Title: The way things are
Disclaimer: J.K.Rowling owns everything you recognize; the only thing that's mine is the plot.
Summary: With Harry married to Ginny, Ron and Hermione are left to be roommates. This is all good and well until he starts dating Pansy Parkinson, whose obsession with throwing dinner parties forces Hermione to spend many awkward hours alone with Pansy's roomie, Draco Malfoy. Clubbing, slurred words, and general hilarity ensue.
Author's Note: I got the idea for this when I was spacing out in math, and for whatever reason I began to think of the scene from Sideways when Miles and Maya are forced to make small talk and awkwardly hear the sexual cries of their two friends as they get it on. So…yeah. Here goes nothing.
Chapter One
Hermione stared dubiously at her reflection. Although the mirror had already informed her that she looked "lovely", she could not help but feel more than a little uncomfortable in the slinky black cocktail dress Ginny had insisted she buy while they were on Ginny's bachelorette vacation in Paris. She uncertainly tugged at the simple diamond clip she had used to pull back her hair.
"'Mione! Come on! We'll be late!" Ron called to her from the living room.
Sighing resignedly, she opened her door and walked out, grabbing her purse as she went.
"Haven't you heard of being fashionably late?" she asked him as she opened the door to their apartment. He followed her out, though he did not seem to have heard her.
"Blimey you look nice", he said softly.
Despite herself, Hermione was comforted by hearing a male's opinion on her appearance. She smiled at him.
"Thanks. You do, too."
As they stepped outside, Hermione inhaled deeply the cool summer night air. It was a beautiful evening; the sky was cloudless and the moon and stars shone brightly.
"Remind me why we can't just Apparate again?" Ron asked her grumpily after a few minutes of walking.
"Because it's not a far walk, it's rude to just Apparate into someone's house, and we live in a muggle neighborhood."
She could almost hear him rolling his eyes.
As they reached the end of the apartment buildings and started down the road that led to Ron's girlfriend's house, Hermione pondered quietly to herself. Pansy was definitely the wackiest of Ron's girlfriends (although she excluded herself from the list of his freaky exes, because she did not consider herself a nutcase), but they were both so smitten for each other that it didn't matter much. Truthfully, the only wacky thing about her was that after the war was over (she, Malfoy, and a few other Slytherins having switched to the right side), she suddenly underwent a personality change that made her very bubbly; this prompted her fetish for throwing almost weekly dinner parties, and was what encouraged tonight's party, on the day that marked her and Ron's one month anniversary.
Hermione got along well enough with Pansy, and thankfully, in the two dinner parties she had attended, Malfoy had been absent; even after he switched sides, the trio never saw him much, and were spared the burden of trying to be civil after six years of constant belittlement.
"RON! YOU'RE HEEEEEERRRREEEE!"
Hermione blinked in surprise as Pansy flung herself into Ron's arms, for she hadn't even realized they had arrived. She could see the party was already in full swing: noise reverberated throughout the house and out the open door, and she could see at least 30 people milling around inside. She grinned as she saw Harry standing in the doorway, beaming down at her.
"I didn't expect you to be here," she told him as she rushed up to hug him.
"Neither did we," he said, "but we finished up our honeymoon earlier than expected, just got back actually, and figured why not come to see everyone. Ginny's inside catching up with Luna, I expect…"
Hermione turned to follow Harry inside the house, but suddenly found herself being squeezed to death by Pansy.
"I'M SO GLAD YOU'RE HERE TOO! My old friend is here, he was home schooled, but he's totally hot and I could definitely give you an intro if you like! If I've said it once, I've said it a million times, you need to get out into the dating world again Hermione, time is running out!"
Hermione chuckled. "Pansy, we're 20 years old."
"What difference does that make? You have to meet your husband someday. So, what about it, want to meet him?"
Hermione was saved giving a response by the arrival of more people ("Parvati! Lavender! I haven't seen you guys in ages!"), but unfortunately Harry had become lost in the crowd. She picked up a glass of butterbeer from the refreshments table and walked among everyone, saying hey to those she knew and stopping briefly to catch up with people she hadn't seen since school, or the end of the war. After an hour or so she became slightly exhausted with small talk and decided to venture off into other areas of the house, which she had never seen in its entirety before. She struck gold with the first door off the main hallway.
Hermione found herself in a fairly large library, with dark mahogany bookcases filled to the top with all kinds of intriguing looking books her fingers itched to peruse. She had to bite her lip from whispering "oooh", which she would have felt awkward saying out loud when she was alone. She walked up and picked out a dark red hardback at random, but before she could even open it, someone spoke from the shadows.
"It's not polite to look at another person's belongings without asking their permission first, you know."
She jumped and dropped the book in shock, her large brown eyes wide. Hastening to pick it up, she tried to identify the speaker, and stopped halfway down to retrieve it, standing back up in alarm. "Malfoy!"
Author's Note: whoo, chapter one down! So, what did you guys think? SPOILERS FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER: Draco's thoughts on Hermione's little black dress, alcohol-induced immaturity in 20-year-olds manifesting itself through childish games, and a bit of streaking.