I Love(d) You (Once)

Chapter Nine: Rants and Relisations

"Can you believe it?!" Hermione said to Ginny. Her index finger trailed against the walls the Potter's living room as she circled round and round, trying to walk off her frustration.

"You're making me dizzy," her red-haired companion complained and with a heave, Hermione flounced onto the sofa before immediately shooting up again. There was too much rage pent up in her to sit still, and like a rocket, a champagne cork, ready to launch off into the sky.

"I'm surprised it took you this long to realise he was horrible to work with." Ginny sipped her tea with a mollifying laugh, and with her cheery eyes had Harry Potter been there in the room, he would have fallen in love at first sight all over again. This period of her life was her prettiest; pregnancy dusted a rosy sheen across the banes of her cheeks and there was an air of confidence within Ginny that could only come from her completely adoring her own body, for as an expectant mother, she embraced her physique and popular body images stopped plaguing her as a baby grew in her womb. Ginny chortled, biting into a chocolate chip cookie. "Cookie?" she offered the box to her friend.

Hermione took a cookie from her and she snapped the biscuit between her teeth, pretending it was Draco's head. "How's the decoration for the room coming along?" she asked, trying to concentrate on the sweetness in her mouth; Mrs Weasley made the best home-made cookies. Molly claimed the only magic ingredient involved was the touch of love – but she always winked when she said that so Hermione could never be quite sure whether she was serious or not…

Ginny sighed. "It's coming along, but I swear at the rate my brothers are buying gifts, we're going to have enough clothes for him until he attends Hogwarts… and that's not including presents from fans."

"Fans?"

"Mine of course," Ginny said with a grin. "Harry might have the fame, but I have the fortune of having the nicest fans who give the bests gifts."

"Gifts aren't so nice when the givers aren't nice themselves…"

"Yeah, you give gifts because you think they would enjoy it, don't you think so?" Hermione suddenly snapped. "There shouldn't be so much thought involved with it! Why does there have to be special reason behind every action? Sometimes you do things on a whim!"

"Well at least this little intermission lasted for more than two sentences," Ginny said to herself, rolling her eyes.

"—that vile, loathsome, arrogant—"

"…know-it-all, conniving, manipulative—"

"Stop," said Blaise. As was their habit, they sat in a private booth in Pansy's bar to gossip about their week, but it had turned quickly into Draco's one-man rant fest. "We all know how much you hate Hermione Granger now. I preferred it when you were a love-sick fool."

"It's karma," Pansy said. "For all the pure-hearted females he's hurt."

"And you weren't one of them," Draco snapped.

Astoria rolled her eyes. Though she wasn't jealous, she didn't like how he kept going on and on about Hermione. There was only so many ways to say you hated someone! She held up her magazine and tried to change the subject. "Guess what I just read in Witch?"

"Oh," squealed Pansy, she climbed off Blaise's lap and scooted next to her. "Did they 'spot' you and Draco dating? Want to go on a double-date when the paparazzo follows you around?"

Astoria shrugged. "Sure. What do you say, Draco?" she asked, but his attention was still bent on coming up with more adjectives to proclaim his distaste for a certain witch. She narrowed her eyes when she saw Theo sitting a table away from them, fresh-face of seventeen holding up a glass to her and smirking. Underage drinkers are liable to up to 200 hours of community work… She scrunched a corner of the magazine.

"…a real eye opener—"

"It looks like you got over her, mate. If you were acting any way you are now, I would be celebrating, but can you just shut up?"

"An eye opener, I say—"

"Are you going to let him rant about Hermione Granger like that?" Theo mouthed to her. She shrugged and flipped her hair, the universal pureblood-girl sign of 'go away, I don't have time to deal with you'.

"Earth to Astoria," Pansy said, watching the younger witch with curiosity. "I was thinking back to our Hogwarts days…"

"What about it?" she said, and then quickly changed the subject. "Oh hey! Here's a list of activities that burns calories. Did you know you burn 130 calories every half hour you shop?"

Pansy leaned forward. Shopping and losing weight were two things that interested her a lot when she wasn't busy meddling with people's love lives. "Nice, and who said shopping was a waste of time!" She pointed to the corner of the page. "And you burn three calories each minute you snog!"

Blaise popped a peanut into his mouth and licked his lips. "You two are snogging?"

"Only if you snog Draco," she said. "Please do it. It might shut him up."

"…if I knew she was going to be like this…"

"It's your duty as his best friend," Astoria said.

Blaise sighed and slunk back in his chair. "I'm afraid even my most sincere efforts would be in vain. He's impossible when he gets in one of his moods." He flicked a peanut at Draco and the blond merely opened his mouth to catch it and chomped on it as he continued his tirade.

"This is the cool crowd everybody aimed to get into? I don't think we missed much," Theo said as Astoria rolled her eyes and shook her head, trying her best to ignore him.

Pansy slung her arm around the younger woman as though they were bosom buddies. "A little bird told me you were quite indulgent in the 'three calorie per minute' exercise."

"So were you, I presume."

Pansy pressed on, waggling her eyebrows. "I thought Draco and I were the longest running couple in Slytherin. But little did I know you sneaky little…"

"Just leave it alone."

"I can't. Everyone's boring me and I need some entertainment," she replied, giggling. "Tell me. I want to hear about the fall out."

"I do too," Theo said.

Make that the three of us, Astoria thought.

Pansy leaned in closer and whispered in Astoria's ear, "I've done some digging and heard a few crazy things. What would happen if I told Draco?"

"I would hurt you," she threatened, and she definitely would. There were some things you did not divulge for fun... and unfortunately Pansy Parkinson was the sort who did not care about others if it meant sacrificing anything, even fun, at her own expense.

"You wouldn't," said Pansy, a horrific grin plastered across her face. "Do you want to tell me or should I start shouting out what I know? I'm getting a little bored and would like something to spice up the night."

"You just want to be entertained, right? I'll show you something good."

"Hm?" Pansy folded her arms and sat back.

Astoria pulled Draco by his tie and smashed her lips with his. Caught by surprise, Draco's eyes were wide open and his lips were stiff and unyielding. She moved closer to him and put her arms around his and his lips softened. Astoria threaded her fingers through his hair and was glad Draco no longer slicked his hair back with copious amounts of gel. Pansy and Blaise hooted as the pair deepened their kiss. When she was sure this spectacle had distracted Pansy, she pulled away and gave him one last peck on the lips. "You need to stop talking about girls in front of me."

Pansy laughed, having forgotten what she'd been talking about. "He's a horrible kisser, right?"

"He is," chirped Blaise.

(That night)

A bothered Draco thrashed in his bed, trying to decipher what happened a few hours ago. He pressed two fingers against his lips, and wondered why Astoria had kissed him in front of Pansy and Blaise. "I'll have to mention this to Astoria," mused Draco. "No snogging in public. We have a reputation to uphold." He shook his head, wiping the unconscious grin from his face. He'd just admitted he was a-okay with snogging in private. He groaned, wondering why he was so flustered. "It's only just a kiss." He picked up his cell phone at the side of the table and dialled Pansy's number, curling up in a ball as he waited for her to pick up.

"What?"

"I was thinking—Astoria and me. Maybe I should ban kissing."

He heard Pansy cackle in the background. "How'd you come up with that?"

"I can't stop thinking about her. Hey, are you laughing at me?"

"You're an idiot."

"Try insomniac."

"An idiot," she said. "Tell me, did you lose sleep when you kissed me?"

"Yes."

"And you liked me, right?"

"Yes, yes… so what?"

Pansy made a strangling sound. "IT MEANS YOU LIKE HER, YOU TWAT!"

Draco blinked. "What did you say?" He heard a groan and then…

Beep…

Beep…

Pansy hung up on him!

At the same Astoria waved her wand and an orange cardbox flew onto her lap. She removed the lid, and the white wrapping paper crinkled as she unfurled the box's prized contents. Handmade shoes by Club Le Faye… the best fashion house in the world that had dominated the scene since time immemorial. Astoria contemplated the box of shoes, pressing the supple leather between he fingers. "Ha-ha, imagine what would happen if Malfoy found out he's worth less than a pair of shoes!" She scowled at Theo who chortled as he made the statement, and he encapsulated the lazy look: sprawled over her couch, his shirt was un-tucked and green-tie loosened. "So, what do you plan to do with the shoes?"

"They're not any kind of shoe," she said. "They're the pair for the season."

Theo whistled. "And you're planning to do what with them?"

"I'm planning to give them to Pansy," she said. "To make sure she doesn't tell Draco about this."

"Who cares about what Malfoy thinks?"

"He's going to find out sooner or later. But I don't want to him to find out from someone else."

"You like him enough to give away those pair of shoes?" asked Theo. "You do, don't you?"

"I wouldn't have kissed him if I didn't." Theo made no reply and by the time she realised this, he had disappeared. Strange, it was the first time he had left her without being told. She sent a message Pansy, deciding to keep the pair of shoes to herself in the end.

0932

To: Pansy

From: Astoria

.

.

Don't tell Draco about that. I'll do it myself.

-MESSAGE END-

The Mar Company sent an enquiry. Although Director Mar didn't have enough evidence to bring the authorities in, she hired Detective Leigh, a man with a shiny badge to hassle the Pucey and Prewett company as revenge in its pettiest form.

"I find it strange someone broke into the Mar Company the same day Draco was admitted into hospital." Martha caught the end of his sentence as she opened the door with her foot, her hands preoccupied with a tray and a cup of coffee balanced on top. Beside Mr. Leigh, Hermione sat in her chair, arms crossed, lips zipped. Martha could tell the detective was giving up on her the same way a teacher would give on a particular belligerent student in class.

"It's Mr. Malfoy to you," said Martha snippily as she placed a cup of watered-down coffee in front of him. She may have spat in it. She hated the man on first sight when he had ordered her to fix a drink for him. The gall of him! The liquid sloshed around the cup and a few drops landed on the table-top.

"Darling, I know he may have a sweet face, but he's a bad guy," he said to her.

"I'm not your darling; I'm the receptionist," Martha snapped as stomped her way out of the client-interview room.

The detective whistled as the door slammed shut. "Are all the women in this company this strange? Or is it my handsome face that's making you girls act up?" he attempted to crack a joke. Hermione awarded him with a sneer. "Still not talking to me? Well, I guess there's nothing else."

Hermione rolled her eyes and shut the door behind her. Seated in a plastic chair outside the door, Draco stood up and bumped shoulders with her. She glared at him and he turned his nose up at her.

"Aw come on, it's been three days," Artie said as she took a seat beside him. The chair was warm. Not the same could be said for Draco's attitude towards Hermione. "Can't you at least work together for this? What if your stories don't match up? We'll never be able to get rid of him then."

As a perfect enactment of his former petulant self, Draco blew a loud raspberry at the pair of them before striding into the client room. He gave Mr. Leigh a feral smile as he sat down. He'd had terrible sleep last night, and never being a morning person, with the fallout with his colleague made him irritable, to say the least. The detective ran through some questions Draco gave neither here nor there replies to.

Finally, Mr Leigh scoffed. "Let me get this straight. You're telling me you can't remember why you were brought to hospital?"

Draco cracked a smile as the man shifted in his seat. After three years in Salem, he could read people like a grocery list. From the way Mr. Leigh played with his coffee cup, it told Draco that Hermione said nothing to him (as he expected). It meant he was free to come up with any story. Draco was the better one at trickery… or so he had thought!

"Uh-huh," said Draco, leaning so two of his chair legs were in the air. "I don't remember how I got there." That was true; he'd passed out and found himself on the hospital bed. "Must've blacked out from binge-drinking and overworking over Christmas. It's common in my line of work." He watched the man fiddle with his detective badge that was pinned on a trench-coat too large for him. It made him look even more like a farce than he was. "I'm sure Miss Hermione Granger must have told you the same thing, Mr. Leigh," he said. Consumed with hatred, he had flirted with the idea of incriminating Hermione, but he didn't hate her that much… plus he had sort of gained a conscience somewhere along the way, so to Draco's greatest pity he could no longer act out such thoughts.

"It's Detective Leigh."

"I'm hurt Director Mar would even suggest such a thing."

"Are you suggesting Director Mar is accusing you for no good reason?"

"Finally!" Draco stood up, started to clap and headed for the door. "I finally managed to get it across!"

"Mr. Malfoy, we're not done yet."

"We are done, my fiend. Time is money, and you're wasting mine. Find your way out of here and tell Director Mar not to do this without evidence."

Artie and Hermione got out of their chairs when they saw him come out. "We're done," Draco said to Artie. The three of them rode the elevator to the second floor for their daily briefing. When Pucey and Prewett demoted them, they took their office away and reassigned the team with adjacent work cubicles.

A blue file sat on Draco's file rack and he scowled when he saw it.

"You can't be serious," groaned Hermione, catching sight of the blue file. "Entrance-level work again?"

"I see there's no work for me to do," Draco said as he headed to the lunchroom. "Might as well grab a coffee."

"Come back here," snapped Hermione and a few workers looked at her. She ducked her head in apology and ran after him.

If there's one thing good about this place, it's that it's next to the lunch room, thought Draco as he poured coffee into a mug. I could get used to this. He wasn't the one asking for advanced pay cheques. If there was any reconciling done, Hermione would have to get down on her knees and beg. Maybe he'd consider it then.

"You're a git." Hermione hovered behind him, and she knew drove him insane. He liked his personal space. Then, because she knew how much germs bothered him, she ran her finger against the kitchen-counter and stuck it into his cup of coffee at the peril of the hot liquid scalding her.

Draco resisted the urge to step away because it meant admitting defeat, but poured the coffee into the sink. He watched the brown liquid swirl down the drain as he twisted the tap onto full blast. Mug and sink now clean, he placed his dripping hands onto her shoulder and used her blouse to dry them.

Hermione jumped back as though he'd zapped her. "Yuck!"

"Oops," he said, flicking the remaining specks of water from his hands. "I mistook your shirt for a rag." His glee soon turned to fright when Hermione pulled her wand and aimed at it at him.

"Stop it!" Artie appeared beside them and pulled her away.

"She started it."

"You ruined my shirt. I should hex you into next week!"

"Look," pleaded Artie. "You two need to work together to get re-promoted."

"I'm not the one refusing to work on blue file cases." She glared at Draco, her head still hurt from all the magic she used to levitate the furniture and ornaments the day before.

"That's what house-elves are for."

"Can you hear yourself?"

Artie caught Draco by the arm and shot him a look. "I knew this was going to happen, so I requested this." In his hand was a grey file he managed to get permission for. "This case is more interesting than manual labour." He gave papers to Hermione and Draco and the latter received it with a look of reluctance often found on the faces of men in shoe shops.

"It involves the estate of the late Corwin Ackerly. He left everything to his son, Jon Acklery—problem is that Jon and Ben Acklery are identical twins and both claim to be Jon. No one knows who the real twin is. All their living relatives are dead after the war, and they have assumed new lives in different parts of the country going by Jon since then."

"Incredible," said Draco. "Why don't we just check their wands and see the names they're registered under?"

Hermione shook his head. "Do you think this would be grey-classed if they could figure it out like that? Look on page three… five lines down. All previous photographs of them have been destroyed in Hogwarts – you know how they burnt down the administrative building – and it looks like the Acklery home was burnt to the ground… they both lost their wands during the War and registered new ones under Jon Acklery. Artie, you're my assistant, right?"

"Yes."

"Then we should get to work and prepare a list of questions before they come."

"If I were you, I wouldn't work with that person. Not unless you want your weaknesses exploited."

"Go to hell, Malfoy."

"I feel like the kid with divorced parents," said Artie, raising his hands up into the air from defeat. "I don't know what happened after I was told to go home, but it's obvious something went down between the two of you. Whatever Hermione did to you, was it so bad for you to decide to never speak to her?"

Draco crossed his arms. "Of course."

"You drama queen!"

"Watch out, Artie, it's a trap," seethed Draco. "She'll stab you in the front and back without hesitation."

"Oh, I'd like to stab you right now!"

Artie sighed and hung his head, asking himself the age-old question: why couldn't people just get along with one another?

Facial features aside, the Ackerly twins were opposite ends of a spectrum. A businessman and a hobo. The prince and the pauper.

"Jon Ackerly," said one of the brothers. He was clean shaven, and wore a corporate look, with a keen smile on his face. He shook Draco's hand and sat himself onto a chair in their small conference room.

"Jon Ackerly," the other brother said, shaking Hermione's hand. They had the same thin lips and high brows, and she could see how difficult it must have had been for anyone to tell them apart, for even though she had spent years looking at identical twins pretending to be each other, feature-wise, the Ackerly brothers were on a whole different level. However, as this man claiming to be Jon had dreadlocks and wore loose clothing with the cuffs of his sleeves folded twice over, he stood as an antithesis to his brother. Hermione figured if he were not in such a prestigious firm, he would have forgone his shoes. According to the file, before the War, he and his brother acted and looked exactly the same, but it seemed post-War, both of them went through a massive wardrobe change. Neat-Jon pulled documents from his briefcase and slid it towards Hermione. "I've brought documents to prove my identity. Take a look."

"I've brought my ID too," countered Shabby-Jon. "The Ministry stamped their mark on everything; I swear it was all done legally. I don't know how Ben's managed to get those."

"The Ministry received two applications for Jon's identification documents within days of each other," Artie explained. "The war had just ended and the department was a mess. They didn't notice the double up."

"Which is most frustrating," Neat-Jon said.

Although the two—according to the profile report—hadn't spoken to each other in five years, their hate kept them familiar, and to Hermione it was utterly ironic a negative emotion had kept them together so tightly together even after all these years. Hermione turned to see whether Draco caught the irony too. She found him staring at her in a less-Darcy, more-creepy sort of way and she scowled. Just for that moment, she'd forgotten they were at war.

"I don't know how else to prove I'm Jon," said Shabby-Jon.

Hermione drummed her fingers on the table and forced herself to stop when she saw Draco doing the same.

"I have an idea," said Draco. "Am I correct in assuming the less you see of the other the better?"

Shabby-Jon nodded and Neat-Jon said, "Most people assume twins have get along with each other."

"Assumptions," said Draco, looking at Hermione with a propensity to pull her hair out, "are dangerous. They catch you off-guard and leave you stranded in desolation. But this is perfect for Miss Granger and my situation. We also wouldn't have to worry about conflict of interests if we do things the way I propose."

"Which is?" asked Neat-Jon, raising an eyebrow.

"Well our job is to offer some form of mediation to settle this matter…"

"So we will each represent one of you, and try help you compile all the evidence for your side of the story," said Hermione, catching onto Draco's idea, and quickly explaining the idea out to their clients; despite her animosity towards him, his idea impressed her. The less time she needed to spend with the git, the better. "And then we'll give our opinion on whose story we favour by the strength of the evidence."

"Who gets to decide?" Neat-Jon said, "If you're both helping us then you would be… biased."

"I will," Artie said, "Out of everyone here I'm best suited for the job. Now let's decide who represents whom."

"Fine by me," Shabby-Jon said with a shrug, and he eyed his brother, trying to gauge his reaction. He'd choose the person his brother wanted. Just to annoy him.

"We can decide with a coin-toss," said Hermione, seeing the early signs of a fight about to brew. "Heads for me; tails for Mr. Malfoy."

"Heads or tails?"

"Heads," they both said.

"I want to work with you," said Draco to Neat-Jon, sensing a fight in the air. "Let's get along."

It's because of his suit! Hermione thought and sneered at Draco's transparent and shallow reasons.

"Don't play dirty, Granger," Draco said, recognising the fierce look on her face. When it came to competitions and winning, she had the tendency to become nasty.

"It's not a contest," she replied, knowing it became one as the words left her lips.

Shabby-Jon turned his head and watched his twin and Draco leave the room. "He's horrible, isn't he?"

"Trust me; my colleague is worse." She scanned the file to see if she could come up with anything. "Is there any one of your friends who could tell you apart? I see it's been quite a while since you've last been in London."

"No, I don't think so," said Shabby-Jon. "Our classmates didn't even try and would just call us BJ. Thinking back, they were some friends, huh! Only Father could do it." Shabby-Jon shrugged and leaned back in his seat. Hermione saw underneath the table, he was kicking off his shoes. "Oh, except for this girl. Ben went out with her for two months. She could tell always us apart except for one time. I don't think she wants anything to do with us though."

Hermione's eyes lit up. That sounded just the sort of person she was looking for. "What's her name?"

"Melinda Tipping," Neat-Jon declared to Draco as he slammed his coffee cup down with a loud clank, "was one of the most beautiful girls in our year and without a doubt, the trickiest. If you thought a puppet had strings attached, you should see Melinda."

"I'm guessing things crashed and burned with her and Ben? What did he do?" Draco hated to ask but wanted to know.

"This was not the brightest moment of my life but Ben convinced me it would be funny if I pretended to be him and go on a date, whatever," said Neat-Jon. "That's how he always got through life; thought things would be funny, said and did horrible things to people and sat back to see and watched the world burn. Anyway, she found out about the prank and burnt our house down."

"That sounds,"—he was about to say Pansy-like, but didn't think Jon would get the reference—"extreme." Draco wondered if Melinda was touched in the head; it was such a big reaction to a prank like that!

"It gave me a good reason to leave. My father was in prison—not that it meant much… we had a huge falling out… funny because of it was all because of my twin—and our house was burnt down so there was nothing to stay for," he said. "She could always to tell the difference between us, but I'm not sure about now... if you do find her, just make sure she doesn't get too close to me. I wouldn't want to be a victim of some unfortunate accident." He made quotes with his fingers as he said the last word.

Melinda Tipping. She sounded like someone Draco could talk into helping.