Chapter Text
It’s a sweltering Amalfi afternoon. The sand burns underfoot and the sun hangs above Draco lounging shirtless on a striped chaise, his skin sun-warmed, his usual pallor chased off by the relentless UV exposure that no British boy should ever endure. His platinum hair is cropped close to the scalp, a faint shadow of charm-induced bronze bleeding through it as if he’s trying on identities the way other people try on sunglasses.
Next to him, Blaise leans back with all the languor of someone born to decadence, tall drink sweating in one hand, the other draped over the back of a chair currently occupied by a sun-kissed witch named Allegra.
Draco smirks behind his glass of something citrusy and spiked, watching as Allegra’s friend, tall, freckled, and undeniably curious, angles her gaze toward him like she can’t quite place him.
"You're staring," he says mildly, eyes still half-lidded from the heat.
She blinks rapidly. "Only because you look like someone who should have a dark mark and a snarl, not a tan and delts."
Blaise chokes on his drink. "Delts, she says. Incredible."
Draco lifts an eyebrow, not offended, this is the point, after all.
"I did have a snarl," he offers dryly. "Gave it up when I stopped flinching every time someone mentioned Azkaban."
"You really do look different," Allegra says, looking between them.
Draco says, “You say that every year.”
"You too," she adds to Blaise. "Is this a post-war reinvention arc or a long con?"
Draco lifts his glass. "Darling, if it were a con, I wouldn’t be this bad at picking a hair colour. I’ve tried bronze, ash, cinnamon,"
"and that truly catastrophic mauve phase," Blaise adds helpfully.
"Mauve is fashion forward," Draco deadpans. "Just not on me. I looked like a cursed Fabergé egg."
Allegra’s friend giggles, and Draco’s smirk twitches into something gentler.
"I just… wanted to look like someone new," he says after a beat, tone still light, but with a flicker of honesty he doesn’t usually offer to strangers. "Someone who didn’t spend half of his youth in an ivory tower and the other half crawling out of a grave he helped dig."
The silence lingers a second too long, until Blaise breaks it.
"That, or he just wants to get laid without someone whispering 'death eater' between thrusts."
Draco flings a grape at him with deadly precision.
"Low blow."
"Please. You love the drama," Blaise retorts. "You wore white linen trousers to breakfast."
"It’s Italy. It’s cultural."
"It’s see-through, Draco."
Allegra fans herself dramatically. "We’re not complaining."
Her friend lifts her glass toward Draco, lips curling in a slow smile. "So what statement are you planning on making, Mr. Ex-Snarl?"
Draco leans back, stretches with a glint of something wicked and reborn dancing behind his pale eyes.
"Still deciding," he murmurs. "But I think it’ll involve black robes, better wine, and walking into the Ministry looking so improved they’ll have to apologize for ever putting me on probation."
Allegra adjusts her sunhat, pausing mid-sip of her spritz. She’s been watching something just over Draco’s shoulder, brows furrowing with amused confusion.
“Wait. Wait. Is that,” she tilts her chin like she’s pointing with it.
Draco turns lazily but sees nothing but sea and sand and the same parade of bronzed tourists pretending they’re locals.
“What?”
“That girl. The one conjuring a chair. The one in denim shorts and a book, Draco. A book.”
Blaise squints past the glare of the water. "Oh hell."
Draco finally finds the figure in question, frizzy hair pinned in a loose bun, sunglasses too big for her face, and a transfiguration textbook in her lap like it’s the latest trashy novel.
“Hermione bloody Granger,” Blaise cackles, clapping his hands once like he’s just won something.
Draco’s brows knit. “She’s alone?”
“Tragic,” Allegra murmurs, fake-pouting behind her glass.
Her friend adds, “Reading in denim. On holiday. That’s not a vibe, that’s a cry for help.”
“I’m not convinced she knows how to vibe,” Blaise mutters.
Draco watches her for another beat, trying not to smile more. “She probably thinks Amalfi is a Latin root.”
“Of course she came here to read,” Blaise says, then adds with a mock-dreamy sigh: “Inspiring. Brave. Very her.”
“She still won’t recognize you,” Allegra says, flipping a lock of hair over her shoulder and arching an eyebrow. “Not with those sunglasses.”
“She’ll recognize me,” Draco says, instantly smug.
“She won’t,” Blaise throws in. “I bet you 10 galleons she won’t. Especially if I’m standing next to you. She’ll assume you’re you, but you could pass for the brooding friend, and I’m the post-war glow-up she’s heard of in passing.”
"That’s idiotic," Draco says flatly. "You really think she’s forgotten a decade old face of relentless teasing, pointed insults, and character assassination?”
“I think she hasn’t seen you since you had a ratty middle part and all the emotional depth of a teaspoon.”
“Ouch,” Draco mutters. “I had angst. That’s different.”
Allegra leans forward, eyes twinkling. “So which of you did she fancy, then?”
Blaise grins. “She had a thing for Draco.”
Draco rolls his eyes. “She did not.”
“She did,” Blaise insists. “You were her moral crisis in sixth year.”
Allegra narrows her eyes. “She doesn’t look like she’d fall for this version of Draco. Too hot. Too emotionally unavailable. Definitely not into men who work out.”
Draco spreads his arms. “I’m right here.”
“She’s definitely going to see through it,” Allegra decides, sitting back smugly.
Draco’s mouth curls slowly. “Fine. Here’s for entertainment then. We walk past her. You and Blaise up front, me behind. She’ll clock Blaise. But she’ll assume I’m, well, me. And I’ll say I’m not,”
“Oh Merlin,” Blaise groans. “Here it comes.”
“say I’m my brother. Aster. Aster Malfoy. Transferred from…” Draco pauses, then snaps. “Obscura Academy. Northern Alps. Hidden. Hyper-elite. Half the curriculum’s classified.”
“That’s too elite, even for us,” Blaise hisses.
“That’s the point,” Draco says. “And if she calls bullshit on all of it, Allegra wins. You can gloat.”
Allegra folds her arms. “And if she doesn’t?”
“Then,” Draco says smoothly, standing and brushing imaginary sand from his shorts, “she’ll have to admit she was flustered. still a little into me.”
Blaise groans. “This is the stupidest plan you’ve ever had.”
“Yet,” Draco says, grinning as he tugs on a linen shirt and adjusts his sunglasses, “you’re already walking.”
Allegra loops her arm in Blaise’s. “Don’t worry, Aster. I’ll make sure you stay in character.”
Draco chuckles under his breath as they stroll toward the oblivious, book-buried Hermione.
He has no idea if this will work.
But he knows one thing:
If anyone’s going to spot the lie, it’s her. And if she doesn’t? Then the joke, for once, won’t be on him.
The three of them, Blaise, Allegra, and “Aster,” are walking the shoreline in well-practiced nonchalance, sea breeze tousling hair, their laughter lazy and easy as waves roll in. Allegra’s friend left them to run the ruse on their own.
Short damn denim shorts, the kind that looked aggressively uncomfortable, high-waisted and fraying at the hem, as if she'd transfigured them from actual suffering. But her legs, freckled and bare and just a little sun-kissed, were a shock to his system. She had that same graceless confidence she always had, shoulders straight and posture perfect, like she was daring the brightness to judge her.
Her top was barely there, a thin, pale lilac spaghetti-strap thing that clung where it needed to and fluttered just enough to seem like an afterthought. Her hair was a wild mess of curls, half pinned up, half falling down her neck, as if she’d tried to tame it and then given up halfway through. A pair of massive sunglasses covered half her face, but he could still see the tight set of her mouth, the way her lips pursed slightly as she read, the line between her brows drawn like she was fighting the world one paragraph at a time.
She looked so entirely out of place and yet… not. Not to him. Like she belonged everywhere now, even here, even in impractical shorts and that ridiculous top. Like maybe the war had made them all a little more feral in what they wore and didn’t wear.
Draco watches the breeze lift her curls and tries not to remember a single bloody thing. He fails.
Hermione spots them from the corner of her eye just as she flips a page in her book, Transfiguration Constructs in Magical Theory. She squints behind her sunglasses.
Then she blinks.
“Blaise?”
It escapes her louder than intended, surprise, disbelief. Her legs shift like she’s unsure whether to stand or sink into the sand and pretend it’s not happening. Draco is bordering on second hand embarrassment.
Blaise slows, furrows his brow, and tilts his head like someone being greeted by an overzealous fan.
“Sorry?” he says with deliberate confusion.
Hermione frowns slightly, tugging her sunglasses off. “Blaise Zabini?”
He takes a single step forward, offers a smile just this side of patronizing. “Grander? Was it? Hermione Grander?”
She levels him with a look. “Granger.”
“Right, right,” Blaise says, like it’s a minor clerical error and not the name of a war heroine. “Seventh year. Fiendfyre. Medals. My mistake.”
Allegra’s already pretending to inspect her nails like this is all a bit beneath her.
Draco beside them, taller, broader, sun-brushed, steps forward, extends a hand with the kind of relaxed charm that Draco Malfoy has never possessed in public memory.
“Nice to meet you,” he says smoothly. “I’m Aster. This is Allegra.”
Hermione narrows her eyes but shakes his hand. “No, you’re not.”
There’s a beat of quiet.
“You’re Draco Malfoy,” she says, grinning a little, amused by the obviousness of it. “Come on.”
Draco laughs lightly. “I get that a lot. It’s the hair.”
Hermione crosses her arms, smiling, challenging. “It’s the everything.”
He doesn’t bristle. Doesn’t curl his lip or shoot off a biting retort. Instead, “Aster” shrugs and launches into the practiced line easy.
“Technically half-brother. Lucius kept me abroad growing up, Obscura Academy, tucked up in the Alps. Not exactly listed on the Floo Network. Tutors, languages, wandless dueling. You know, aristocratic exile.” He smiles, faintly. “Didn’t even meet Draco until after the war. I’m the family’s quiet mistake.”
Hermione stares at him for a second longer than she should. He’s trying so hard not to smirk, not to sneer, not to flash even a flicker of recognition.
And he’s doing alarmingly well.
Hermione blinks, caught off guard by how convincingly neutral his face is. The absence of disdain is clearly jarring to her.
“You’re really committing to this, huh?”
Allegra smiles. “It’s very… immersive theatre.”
But Hermione’s still watching “Aster,” curiosity fighting with the tug of laughter on her lips.
“Obscura Academy, was it?” she says at last.
“Top of my class,” Draco, Aster, replies with faux modesty.
The wind off the coast tastes like salt and citrus, and Draco, Aster, today, finds himself oddly buoyed by the game. Her eyes are sharp, as always, but the barbs she’s known for throwing at him in classrooms and courtrooms now land with the soft brush of curiosity instead of fire. And he doesn’t mind.
She tilts her head, shading her eyes with one hand. “So, Aster, what does one study at Obscura? Dark Arts in soft lighting? Or is the emphasis on dramatic cape work and mysterious exits?”
He should roll his eyes. That’s what Draco Malfoy would do, sneer, maybe quote some bloodline purist drivel or swan off in a puff of contempt.
Instead, he smiles. “Actually, they banned capes after a levitation mishap. Too many tangled ankles during dueling assessments.”
Hermione snorts, snorts, like she didn’t mean to, and looks briefly embarrassed.
She presses further, eyes gleaming now. “And what’s your stance on Muggle integration, Aster? Can’t imagine a hidden alpine academy has much exposure to... broadband.”
Ah. There it is. The test.
He meets her gaze, his voice even. “I think it’s mad that we pretend we’re separate worlds. Magic’s just... one tool in a very large box. Ignoring the rest makes us stupid.”
He means it. It’s not polished or political or Draco-slick. It’s just what he thinks, here, beneath the sun, not in the shadows of Wiltshire or under the scrutiny of the Prophet.
Hermione stares at him like she’s recalibrating.
And maybe she is.
He wonders if it’s the sea air or the ridiculous sunglasses hiding half his face. Or maybe it’s that she wants to believe a man like this exists, someone who looks like him but doesn't wear his cruelty like a badge of honour.
Blaise is already walking backwards, calling out, “Aster, mate, if I starve to death I’m haunting you.”
“Seconded,” Allegra chimes in, looping her arm through Blaise’s. “And I will do it fashionably.”
Draco, Aster, glances back at them, then returns to her.
“It was lovely meeting you, Hermione,” he says sincerely, letting the name linger.
She smiles, that knowing little smile that says she still isn’t sold, but might enjoy the ride anyway. “You too, Aster.”
He hesitates. Just a second. Just long enough.
“We’re heading to lunch at that café by the cliff, Casa Bruna. You should join us.”
Blaise turns, scandalized. “Seriously? You’re inviting her?”
“She’s already uninvited herself,” Draco replies without looking at him.
Hermione waves a dismissive hand. “I’ve got transfiguration theory and too many rays for one day. But thanks.”
She says it like she might regret declining. Tomorrow. Or the next day.
He nods and backs away, eyes still on hers. “Well, if you see us again, don’t hesitate to say hi. I promise I am much friendlier than Draco Malfoy ever was.”
Her lips curve. “That wouldn’t take much.”
He grins and turns to follow his friends, sand under his feet and the strangeness of feeling unburdened humming under his skin.
He walks away not from a fight or a scandal or a verdict. He walks away as someone else. And no one, not even Hermione Granger, has stopped him.
Casa Bruna is half-open walls and sea breeze, all worn stone and clinking cutlery, but the three of them are loud enough to draw glances from the nearby tables. Blaise is practically doubled over, Allegra wiping tears from her mascaraed eyes, and Draco, no, Aster, is smirking into the mouth of his wineglass.
“I cannot believe she bought it,” Allegra says between giggles, flicking her hair back with theatrical disbelief.
“I’m not convinced she did,” Draco says, swirling the deep red in his glass. “She’s clever like that.”
Blaise sits up straighter, cocking a brow. “Is she now?”
Draco gives him a pointed look. “More clever than you, Blaise.”
Allegra snorts. “Low bar, darling.”
“Rude,” Blaise says, but he’s grinning too. He plucks a cherry tomato off Draco’s plate.
Draco leans back in his chair, letting the light hit his face, sunglasses pushed up just enough to still track the coastline, and maybe catch a glimpse of someone walking again across the beach with a book in hand. He hasn’t seen her, but the image is vivid in his mind: wild hair pinned up in a rush, those ridiculous short denim shorts, so clearly chosen for function not, and a strappy top that had absolutely no defense against the Italian sun.
“Gods, she looked good,” he mutters absently.
Blaise chokes on his wine. “You’ve got to be joking.”
Allegra raises a perfectly arched brow. “Please tell me we’re not about to lose you to a war heroine with heatstroke.”
Draco grins. “I’m just saying… maybe I owl her. Invite her out tonight. Club Astrais is still doing that live set.”
“No.” Blaise holds up a hand like he’s physically trying to stop the thought. “Full stop. You are not inviting Hermione Granger to a nightclub.”
Draco shrugs. “Why not? It was fun. Messing with her.”
“That’s messed up,” Allegra says, reaching for another olive, then pointing it at him. “That’s the definition of messed up.”
“No one cares,” Draco says flatly.
Blaise raises his glass. “Especially not Draco.”
Draco leans in, teeth flashing. “Aster, actually.”
They groan in unison.
He’s still half-smiling, but his gaze drifts again toward the beach, wondering, not if she believed him, but if she’ll play along.
-
The fan overhead clicks lazily. Draco lies shirtless in his room on the linen-covered bed, one arm flung over his eyes, the other draped carelessly across his stomach, wand just within reach. The salt air still clings to his skin, but it’s the ghost of Hermione Granger’s laugh that’s clung longer.
Of all the people to haunt his thoughts. Bloody Granger, in impractical denim shorts and an expression halfway between suspicion and surprise. It had been fun, too much fun, maybe. Playing “Aster” had felt like slipping into a cooler version of himself, one unburdened by his surname. But now that he’s alone, the amusement has curdled into something stickier.
The mirror on the bedside table flares to life.
“Oi, Ferret.”
Pansy’s voice is as clipped as ever, though she looks maddeningly polished, her dark hair swept into a sleek twist, Ministry pins gleam on her lapel.
Draco smirks and reaches lazily for the mirror, lifting it with two fingers. “To what do I owe this intrusion? Miss me that much?”
Pansy rolls her eyes. “I’d be flattered, but you’re not the one with the eight-inch botanical wand.”
“Ah yes,” Draco drawls, “Longbottom. The unexpected victor in life’s phallic lottery.”
Pansy’s mouth twitches, betraying amusement. “You’re incorrigible.”
“You’re bored,” he counters. “So, what will you dig up for dear old Granger?”
That stops her cold.
“How,”
“I know things,” he shrugs. “Mostly that she asked Longbottom, who asked you, to look into a certain someone’s school records. Probably trying to prove that your favorite summer fuck toy is, in fact, me.”
Pansy narrows her eyes. “Draco, what the hell is this Aster nonsense?”
He sits up now, eyes gleaming. “My ticket to doing absolutely nothing under a name no one hates. If you play along, I’ll finally give you that first edition of Magical Erotica Through the Ages you begged for last year.”
Pansy arches a brow. “Please. I’ve outgrown immature things like that.”
Draco grins. “Ah. You mean Longbottom’s shown you.”
“Shut up.” She brushes it off, professional once more. “I didn’t call to discuss my sex life. I’m working on a fundraiser for the Bridging Boundaries Initiative,”
“Catchy.”
“And I need donors with clout. People with gold and guilt.”
“You just described half my ancestry.”
She eyes him warily. “If I do this, will you donate?”
Draco lounges back again, smoothly to continue, “Only if I can do it as Aster.”
Pansy groans. “Draco, he doesn’t exist.”
“Not yet,” he shrugs. “But maybe he pops up on the grid now. Mysterious new heir. Rumored to be the bastard child of a Malfoy and someone scandalous. Or better, just someone bored.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“I’m changing,” he says, and it surprises them both how quiet that lands.
Pansy frowns. “Into what, exactly?”
Draco doesn’t answer immediately. He rolls the mirror between his fingers, catching his own reflection, faintly sun-burned and startlingly not sneering.
“Someone who enjoys watching Granger try to unmask me, apparently.”
Pansy laughs. “So it is about her.”
He ignores that. “Tell your Ministry friends that Aster would be delighted to donate. Make it a big one. Something people whisper about.”
“Fine,” she says, smirking. “But if this implodes, I want front row seats.”
He salutes her lazily. “I’ll even save you a chair next to the war heroine.”
The mirror darkens, and Draco leans back, smiling to himself.
Aster Malfoy. Why not?
-
The mirror catches the last of the light slanting in from the terrace, and Draco leans in, turning his head slightly as he watches his eyes shift, storm grey to warm hazel, then a startling pale green.
Too much. Back to hazel.
He mutters a soft charm to settle the color, then blinks. He’ll pass. Especially since when Granger saw him, he’d been in sunglasses. No, not Granger.
Hermione.
He corrects himself firmly, even in his own head. It’s too dangerous otherwise. Say Granger too often and he’ll slip into the old tone, the one laced with superiority and venom and war-dust. Only mean-spirited boys call their nemesis by their last name. And he, he’s “Aster” now.
Behind him, Blaise leans against the doorframe, arms folded, watching Draco fuss. “I can already hear my elves complaining. Sticky socks in the hamper again. Someone’s worked up.”
Draco ignores him at first, casting a minor ward over his collar to keep the fabric perfectly upright, before flicking a small burst of sparks at his outfit. Midnight black button-down, sleeves rolled once. Slim, charmed-trim slacks in deep charcoal. No robes tonight, this was a club, not a bloody Wizengamot hearing.
“Shove off,” Draco mutters. “I’m just,”
“Messing with her,” Blaise finishes for him, smug.
Draco doesn’t look away from the mirror. “Yes, that.”
“This is next-level, even for you,” Blaise drawls. “You’re not just winding her up for a laugh. You’re playing, what, exactly? A long con? A flirty ghost of Christmas Who-the-Fuck?”
Draco straightens, smoothing the collar again, and says coolly, “It won’t last the night. She’ll call me out. She’s already suspicious. Maybe it’s something we laugh about next year. You know, when we’re coworkers at the Ministry.”
Blaise snorts. “Yeah. Or when she’s naming your bastard child of a bastard child.”
That earns him a nonverbal flick of Draco’s wand, a sharp snap of red sparks at his feet. Blaise dodges, laughing.
“Vial,” Draco mutters. “It’s still Hermione we’re talking about.”
“Oh, Hermione, is it?” Blaise teases, and Draco doesn’t respond, only adjusts the cuff of his shirt one last time and grabs his sunglasses.
The club is a cavern of gold light and velvet shadows, pulsing with bass that rattles the bones. Aster leans against the bar, tumbler in hand, letting the chill of the glass anchor him. The liquor burns less than usual. He’s pacing himself. Waiting.
Waiting, like an idiot, for Hermione Granger.
He’s sent the owl hours ago, well, Blaise’s owl, a sleek-looking thing with the attention span of a garden gnome. Draco isn’t even sure it reached her. Maybe it dropped the note in a fruit basket. Maybe she read it, laughed, and tossed it into the sea.
Fine. It’s not a grave loss.
She knows. Or she thinks she knows. But that’s the fun, isn’t it? She’ll either come or she won’t. And if she doesn’t…
He’s still Aster tonight.
Bronze hair swept carelessly back. Hazel eyes. A slight golden burn on his collarbone from a charm gone wrong while tanning, or more likely from pretending he tans. And even at night, the Italian heat clings. No cooling charm works properly in this humidity. He’s long since unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it behind the booth, leaving him in just dark slacks and scuffed boots, skin slick with sweat and summer.
The skin where the Mark used to be? Bare. Smooth.
Not glamoured. Not hidden. Gone.
It’s what brought him here in the first place. A backdoor tip from a curse-breaker, well-compensated for his silence. A sort of graduation gift from Mrs. Zabini, slipped to him at the end of eighth year before she washed her hands of all things parental. She’d never been fond of the role, not even when Blaise was born.
Freedom. Real freedom.
An added bonus that Blaise is from here, with far too many places to stay and no shortage of wine. And with fathers in soul sucking cells, and with mothers only checking in when the guilt hits them, they’re godsdamned adults now. With generational vaults and no one to tell them no.
Fuck it all, this was their summer.
So he dances. With a willowy witch in green who doesn’t ask questions. With a curly-haired wizard who smiles like he’s dangerous. He lets himself laugh, head thrown back. He’s reckless but charming, every bit the illusion he’s built. No ghosts, no legacies, no war.
Just Aster.
In the corners of his thoughts, beneath the rhythm, past the drinks, behind every glance, he’s still watching the door.
Still waiting for the witch in denim shorts and a stubborn jaw who, against every law of logic and likelihood, might just show up.