Standing In
Chapter 7
His parents were Slytherins. For that, he was one too by blood, in environment, in upbringing, education and life.
So he should have known at some point in his life they had a certain hand in things and a certain expectation.
He had always thought of his friendship to Hermione as something special and precious. It was unique and while she had friendships of all levels with all kinds, his was a brand no one had. There were singular things in his friendship with her that could be shared with any other friend of hers. Things he could and never dared to have someone else stand in her place. Sure she had gone to the movies with the likes of Harry and Ron but he doubted either man ever willingly sit through a chick flick with her.
She was the one he would let cheer him up when things got bad. When a girl left him, she would come over with a few pints of ice cream and ciders while he hexed and flung whatever about to make him feel better. She was the one who sat and listened at all his stupid mutterings about any ex and what news he was subjected to hearing because he wanted to pass the unwanted news on to someone else.
So when they had dinner that night, he had his own thoughts and his own gratefulness that some things would always be. He had questioned that Liam would rob him of his friendship.
Draco was not raised to share and he certainly wasn't raised to play nice with others. Tolerate was the most he was raised to do in that respect. So when their outing had gone as any other, he was glad that late or not, he wasn't coming completely second to some interloper. He could live with her being late.
He could live with hearing his father's talk of business and whatnot drift towards other subjects when his mind had drifted to what flavor at Fortescue's would be sampled the next trip out. He could wave his father's inquiry about his martial status as he thought of how many more trips it would be before the whole of Fortescue's was tasted and the favorites would be given a second chance. At the rate things have gone, it would be a few more years.
So when his father brought up the topic of Liam again, he felt angered at why the insignificant man mattered all of a sudden.
So whether by sheer need to cut the topic off or design of a certain kind, he was graced to hear the whispered tail end of his mother's conversation with Hermione.
And it reminded him how independent Hermione was. Friendship or not, special or not, Liam was being given a sense of importance regardless of all else.
So for all of Draco's cutting thoughts and blatant attempts to disregard the other man, Hermione would give the man a level of importance on principle.
Already he knew he would have to play nice and share in a way he didn't like. It was one thing to know she was in love with someone she elevated to a grandiose level. At least with that man, he felt like her judgment was passed with some sense of reason that he could accept and know that he wouldn't be competing with as the oblivious prick was too dense to do anything and she too pessimistic to try. But to know that some creature named Liam was just might one day be a permanent placeholder, well that was not good.
As far as he was concerned, she deserved better than a placeholder. She deserved the best. She was magical and special and she was dear and unique to him and loathe as he would to lose her in any capacity, knowing that she would stoop down to settle made him wish for more for her.
"Have dinner with me tonight." The idea came to him when they were out and now he was putting a thought into play.
Between her looking at the merits of the recipe cards she got from their trip to do her weekly shopping, she nodded without giving it much thought.
"Chicken?" She held up the card more clearly for him to see the devised image of a perfect meal. "It'll give me a chance to try this out."
And for his play, she didn't get the message. Where any other time he would have been fine with her twisting his words as a suggestion they simply have a meal together, he had a different plan.
"I meant, let's go out tonight." He hoped that would be clear for her.
"Oh." She nodded still as she put a few things away. "It's been a while since we went to that place at the corner. That'll be nice."
And again she wasn't getting his message. He didn't want to just have a meal with her.
Rising from the bar stool he was on, he crossed the island and turned her from her task of putting away her shopping. Making sure to straighten her enough to be out of reach of her bags and to be upright to look upon him, he tried again.
"Have dinner with me tonight. I don't want you to cook, I don't want us to go to some hole in the wall we've been too a million times over. I want you, after I finish to go out and spend the afternoon finding some perfect dress that's only intended effect screams date, I want you to get your hair done and whatever makeup on or whatever it is you do that the dress compels you to do. I will be here at eight to pick you up and we will go some place wonderful and go from there." If she didn't get the hint before, he was sure she got it then.
"You can be so dramatic." And with a swat of her hand, he knew she still didn't get it.
"You can't be serious." He had all but laid out a perfectly outlined bulleted list of what and order of steps and she missed what he was telling her.
"Eight then." She shrugged before turning enough to take the carton of eggs to stack into the fridge.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" It was a valid question if any. He had actually asked her out and said as much and she didn't get it.
"What?" She didn't even so much as turn from the fridge as she straightened the contents. "I said I would have dinner with you, again with the dramatics. Did you have a fight with your father again?"
He didn't even know how his father played a part in any of it but that wasn't something he'd let her start to sidestep him.
"I just asked you, I just told you so, with details and nothing." He raised his hands in frustration then. "What part of that wasn't clear Hermione? Was it part where I wanted you to go get dressed up? The part where I wanted you to invoke some girly glee of dating? The part where I told you that I would be here later to whisk you away for said date?"
Really, he didn't see what it was she didn't get.
"Right, dinner. Eight." She still hadn't turned much or changed her tone. If anything, she was finding a new fascination with checking the expiration of the contents of her fridge. "Think I'll have much use the rest of this before next month?"
With a bottle of sauce he didn't have a clue the uses to, she proved the point that she didn't get the message.
"Explain something to me." Taking the bottle from her hand, he tossed without a care to the clattering sound it made as it landed in her fridge before he closed the door and dragged her bewildered self to sit as the looked at her dead certain one of them was crazy.
"I just asked you out on a date and nothing but that twerp Liam pencils in time to see you and you're practically giddy in comparison." He knew he would start sputtering from shock soon but he wanted to continue that much more.
"Is it boring that you like? Is that what your dream guy is? Dull and boring? The kind that gets turned on by wool socks and thinks risk is walking out the front door?" He wanted to keep ranting and raving but her calm blank expression broke then and before anymore questions could really get far, he saw the tears form.
"Why are you doing this?" He could feel her arms start to shake and he knew he pushed to hard this time. "All I wanted was a chance." She let out a small sob long enough to violently shake herself enough to stop whatever it was. "I know you don't like Liam and maybe he doesn't make me deliriously happy but at least he tries enough for the both of us."
She got up then, ducking from his presence she went back to the task of putting the last bag away.
"I don't need you to take me out to remind me that there are better times to be had with anyone else. I don't need that kind of pity. I know where I stand. I also know how much I have to settle for." She turned then to him, the tears she fought to keep clearly kept at bay. "I will have to accept that guys Liam are it. I don't need you to show me something else to remind me of it. I'm tired of dreaming Draco. I'm tired of wishes and things that go no further than my mind. So yeah… dinner tonight, eight. Fine."
And in that second he knew their friendship had changed. Liam or not, it was guys like Liam that was changing his dynamic with her.
"So he's just a stand in." No matter the importance of the role, it was the ease of how the position could be filled that he wanted to clarify. "Doesn't mean anyone else could isn't going to take his place."
Not a question but she nodded nonetheless.
He knew he had lost something to guys like Liam, but he didn't like sharing. "So let me stand in then."
If she could look more broken and crushed, she did then. The tears were damn near ready to break her. "What?"
"You deserve better and if you can't have your dream guy and if Liam's your only other option, well, I'll be it." He was stepping up. He was going to sacrifice their friendship at the risk of her settle for some loser who didn't deserve her.
"What?" She shook her head then.
"I'm single, not likely to find the next Mrs. Malfoy any time soon and if all you're really looking for is someone to hold a spot, well I'm putting myself in." He tried to reason it out in a way she could accept despite the fact that she had yet to stop shaking her head. "Your friends like me well enough and I'm damn certain they like me better than Liam and we get on well."
All points he had rolled around earlier before he asked her to dinner.
The tip of how he saw it as a solution.
For however long she would go for it or however long she needed it, he would be her guy. Maybe he would cease to be her friend, but at least she would have someone and it was him. He knew he cared for her more than Liam did and on any given day, he knew he had it in him to love her more emotionally than that clinical reasoned attachment she and Liam had for each other. Maybe she was really give up on love and it saddened him to watch her choose Liam as close enough but he knew for a fact she was happier with him and he would feel less depressed watching her around the lesser rift raft if he was the ponce who was her stand in.
Whatever it was he thought he was appealing to that would win out, whatever process he thought would be enough to solve the Liam problem, he knew he lost when she stopped shaking her head to look at him.
For one second he saw through her tear flooded eyes and saw that as far as he was concerned, she didn't think he got where she was coming from.
So when she stepped in front of him, he wanted to think that his utter foul upon their friendship would be easily be forgiven soon enough.
But then when her shaking hands held his face just long enough to get a firm hold, he knew he was wrong.
In his shock of his utter hubris, he could barely relish any feel of her lips on his as she hastily removed herself and out of the room and out of the flat.
