Work Text:
“She doesn’t love me anymore,” Draco announces to no one in particular.
He sighs forlornly into his tumbler before draining the remaining Firewhisky. Blaise rolls his eyes as he flips the page of the magazine he’s pretending to read, if only so that he has a reason to ignore his friend.
Draco has always been especially prone to dramatics and one might think that after all this time Blaise would be used to it. Alas, he is not.
If it weren’t for Ginevra returning to London in a few hours, Blaise would be drunk, too, and this entire affair would be much more bearable. As it is, he’s painfully sober, and the other three members of their small party are otherwise engaged.
Thus, he’s left to shoulder the burden that is a drunk, pathetic Draco Malfoy.
As if on cue, the blond in question sniffles rather piteously and continues in a slurred, weepy voice, “I always knew it would come to this, I just hoped she’d stick around a bit longer—”
“Who, Pipsey?” Blaise asks, unable to resist the temptation to rile him up.
“Pipsey?” Draco says incredulously. “Why would Pipsey leave me?”
“Now that she’s a free elf, with a salary or her own, and no longer bound to your family—”
“Pipsey would never!” Draco all but wails, the thought of his faithful house-elf abandoning him clearly too much to bear. “It doesn’t matter whether she’s paid!” He hiccups then, clearly pissed even as he snaps his fingers and his glass refills. “She’ll always l-love me!”
“Who, then,” Blaise interjects before Draco can spiral any further, “are you going on about?
“Hermione Granger, my girlfriend!” Draco replies with fiery indignation.
“As opposed to Hermione Granger, your pet kneazle?”
Draco’s brows knit together in confusion.
“I don’t have a pet kneazle…”
“Never mind, you poor, beautiful fool,” Blaise says to Draco, sighing before turning toward the couch that the other three are presently occupying in a tangle of limbs. “Why don’t you help me out here, Parks? You are the hostess, after all.”
Pansy turns toward him the moment she hears her name, an impeccable product of years of etiquette lessons. Still, it’s clear by the look on her face that she’s rather displeased at being interrupted.
Beneath her, Harry continues to indulge in a rather heated snog with Theo, who sits beside them both. Though, given the way he practically curls into Harry, Theo might as well be sitting on his lap, too.
“What do you want?” she snaps.
Before Blaise can even formulate a single, coherent thought, Draco cuts in.
“Will you talk to her, Pansy? I just want to know if it was something I did—”
“Sweet Morgana, not this again.” Pansy pauses then, pinching the bridge of her nose as she shifts in Harry’s embrace to face Draco. “I already told you. Hermione has no intention of ending the relationship,” she says slowly, as if speaking to a small, stupid child. Then, running her fingers across Harry’s chest, she says, “Isn’t that right, love?”
To his credit, Harry manages to detach his lips from Theo’s mouth for long enough to glance up at Pansy, though he does look a bit dazed. Blaise has no idea how someone so unsophisticated managed to win the heart of not one but two otherwise pragmatic, cultured individuals.
Still, they all look to be happy and that’s what matters, Blaise supposes.
“Didn’t you talk to Hermione?” Pansy prompts Harry after a minute passes in silence.
It’s clear that he wasn’t listening before, not that anyone could blame him.
And with Theo now latched onto his neck sucking a hickey to match the one Pansy already gave him, it seems Harry is quite unable to formulate any sort of coherent response. Pansy doesn’t seem to mind, though. Leaning down to capture his lips in a kiss that’s far too intimate for present company, she murmurs something to him before turning back toward Draco and, by extension, Blaise.
“She and Harry had lunch just the other day, Draco. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
“But—” Draco starts, only to fall silent when he sees Pansy glaring.
“Take him home,” she says to Blaise. “I’m ready to turn in.”
“You just want to shag your boyfriends,” Blaise retorts.
“And I’ll do it here, with an audience, if you two don’t get out.”
With a single, nearly imperceptible nod of his head, Blaise stands and, looping his arm around Draco, drags his friend from the room.
“C'mon, mate,” he says as they stumble down the hallway towards the Floo. “Let’s get you home.”
“I want to go to Hermione’s flat,” Draco demands, sounding just like the sullen, spoilt boy who stalked the halls of Hogwarts, even if Blaise can barely make out what he’s trying to say. “I want to see her—sort this out.”
“Won’t she be sleeping?”
“Take me to her, or I’ll go myself.”
“You’re in no state to Apparate, and you’re liable to end up somewhere else entirely if you use the Floo.”
However, ultimately he knows better than to argue. For better or worse, Draco is insufferably obstinate. This particular matter is hardly a hill worth dying on, especially since it won’t be Blaise who will have to deal with the consequences.
If they end up waking Hermione, his friend will be the lucky bloke to suffer her wrath.
So, without another word, Blaise leads Draco to the fireplace and towards his witch.
It’s Crookshanks who notices the shift in her wards first.
And when her familiar goes scurrying away, Hermione knows she has little choice but to follow. With a sigh, she abandons her steaming bath and slides her robe over her shoulders, wrapping her arms around her stomach as she makes her way towards the living room.
She hears Draco before she sees him.
His posh drawl, still recognizable despite the effects of alcohol on his speech, fills her flat. Another voice joins his, though it’s much quieter and, as such, more difficult to place. As if to join in the conversation, Crookshanks releases a loud ‘Mreow’ that is, of course, followed by pleased coos from Draco at what a good boy her half-kneazle is.
The scene when she enters the room perfectly matches the image her mind had begun to conjure. Though, to be fair, it’s one she’s seen many times.
Draco holds her familiar like a baby, rocking him back and forth as he presses kisses to his nose and rubs his cheek against the top of Crookshanks’ head. From the fireplace, Blaise merely watches the pair with an amused look.
He sees her as soon as she enters the room.
The other two are far too enamoured with one another to realize she’s even there.
“There you are, Granger,” he says, voice low so as to not disturb Draco and his self-proclaimed, four-legged best friend. “Sorry to bring him like this but—”
“He insisted,” she finishes for him with a small smile.
Blaise shrugs his shoulders and glances once more toward Draco before looking back at her. Hermione can see the affection in his eyes, even though Blaise would never admit it.
“Now I know he’s safely in your care, I’ll be off.”
“Tell Ginny I said hello, and that I’ll see her in a—” She pauses to glance at the clock hanging above the mantle. “Well, a few hours, at this point. Travel safe.”
With a two-finger salute in farewell, Blaise disapparates and Hermione turns toward Draco.
“What am I ever going to do with you?” she mutters.
The question is rhetorical, hardly directed at him, but, of course, that’s what Draco hears.
“Baby,” he says by way of greeting, stumbling across the room to close the space between them. “Hi.”
Shifting Crookshanks to hold the creature over his shoulder, Draco loops one of his arms around her waist and drags Hermione to him, immediately burying his face in her hair and inhaling deeply before a contented sigh escapes him.
“I missed you so much,” he says.
“I saw you yesterday,” she says with a laugh.
“And then you spent the entire day and night with him.”
Draco draws back just enough to scowl at her, but his arm is still firmly braced against her back, holding her nearly flush to him.
“Like I told you before, Viktor and I having dinner means nothing more than two old friends catching up. He’s in a happy and committed relationship with Daphne... Besides that, we were never romantically involved! You know this.”
Draco merely stares down at her, blinking owlishly for half a minute as his inebriated brain tries to make sense of what she just said.
“You don’t love me anymore, do you?” he asks, his eyes welling with tears.
The sudden shift in his mood nearly gives her whiplash, even if she should have expected it.
After all, a drunk Draco is an emotional Draco.
Hermione reaches up and frames his face with her hands, fingers resting on his cheeks even as she presses onto her tiptoes until their noses brush.
“You know I love you.”
She can see the doubt in his bleary grey eyes.
“I love you, Draco,” she repeats.
With a loud cry in protest at being ignored, Crookshanks wriggles from Draco’s hold and promptly exits the room, leaving them to their own devices.
Draco drops to his knees, hugging his arms around her thighs and resting his head against her pelvis. Slowly, she runs her fingers through his hair. It always serves to soothe him when he’s distressed and, as such, it’s her next strategy, given that her verbal assurances have had little success in calming him. Tomorrow she’ll give him a stern talk about not drinking so much but for now, she’ll settle for comforting him.
Regardless of how ludicrous he’s behaving, it’s evident that he’s upset. And in this state, she’ll never get to the root of what’s bothering him.
As if he can hear her thoughts, Draco lets out a miserable groan.
“Why won’t you let me fuck you?”
The muffled question startles her so severely that Hermione isn’t able to swallow the shocked laugh that escapes her. Clearly, it’s the wrong response.
“I’m serious,” Draco says, glaring up at her. “It’s been two weeks.”
“I know, love. You’ve been so patient, too.”
“It’s been pure torture—agony of the worst kind.”
“That’s a bit dramatic,” she says, smiling fondly.
“You won’t even let me lick your cunt!”
“Rather rude of me,” she agrees solemnly.
“You don’t love me anymore and you’re leaving me.”
“Sweet Morgana, not this again. I told you already, Draco. I do love you.”
Extracting herself from his embrace, Hermione opens her robe and shrugs it from her shoulders. His eyes immediately fall to her breasts—always the first place he looks whenever she’s naked before him, no matter how many times he’s seen her.
He’s so focused on her chest that he fails to notice anything else, namely, the reason she hasn’t taken him to bed, or even allowed him to do anything beyond kiss her, in so many weeks.
An entire minute and a half pass and he continues to gawk at her breasts, completely oblivious when she clears her throat. It isn’t until she calls his name that he glances back up to her face, pupils blown wide—unfocused.
“Look at my thigh,” she says, stepping towards him. “It’s what I’ve been hiding from you… I didn’t want you to see it until it was completely healed.”
He glances down, just as directed, and his gapes.
“Oh,” he says softly, after a moment. “A dragon? For me?”
She hums in acknowledgement, too lost in how good it feels to have his hands on her again as he reverently traces his fingers over the dark lines of the tattoo that spans most of her hip and upper thigh.
When he runs his tongue over it, a low moan catches in her throat.
It really has been a long time.
“You’re so beautiful.”
His breath is warm against her skin.
“Do you believe me now? That I love you?”
“Yes, and I love you. Let me fuck you.”
“You’re incredibly drunk, love.”
“And?” His brows furrow. “I want you.”
“At least let me get you a sober-up potion first.”
“If you insist,” he says with a dramatic sigh.”
“I do. Now come on.”
Helping him to his feet, Hermione braces his arm around her shoulder and leads him to the bedroom, depositing him on the bed before retreating to the bathroom to get a potion from her supply. Just to be safe, she grabs one that will fend off any potential hangover, too.
However, by the time she returns, Draco is sleeping soundly, even though no more than a few minutes have passed. He’s sprawled across her bedsheet, breathing slowly and steadily even when Crookshanks jumps onto the mattress and curls up by his shoulder.
The sight warms her heart, a smile spreading across her face as she takes off his rings and shoes, transfigures his suit into pyjamas, and casts a cleansing charm to clean his teeth and face. While she considers waking him to give him the potions, Hermione elects to merely place them on the nightstand, alongside a glass of water.
Then, content at ensuring he should have everything he needs, she turns out the lights and crawls into bed beside him.
“Well, well, look who finally decided to show up.”
“Hush, Pans, I’m only five minutes late.”
A cheshire-like grin spreads across Pansy’s face as she takes in the rather flustered appearance of her best friend.
“That’s like being a quarter of an hour behind schedule in Granger time.”
“Why are you late, by the way?” Ginevra cuts in, turning from her conversation with Daphne to greet Hermione. “You have a look about you…”
“Hello to you, too, Ginny,” Hermione deadpans. “So nice to see you, too, Ginny.”
“Gods, don’t call her that pedestrian name,” Pansy says emphatically. “It’s Ginevra. How many times do we have to tell you?”
“She’s just trying to distract from the conversation,” Daphne says sweetly, smiling that pretty smile of hers before turning to Hermione. “Why are you late, darling?”
“Maybe she overslept,” Astoria chimes in.
Pansy resists the urge to strangle her. As the only person present who isn’t a normal fixture in their friend group, it comes as no surprise that Astoria would be so far off base. If it were up to Pansy, the other woman wouldn’t have been invited at all.
Daphne insisted, though, considering she and Viktor were only in the country for a few days. Of course, Pansy couldn’t argue with that, nor did she want to deny one of her oldest friends. Still, the unwelcome presence is grating on her.
Before Hermione showed up, Astoria insisted on telling the entire table about the gown she wore to a gala the night before. Thus, Pansy’s mild annoyance is already at the brink of bubbling into true exasperation.
However, before Pansy can respond, Ginevra says, “Hermione doesn’t sleep in—ever.”
Astoria merely shrugs her shoulders as if to say, ‘It was a good guess,’ and Pansy tries not to roll her eyes. She won’t waste any energy on that vapid woman, not when she has more important matters to discuss with Hermione.
“Please tell me you finally showed him the tattoo. He’s been absolutely insufferable for weeks, but last night was especially painful. He wouldn’t stop whinging about how you didn’t love him anymore, how you were going to leave him—”
“Are you and Draco over?” Astoria interjects, her eyes gleaming as she looks at Hermione.
“Don’t interrupt, Tori. It’s rude,” Daphne chastises. “So, did you show him, Hermione?”
“I didn’t have much choice, did I?” Hermione says with a laugh. “Apparently he forced Blaise to bring him to my flat last night.”
“I felt a little guilty for kicking them out, but I couldn’t stand the pathetic wallowing any longer—”
“And you have hot boyfriends to fuck.” Ginevra winks rather suggestively and snickers. “Blaise told me all about the show you three were putting on—”
“Anyway,” Hermione says. “He was a mess, after drinking so much.”
“We tried to cut him off, but you know how belligerent he can be.”
“Oh, I know. He was so certain that I was going to end the relationship, all because I haven’t slept with him for two weeks.”
“Men have needs,” Astoria says primly.
“Tori,” Daphne warns, and all the better.
It’s taking every ounce of self-control Pansy possesses to not hex Astoria.
“Well, he’s always been dramatic,” Ginevra says. “Let’s not forget the Buckbeak incident.”
The group dissolves into a fit of giggles and, not for the first time, Pansy is utterly amazed and thoroughly grateful at having found such wonderful friends in two former enemies.
As much as she loves Harry, Theo, Blaise, and Draco, the people around this table are her favourites, not including Astoria, of course.
“He loved it, didn’t he,” Pansy says smugly, once the laughter has quieted.
She already knows the answer and has, ever since she convinced Hermione to get the tattoo. Still, it’s always nice to be told she’s right.
“He did love it,” Hermione says as a blush paints her cheeks.
A pause and then Ginevra exclaims, “Don’t be coy, Hermione! Tell us his reaction!”
“It’s only right,” Daphne says. “We’ve all had to suffer him the past few weeks.”
“You, too?” Hermione asks, brows raised.
“He sends me rather sad messages via his Patronus when he’s drunk.”
“Oh, gods,” Hermione groans. “My boyfriend really is a menace.”
“Yes, darling, we know. Now, give us the details or else,” Pansy says.
“You’re all incorrigible! He was enthralled, absolutely entranced, as I’m sure you can imagine—”
“BORING!” Ginevra jeers, eliciting laughter from Daphne.
“You cannot tell me the man didn’t take you to bed immediately,” Pansy says.
“He was rather insistent,” Hermione says, her blush deepening as she pulls her lip between her teeth. “We didn’t, though...not last night.”
“Last night?” Pansy asks. “What about this morning?”
“Is that why you were late?!” Ginevra screeches.
“Hermione!” Daphne says, laughing melodically.
“I’m sorry! It’s been so long, and he woke me up with his tongue.”
“Sweet Morgana, that man loves to eat your cunt,” Pansy proclaims.
“Pans!” Hermione says, eyes wide. “Not so loud!”
“What? It’s not as if it’s a secret. All it takes is a drop of Firewhisky in his system and Draco could write sonnets about how good you taste, how perfect and pretty your cunt is.”
Hermione drops her head to the table, mortified.
“Oh, gods. What am I ever going to do with him?”
“I can always take him off your hands, if he’s too much for you to handle,” Astoria says slyly.
“I swear to Merlin,” Pansy starts, unleashing her ire on Astoria. “If you make one more bloody insinuation… I’ll hex you so hard, you’ll be in St Mungos for a week. Draco and Hermione are soulmates.” She might be making a scene, but she doesn’t care. Her magic sings at finally being able to express the vexation that has been building up until this point. “They’re perfectly happy and will one day marry and live happily ever after with a whole brood of pretty blonde, curly-haired babies—”
“It’s okay, Pans,” Hermione says, resting her hand on Pansy’s arm.
“No, it’s not! This conniving little trollop is trying to move in on your wizard—”
“She’s done now,” Daphne says with a cold look toward her sister. “Aren’t you, Tori?”
Astoria glances at Hermione for a moment before her eyes flit to Pansy and then back to her Daphne.
“Of course, I didn’t mean anything by it—just a silly joke.”
“Silly joke, my arse,” Pansy retorts.
“Enough!” Ginevra says. “Daphne is only in town for a few days and starting tomorrow, I’ll be busy with training. Let’s just enjoy our time together.”
Hermione bumps Pansy’s shoulder and flashes her a small smile.
“Fine,” Pansy huffs, focusing on her menu.
She can continue grilling Hermione later, and, with any luck she’ll be able to pretend Astoria just doesn’t exist.
Soon, conversations start up again as the women decide on what to order and continue to catch up with one another.
And, with that, all is well.