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“You are absolutely insufferable, do you know that Draco?”
Theo, from his preferred seat at the far end of his friends’ couch, perked up at the sound of Hermione’s sharp tone.
He knew from experience that her admonishment could be interpreted in much the same way as flickering house lights on the West End –– take a seat and enjoy the show.
Theo chuckled to himself as he slunk back into the cushions, ready to hear Draco’s opening line.
“ No,” Draco started, his posh drawl as cool and calm as ever as he sat in his leather wing back, swirling the whiskey in his glass around an obnoxiously square cube of ice. “I’d quite forgotten actually. It’s been almost… two, three hours since you last reminded me?”
Hermione growled, “Could you be serious just this once? Is that something you’re capable of?” She paced behind Draco’s chair, her cheeks flushed red and her curls falling in pieces around her face.
Theo caught Draco’s eye as he smirked, a strange feeling of breaking the fourth wall.
“You’d like for me to be serious ––” Draco asked, “––about this? ”
“You swore you wouldn’t spoil it for me!” She yelled, stomping her foot in a way that counteracted all of the vitriol in her voice.
“You can’t spoil a nonfiction book, love.” Draco stood, grabbing her by the shoulders to put an end to her pacing. “Plus, I was saving you the the trouble of reading the damned thing. Horrible prose, really.”
She glared up at him and he laughed, his attempt to kiss her thwarted as she turned her cheek once, then again, and again.
“ Horrible prose …” Hermione mocked Draco’s accent under her breath, finally allowing him to kiss her. “ You pretentious fuck.”
“Wait –– are you two flirting or fighting?” Theo asked carefully, hesitant to disrupt the show. But without a playbill there was no telling what the tone of tonight would be.
They both whipped around toward him, as if they’d forgotten about their silent audience entirely.
“Flirting.” Draco drawled at the same time Hermione said, “Fighting.”
And Merlin , they were more entertaining than any show Theo had ever seen. Even better, his front row seat was free.