It didn't matter how many times they did the blasted sprints, but Draco still hated the exercise with a passion. He hated it the second Coach Brawley's wand began to tick insessantly, he hated it when Blaise always seemed to be one step ahead of him, and he hated it when the inevitable occurred.
The inevitable being Draco losing his pre-practice meal in the locker room five minutes after completing the stupid test.
"Every damn time", he muttered to Blaise, who nodded absentmindedly and handed him his water bottle. You'd think for being the starting seeker of the Appleby Arrows, Draco Malfoy would be able to stomach sprints. The young man could fly miles into the air, drink the night away celebrating another glorious win with his team, and somehow manage to eat Pansy's food when it was her turn to cook for the "Sexy Six", as Ginny Potter had so poetically named his small friend group. Yes, he could stomach undercooked chicken and rock solid biscuits, but Merlin forbid he had to run a sprint.
Draco sighed and rinsed out his mouth with some of the water, noticing that Blaise seemed hyperfocused on his phone, more than usual for a Tuesday afternoon. His best friend was hunched over on the bench, furiously typing away on his device, something that still made Draco chuckle. After the war, the children of Death Eater's and pureblood sympathizers were at a loss of what to do. Some, like Draco, Blaise and Pansy, had been forced to participate in the Death Eater ranks and received consequences from the Ministry. (Draco's trace that monitored his use of magic, or lack thereof, as dictated by the Ministry, had just expired last month). But all of them were reeling from the fact that the rest of the wizarding world looked upon them as scum and less than human, while people like Harry Potter and Hermione Granger were elevated to a saint-like status.
That's where things got weird.
It had been hard for Draco and Blaise to acclimate back into wizarding culture. After the trials following the defeat of Voldemort, the pair had accepted the magical restrictions dictated by the Ministry and had travelled to Northern England where the Arrows' manager, Cho Chang, had found them in a bar discussing their limited career options. She took a chance on them, looked past the last seven years, and it paid off- after the regular season ended on Thursday, the Arrows would be in the Quidditch World Cup the following week, thanks mainly to Draco's seeker skills (which had improved since his Hogwarts days), and Blaise being one of the team's best chasers.
Although Quidditch had opened up a group of wizards who had Draco and Blaise's backs, their lives didn't truly change until the second home game of the season against the Holyhead Harpies. During this particular game, Ginny Potter had performed one of her more daring broom moves, while Draco unknowingly entered her route in search of the snitch. It was labeled as one of "the more impossible crashes in Quidditch history", and in the aftermath the Ferret and Weasel-ette realized that neither of them were the kids that glared at each other's friend group in the great hall any more. Through Draco, Ginny met Blaise, and the pair bonded over a ridiculous passion for Queen and making fun of one Draco Malfoy. This bond caused Ginny to announce herself as Blaise's wingman after Malfoy insisted he didn't need any help, and Blaise was reintroduced to Luna Lovegood. (Which although confusing at first, turned out to be an incredible relationship). Through Ginny, Draco and Blaise eventually reunited with Potter, and although the first month was bloody awkward and there were quite a few mutterings of "if only I wasn't banned from using my wand Potter", both parties soon realized that there was a change occurring and understanding grew. Soon, Pansy had returned from her escapades around Europe and realized that her true family consisted of two ruddy looking boys playing for the Arrows, and joined their slowly forming group.
After this, weekly dinners became regularly scheduled programming in Draco's life. First, the Potter's, then the Zabini's, Pansy, and then Draco hosted, and those nights always promised good food (unless Pansy was cooking), good firewhiskey (unless the Arrows or Harpies had won the previous day), and a good education into the muggle world by none other than Harry James Potter himself. Which is how Blaise, Pansy, Draco, and the other three members of the Sexy Six ended up drunkenly purchasing muggle phones and now soberly used them on the daily.
"Blaise, what's she up to now?" Draco asked, coming to stand beside the taller guy as he tugged his practice jersey off and threw it into his bag. Usually the constant buzzing of Blaise's phone meant one of two things, either Pansy was having a meltdown about her magazine, or Luna had discovered a new type of Nargle.
"It's not Pansy or Luna," Blaise muttered, his fingers still hurriedly typing away.
"Well, then who is it? Morganna? Lady Gaba? Rudelf?" The blond carelessly remarked, pulling his sweatshirt over his head and began slipping on his tennis shoes. The obvious butchering of Blaise's favorite pop-culture icons caused the man to abruptly look up from his phone and glare at Draco, obviously offended.
"For your information, if Madonna, Lady Gaga, or Rudolph was in communication, I would not have even acknowledged that you threw up yet again. It's not Pansy, because you should know that that blasted woman doesn't text- oh no, her highness must call. Even when I'm on the toilet, Draco. The toilet. Pansy waits for no man. And you know Luna likes to text me about Nargles but she usually gets distracted mid-discovery and the buzzing stops." Draco's laugh rumbled in his chest at Blaise's obvious abhorrence to being robbed of his privacy, when his best friend nonchalantly made the laugh get caught in his chest.
"It's Ginny, actually. Apparently Granger is back in England, and our friend here is panicking."
Granger was back? Granger as in Hermione Jean Granger? Granger as in the girl who had abruptly moved to France three weeks after Ron Weasley had broken up with her? Granger as in the Hermione Granger that bested Draco Malfoy in every area except flying and smirking?
Draco coughed slightly, his eyes widening as he looked at Blaise. His best friend looked back at his phone, and Draco noticed the relentless onslaught of texts from Ginny, fully capitalized and with no end in sight.
"Hermione Granger is back?"
"Yup. Her plane landed an hour ago, Harry went to pick her up."
"Why is Ginny panicking?" Draco still hadn't moved, his body not catching up to his frazzled mind as the fact set in that Hermione Granger was, very much so, back in England.
"Well, you know how Ginny gets. The stress of the World Cup, plus Ron's announcement last week, plus Hermione coming back and she's going to need help moving in, and with how bad Gin's been feeling, she's bloody well about to combust."
Draco sighed as he finally moved, shouldering his practice bag and running a hand through his sweaty blonde hair. Blaise mirrored his actions as he gathered all his stuff, and the pair started to exit the locker room.
"Does Granger know about Ron's thing?" Draco asked, waving to Brawley and Chang, who were most likely discussing World Cup arrangements.
"I doubt it. I hope Ginny tells her, because it's going to be a wild ride anyway with her moving into 98 without all that nonsense," Blaise muttered as he absentmindedly kicked a rock across the parking lot. Draco stopped abruptly, grabbing Blaise's shoulders and turning the chaser to look at him.
"She's moving into 98?!" Draco screeched, very un-slytherin and malfoy like, drawing the attention of some teammates. "98" was the nickname Draco and Blaise had given their apartment that they had moved into after signing with the Arrows. It was a neat flat, quite comfortable given the income of two professional Quidditch players. There were three bedrooms, which meant that up until the time that Luna had become a future Zabini, the boys had one room dedicated to Quidditch supplies, sponsorship paraphernalia, and Malfoy heirlooms that Draco didn't want but his mother had forced upon him. After Luna had moved in, the extra room also became the blonde girl's office, filled with parchment, journals, and specimens.
None of that really matter anymore though, not with Hermione Granger moving in. Draco took a shallow breath as Blaise stood frozen, waiting for his reaction. The chaser waited for the yelling, the disbelief, the refusal, but none of that came.
Despite only walking to their cars, Draco preceded to throw up on Blaise's new running shoes.
Hermione Granger was moving in.