank you,” Hermione says. The one in the middle is giving off strong mojito vibes, and if Hermione is forced to muddle right now, she might scream. She turns for the other end of the bar where a blonde guy has been waiting.
“What can I get you?”
He turns from the conversation happening in the group behind him.
And then he stares. And stares.
She’d be tempted to think he’s merely terrified at the way the humidity in the crowded room has transformed her ponytail into a sentient creature, but after his grey eyes flit over her face, they drop to her chest. She waits the eons-long second for them to dart back up, and then raises her brows impatiently.
But he just smiles. “Hi,” he says.
She could punch him.
She says, “Hi,” instead.
“How are you?”
“Busy,” Hermione snaps. “Are you drinking?”
He looks mildly flustered. “Oh, uh, yeah. I’ll have a beer.”
“Amazing,” she deadpans. “We have more than one.”
“Oh, right,” he says. His eyes scan over the row of taps beside her, then flick to the cooler of bottles behind the bar like it’s his first time in a pub. From the looks of him, it almost could be. Hermione prays for strength.
“What’s your favourite beer?” he asks her.
“Tequila.”
His face breaks into a grin. He has an annoyingly nice smile. Doesn’t make him any less punchable. “Yeah,” he says. “I’ll have that.”
Hermione nods, turning to grab her favourite tequila. If he didn’t want to pay for top shelf, then he should have been more specific. She pours him a shot, slipping her second to last lime wedge onto the rim of the glass.
“Can I get you one?” he asks.
“Sure,” Hermione says, pouring a second without missing a beat. There’s a cute brunette a little ways down the bar, and Hermione leans across to tap her on the shoulder. “This is from him,” she says, sliding the shot over.
The girl picks it up curiously, leaning forward to see who Hermione’s indicating. Her eyes go wide when she sees him, and she turns back to giggle with her friends before lifting the glass to him and saying, “Thanks.”
His lips purse in a polite smile as he returns the gesture, but his eyes slant back to Hermione before he swallows the shot.
Hermione pretends not to notice, turning for the computer to ring in the drinks.
“Behind!” Harry calls as she nearly crashes into him and the full rack of pint glasses he’s carrying.
“Christ,” she mutters, grabbing his shoulder for a second to steady herself as he passes. “I need limes Harry,” she calls after him.
“Got it,” he calls back, wiping his forearm under his fringe.
Hermione’s fingers fly over the touch screen, and she turns back to the blonde guy with a total on the tip of her tongue.
He’s already holding out a card, and she takes it with a smirk at the sight of his pout. “Oh! Did you mean for me to drink that?” she asks. “Sorry, I didn’t realise.”
“No worries,” he says easily. “I’ll take that beer when you have a chance.”
Hermione glances over her shoulder as she swipes his card. “Which beer was that again?”
“Surprise me,” he says.
She rolls her eyes, reaching into the fridge and popping the top on a ubiquitous brown bottle. “Surprise, it’s a Coors.”
He grins again. “Perfect.”
Her head shakes as she punches it into the computer.
“I’m Draco, by the way.”
“I know,” Hermione says, holding up his card between two fingers as she hands it back.
She’s already pointing at the next customer when he asks, “What’s your name?”
She scoops up a glass of ice, throwing, “Hermione,” over her shoulder as she reaches for the vodka.
“It’s nice to meet you, Hermione.”
She lets her eyes flick up as the glass fills with cranberry. He has dimples.
Extremely annoying.
She hands off the vodka cran, taking the card offered in exchange.
“I’m gonna go do my job now,” she tells Draco.
If he says anything in response, she doesn’t hear it.
“You’ll never make tips with an attitude like that,” Pansy says as she slides behind Hermione at the computer.
“I don’t make tips,” Hermione argues, reaching across her for the Crown.
“Yeah, but I do,” Pansy says over the rattle of ice in the shaker. “Would it kill you to smile? He’s cute.”
Hermione snorts. “He’s an infant.”
“I’ve never seen an infant with arms like that.”
Hermione’s teeth grit. She doesn’t need to look to know what Pansy’s talking about, which is highly aggravating.
“You flirt with him then,” Hermione says.
“Love to,” Pansy says, turning to strain her shaker across three shot glasses. “But he hasn’t taken his eyes off you. Looks like he’s watching a bloody tennis match, following you back and forth.”
Hermione glances over against her better judgment.
Draco has moved from his spot at the bar—back with the group he came in with—but he’s positioned himself on the far side of them. Watching her.
He pauses with the beer bottle pressed to his lower lip when he sees her looking, and she tears her eyes away from his face before he can smile again. Unfortunately, the position of his arm has her gaze snagging on the way his bicep swells under the sleeve of his t-shirt. The garment isn’t even tight enough for her to mock, like he’s desperate to show off. It seems more that that’s just the way he looks in clothes that fit.
The computer spits out the receipt she’s been waiting on, and Hermione snatches it with far more force than necessary. It rips across the middle.
“Bloody fucking hell,” she mutters, retrieving the lingering scrap and shoving both mangled halves at the poor gent who’s just trying to close out his tab.
“Easy,” Pansy says through a laugh. “Wouldn’t want people to think you’re tightly wound.”
“I’m fine,” Hermione snaps.
“Are you?” Pansy says. “Because at my last tally, it’s been almost a year, and that’s bad for everyone.”
Hermione’s jaw clenches as Pansy slinks away with a smug look on her face.
Hermione’s almost glad when the next group orders six different specialty shots complete with additions and substitutions. She lets the tedium of mixing them push every other annoying thought from her mind.
The next guy gets a rum and coke, then two gin and tonics for the girls beside him. The lady after that lets Hermione get halfway through making a sidecar before realising what she actually wanted was a Manhattan.
Hermione tosses the contents of the shaker, bending to scoop up more ice.
“I’m getting low on—”
“Here,” Neville says from behind her, and she moves automatically out of the way so he can dump the fresh tub in his arms on top.
“Thanks, Nev,” she calls over the racket, already pouring the whiskey.
She finishes the Manhattan, perching a garnish pick with a single house-made cherry across the glass.
She slides it over to the now-pleased customer, already turning to scan along the length of the bar. Miraculously, the crowd has thinned a bit. Pansy’s handling a couple at the end and another is chatting beside them, but no one is trying to flag her down. No fingers waving in the air, no desperate eyes.
Well, almost none.
Draco is back.
“Another beer?” she asks, ditching the empty bottle he sets on the bar.
“Please.”
“My version, or yours?” she asks.
He smiles. “Both.”
She grabs the tequila with a smirk, pouring him a shot before snagging another beer from the fridge.
“Thanks,” he says as she sets it down. He picks up the shot glass but doesn’t drink it. He’s watching her.
Hermione lifts her brows. “Need something else?”
He licks his lips. Not that she’s looking. “One for you?” he ventures.
Persistent.
She shakes her head, grabbing the bottle again and pouring another shot. The little trick she pulled earlier usually works better to deter this sort of thing. Hermione would be long dead if she drank everything customers tried to buy her, but it’s a Friday and she could use one.
She lifts the glass toward him. “Thank you,” she says before tapping it down on the bar and throwing it back.
“Cheers,” he says and does the same.
Hermione plucks a lime wedge out of the caddy and bites into it with a pleasant shiver.
Draco holds her gaze as she sucks the juice from the fruit, and she makes an excuse to break it, turning to toss the rind over the sink and into the bin.
She collects Draco’s empty glass, taking a detour to ring in the new round of drinks, but when she turns back, the lull in customers is still in full effect. There’s no one calling her away.
Draco sits down on the stool in front of him, propping his forearms on the bar. Hermione rolls her eyes in favour of looking at them.
“Shouldn’t you be spending your time with your friends?” she asks, gesturing with a tilt of her head as she picks up a towel to wipe down the station in front of her.
“Nah,” Draco says, not deigning to take his eyes off her long enough to look back at them. “I see them all the time.”
“Co-workers?” she inquires for some unknown fucking reason.
“Two of them, yeah,” he says. “But we all play in a football league together.”
Oh, good. Absolutely smashing. She wonders if it’s possible that his hair could still have that perfectly tousled look if they came straight from a practise.
Hermione swallows, only humming a response.
“We’ve been here a few times actually,” says Draco. “But I’ve never seen you before. Are you new?”
Hermione lets out a huff of a laugh. “No, I’m not new.”
“She’s the owner,” Pansy says as she twirls by.
Hermione lobs a glare at her retreating back. “You’re fired.”
Pansy spins, grinning wide. “No, I’m not.”
Hermione rolls her eyes back to Draco. “I don’t usually work the bar anymore, but we’re understaffed tonight.”
“Owner,” he says, brows raised. “Wow.”
Something in his voice makes her eyes narrow. “What’s with the tone of surprise?”
“Oh, nothing,” he says quickly. “Just… if you run a bar, I’d think that you’d… you know, like it more.”
Hermione blinks. Fuck, she really does need to smile more.
“It wasn’t always a bar,” she explains, pointing to the darkened glass doors behind him. Draco turns on the stool, craning his neck to look through the crowd. “I inherited the bookshop next door, along with the mountain of debt that came with it. Unfortunately, people seem to care more about drinking coffee than reading books these days, so adding the cafe was the only way out from under water.”
A guy appears at the bar asking for an old-fashioned, and Hermione continues as she makes it.
“Three years ago, a developer bought this whole end of the street, and with the new terms of our lease, it was either tack on a liquor license or lose it all.”
Draco watches her peel a strip of orange rind into the short glass.
She shrugs as she hands it over to the bloke beside him. “We do ten times the revenue in booze that we ever did in books. How this place became a mecca for insufferable yuppies, I’ll never know, but it keeps the doors open on the shop, so.”
If Draco correctly intuits that she is one hundred percent counting him among that number, he doesn’t show it.
“You inherited it?” he asks.
She nods, a small smile lifting her lips. “From my grandparents. I learned to read sitting on the counter next to the till.”
He returns her smile. “I love reading.”
Hermione lifts her brows. “Oh, really? What’s something good you’ve read lately?”
He panics. She can see it clear as day. She takes great pleasure in watching him cast about for something impressive. “Crime and Punishment,” he blurts.
She only barely suppresses her snort. What a choice. “Wooow,” she says, leaning her elbows on the bar. “Tolstoy. A classic.”
Draco nods before taking a relieved sip of his beer. “Love Tolstoy.”
“That’s interesting,” she says. “Because Crime and Punishment is Dostoevsky.”
He chokes.
“You must’ve been thinking of War and Peace,” she offers.
“Right,” he croaks. “That must be it.”
She arches a brow.
He clears his throat, reaching up to rub a hand over the back of his neck. “I’m actually, er, not much of a reader these days.”
“Not much of a liar, either,” Hermione says, pushing back off the bar.
“Usually I’m better,” he argues.
She barks out a laugh. “Oh, have I heard that before.”
“You make me nervous,” he says, eyes shining with mischief. “I’m sure you’ve heard that, too.”
Hermione’s head is shaking slowly at this nonsense. She needs to put a stop to it.
Draco leans forward, arms flexing. “So, when does the owner get off?”
Hermione lets out a humourless chuckle, thinking morosely of her 5AM alarm to prep the cafe.
“Never.”
“And that’s kinda the problem, isn’t it?” Pansy says, skirting by them again.
Hermione’s quicker this time, and she hits Pansy square in the back with a stream of frigid water from the soda gun.
Pansy screeches satisfyingly, and several people whoop at their antics.
Draco is beaming at her, and Hermione can’t help the way it’s making her stomach feel light.
Actually, that’s probably from the shot.
“Well, since you’re so busy,” Draco says, leaning to the side to retrieve his wallet from a pocket. “I’d better go ahead and give you this now.”
Hermione extends her hand, taking the crisp white business card he holds out to her.
“Ooh, consulting,” she says with exaggerated relish. “Well, if we need our synergistics optimised, then I know who to call.”
She half-turns, flicking the card back toward the register. It slides under a stack of receipts.
Draco leans around her to look, his brow furrowing slightly. “My personal number is actually on there as well, so any pain points that I might be able to relieve—day or night—”
“Thank you,” she interrupts. “But I can assure you, that won’t be necessary.”
His head tilts. “What makes you so sure?”
Hermione debates for the space of a few seconds. He really is so goddamn cute. She wants to punch him again.
Eventually, her morbid curiosity gets the better of her.
“Let me see your ID.”
Draco blinks, clearly caught off guard. It doesn’t take long for him to cotton on, though.
“They carded me at the door,” he says defensively.
“And now I’m carding you again.”
It’s his turn to debate, and like her, it only takes a few seconds. He thumbs the plastic card out of his wallet and hands it over.
One glance at his birth date has a shocked laugh punching out of her chest. It only takes one glance because the difference in years between them makes a nice, big, round number.
Draco’s lips are pursed with reluctant resignation as she hands his ID back.
“So, that’s a no, then?” he says.
“That’s a no,” she agrees.
“Doesn’t seem like a very good reason.”
She laughs. “Trust me, it is. In fact, it’s ten good reasons.”
She lets the emphasis sit heavy in her voice in case he’d underestimated what he was dealing with, but he remains undeterred.
“You know, they say age is just a number.”
“Yeah,” Hermione says. “And your number is 23.”
“Are you really going to hold that against me?”
“Yes,” she says emphatically. “Absolutely. Of course, I am.”
He sucks his teeth in disappointment, but he still can’t keep the smile off his face. It’s light. Playful. It would be rapidly eroding her resolve if she didn’t know better.
He draws in one more deep breath and lets it out on a sigh. His teeth rake across his bottom lip before he says, “Damn,” and stands with a shake of his head.
When he finally turns to rejoin his friends, Hermione can feel the flush on her face.
Pansy appears out of thin air beside her. “Did you get his number?”
“No,” Hermione says, turning her back to rest against the bar. “Well, yes, but I’m not doing it.”
“Why not?!” Pansy nearly screeches again.
“Because he’s 23.”
“And?”
Hermione gives her an exasperated look. “And I was 23 a decade ago.”
Pansy looks utterly bemused. “So what? You look 27 at most, and that’s just around the eyes.”
She lets Hermione swat her arm good-naturedly. “I’m serious,” Hermione says. “What am I supposed to do with someone that young?”
Pansy’s eyes flick up over her shoulder. “Well, based on the way he’s looking at you, I’d go with getting fucked through the mattress.”
Hermione flushes again.
“If nothing else, he’ll be energetic,” Pansy adds dreamily, letting her head tilt.
Hermione snaps her fingers in front of Pansy’s face. “Hey!”
Pansy’s smirk is devilish, but she’s drawn away by someone needing a pint. Hermione watches her fill the glass, and when Pansy turns back and sees her expression, she sobers at once.
“Hermione, you work too hard, and you worry too much. You deserve to have some fun.”
Hermione sighs, stretching out the ache in her neck. “I think that time has passed.”
Pansy’s eyes roll dramatically. “Fine, then. I’m sure you’ll meet someone boring and age-appropriate to marry any day now. I mean, it worked out so well the first time.”
Hermione cuts her eyes to Pansy with a scowl. “Harsh.”
Pansy just shrugs. “23-year-old Hermione should have been at the club. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for her.”
Hermione’s lips part in surprise at the way that hits her. It’s not the first time she’s lamented the things she missed out on in her twenties. But those had all been hypothetical. Notions of flirtations and flings and all manner of affairs available to people a little more carefree than Hermione had ever really managed.
But thinking of the missed potential now, with just such a scenario so boldly on offer…
It almost sounds like a good reason.
Hermione turns back to face the crowd, and her skin prickles with the knowledge that if she lifted her gaze, Draco’s would be waiting to meet it.
Thankfully, someone steps in front of her. And they need a drink.