Standing In
Chapter 8
At 8 PM he had thought he would be out at some dimly lit restaurant by a fireside table with a specific beautiful witch who would be smiling as much as him enjoying each other's company. He had envisioned himself to try and be perfect and romantic and dashing and all the things that his reputation was. He was sure that it would bode well enough that by the end of the night, she would be more than in awe and would be somewhat shocked by joy that she would see that stark contrast of their dinner to the whole of her relationship to the man named Liam.
Then when their prefect night was done and another was ready to being secured, he could bring up the topic of being in Liam's replacement, even in small increments. For as long as she needed and as long as he would do, he would give up being her friend to fulfill that need of her life for something else if it that was what she needed to find happiness. At least if she was going to settle, he rather she settled on someone who could have a better chance to delay the hurt of disappointment that would come one day.
He didn't like her being disappointed in life. He had watched her live through her disappointments before knowing she was better than each one of them. Where all of his was deserved, she was the kind that was meant to walking into fields of warm sunshine and clear days without a cloud to rain on her life. So when she was promoted a few times over at the start of her career based on her name alone, she was disappointed at how little of her work people felt mattered. When anyone didn't take her thoughts or actions seriously without her blatant flaunting of who she was, she was that much more knocked down by how bias the world was to who a person was than what they were.
She was all the lessons you were suppose to learn as a child and cherish and she was meant to keep most, at least some of that. Knowing all the childhood truths that weren't so in adulthood for her made him wish she got something in the end that was worth her. Something equal to all those happy fables and lessons that made the human spirit better.
Even when she had told him years ago of the lucky bastard that had unknowingly owned her heart, he thought of all the things she deserved from it. All the happily ever afters that she would get in her later years with it, till he learned of her realization that she wouldn't.
That happy that love made her, made her something she didn't deserve to be, hurt. Broken in spirit and broken in nature, she saw the years past as a sign that she didn't deserve any happy ending because the world didn't work that way, at least not in practice and nothing would be enough to make it happen as anything else.
So for some foolhardy thought that morning, he forgot he was the son of a convicted man, he forgot he was a former Death Eater from a family of such who's family tree was riddle with as much disgrace as it was reverence. For a need to make her happy in some semblance of what she deserved, to make her what she was, he thought he could be the one to have a small idea to making her whole again. Maybe he wouldn't be the one but at least he was better than the stand in she was using. He knew her well enough and for all the years of friendship and happiness she brought him, he owed her the chance to be the happy she wanted on her terms.
If she wanted romance, he could be it, make it, buy it and do so however he could if it was what she wanted. If she wanted a companion, he would be willing to be one. Hell, if she wanted a husband, he might even do so if she was sure enough of it and didn't mind his family's reputation preceding him and all the vile that went with.
He didn't expect her to really say no. He didn't expect her to simply walk out on him with such a somber tearful exit.
So in a vein of hope that only she had instilled in him, he arrived at her place at 8 PM dressed for a date hoping that maybe she had changed her mind.
Her dark empty home made him realized that his reputation was more than that as it was more his nature and his nature was terrible and broken and he had broken something fragile in his relationship with Hermione.
"He just doesn't get it." She had said it a many times already. On the floor of her childhood bedroom, she sat up a little to lean against the foot of the bed to scoop a large spoonful of the chocolate ice cream from Ginny's container.
"Men can be useless that way." Ginny shook her head remember her early years with Harry. "Especially that one."
"I don't want borrowed time from him. All or nothing. He really thinks I'll go for a few bits and walk away that much more easily?" She gulped down another spoonful that would give her a brain freeze for sure.
"He doesn't know better." Literally and then some.
It was then her mother walked in with reinforcement of one very diet unfriendly cake before bidding them a good night.
Looking over at the digital clock as it neared the start of another day, she was glad her mother hadn't tried to lecture her on Draco's ignorance and her silence.
"I've had years of him being nice and pleasant and whatnot and every one of those memories is hard enough." With that she took a scoop of ice cream and stabbed at the cake.
"I know." Ginny was somewhat in the loop of Hermione's feelings and always been on the fence of the issue.
Where she could see where the feelings were strong and wonderful for the two, she could see Hermione's side of reality where the one sided feelings might always be so.
"Liam isn't that bad right?" A question Ginny had more than exhausted the merits and faults of.
"He's nice and stable." Both merits and faults depending on the intended point. "What the hell could Draco have against him?"
Ginny wasn't sure but she had an inkling earlier in the night and had sent her better half to look into.
He wasn't exactly having a wonderful slumber but the awakening wasn't what he was use to.
The initial kick to his shin was bad enough but the feel of his feet hitting a harsh surface was more than unwelcomed. It was as unwelcomed as the two faces that stared him down.
"Do you know how hard it is to find you?" Waving off Ron's question, he sat up enough to stretch, completely missing as both Ron and Harry appraised his still date ready attire.
"Obviously hard enough." He shook a bit of his sleepy legs then as some of the feeling started to come back to them.
"You alright Malfoy?" No sooner had the question left Harry's lips did Ron's backhand meet Draco upside his head.
"Ow." Violent waking, violent treatment, all things he was use to.
"You really know how to cheapen her feelings don't you?" Before an answer could be given much less one of confusion for the question, Ron smacked him again.
"Ron, give it a rest." Harry nodded for his friend to sit down on the lounger on the other side of the coffee table then.
Waiting for the friend to do so, Harry sad down on the coffee table to assess Draco.
"Seeing as you two had to find me, guess she didn't send you to kick me out." He had fallen asleep on her couch waiting for her to come in, it was his futile that he could fix the mess he made and like his family's luck, the solution didn't come.
"Let's start with the known, did you ask her out this morning?" Harry lack of answer to Draco's statement and question made him feel like a suspect.
"Yeah, and?" He knew he screwed up, done it before and done it on many levels. Few of which required Auror treatment.
"Did you actually offer to be Liam's replacement?" The strangled usage of replacement and Ron's body shake to the question only evoked a look of disgust from Draco.
"It's not like I threatened to kill the man." A very valid point given the treatment he was getting. "And no, I don't plan to." A point he needed make clear if his friendship with Hermione was thoroughly broken.
Harry shook his head then as Ron threw his arms up before walking out of the room with a few mutterings.
"What did he say?" He didn't have to be a Malfoy to know that Weasley was talking about him.
"Worry about that later." Harry shook his head then. "You're a real piece of work Malfoy."
Getting up enough to look in the direction of Ron who was most likely raiding Hermione's kitchen, he casted a judging eye at Draco. "And we thought Ron was the dense one."
He smacked Draco then and nodded at Ron's general direction as two bottles came hurling through the air for Harry to catch.
Passing one to Draco, he plopped down next to him as Ron did the same flanking his other side.
"Seriously are you just that broken or is something really just wrong you with you?" Running a hand through the mess of his hair, he gulped down the bottle.
"Told you, she can't help it with the wrong ones. Crookshanks, remember?" With that, all three men raised their bottles to Hermione's long past pet.
"What does that furball have to do with anything?" Draco remembered the insufferable beast that ruined most of his shoes, he might have not had the same attachment as Hermione, he knew she loved the thing dearly and was there with Harry and Ron to bury Crookshanks at the Burrow.
"She's our friend." Again, whatever the point, he didn't catch and looked between the two for a better answer.
"Only she could be friend with any of us and only she would be friends with all of us." With a wave between all three of them, Harry took another gulp as Ron took the task of explaining.
"Harry here spent the bulk of his years being chased to death and in some ways, literally and yet, didn't scare her off in the least bit. First year should have done her in but it didn't." Raising his bottle to Harry, the mantle was passed.
"Ron's not the best in the pack and that's within his family and the sentiment is even among family. Terrible on first impressions and lucky to squeak by as the rest goes but she still doesn't make too much of a face when most of his food lands outside his mouth than in." With that Harry looked down at the three pairs of feet resting on her coffee table. "Case in point, any other person, she'd hex off the table after the first warning."
He had seen so a few times.
"You …" The wave of Ron's bottle in Draco's general direction then. "Well, you're you."
Faults and all.
"We all know Crookshanks. She loved that one for reasons only she has cuz that thing rarely liked any of us."
It was a well placed accepted theory that Crookshanks would more quickly and more easily and less painfully warm up with a fire than any of the men currently defiling Hermione's coffee table. Where Crookshanks could sit in Hermione's embrace with ease and a good nuzzle, Ron, Harry and Draco had more than once had the pleasure of Crookshanks digging claws and fangs into both cloth and skin to find a comfortable position.
"And?" Draco really didn't get how Crookshanks merited to what happened.
Crookshanks was her familiar, he protected her and was her companion. Harry was a damned hero and Ron was just good.
"Grief, dense as a brick." With that Harry smacked him again, this time with the butt of the bottle. "Just drink. She'll be fine in the morning."
So they did till her meager stores were drunk dry.
