AN: I would say happy Monday, but let's be honest, there's no such thing. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Personally, I think it went by too quickly but 2021 is just around the corner, and I'm alright with that. This is the chapter I owed you all last week, and there will be another one on Thursday as well to get us back on schedule. Let me know what you think!
-..-
Hermione threw her hundredth outfit into the floor and sighed. Nothing was working.
She kept telling herself it was just dinner, it was just Draco, but her thumping heartbeat and frantic thoughts were not getting the message. Every outfit looked worse than the last. Too frumpy, too casual, too fancy. What was she even supposed to wear to a casual dinner with a friend?
Was that what they were?
Hermione buried her face in her hands with a groan. Now was hardly the time to try and figure out the messy territory between Draco and herself. She was comfortable no longer calling him an enemy, but any other labels were too heavy with implications she wasn't ready to admit to. It was a friendly dinner, she decided finally. That was safe.
But she still didn't have an outfit.
Calling Ginny was out of the question. The nosy witch would ask far too many questions for Hermione's liking and would most likely try and learn the location of their friendly dinner. The absolute last thing she needed was Ginny Weasley stalking her not-a-date dinner with Draco. Luna wouldn't be very helpful either. While she was excellent with advice, Luna's taste in fashion was questionable at best, and there was nothing keeping Luna from immediately telling Ginny.
She was beginning to wonder if she should cancel the dinner entirely when she heard the formal voice of her floo echo through the flat.
"A Pansy Parkinson is requesting permission to connect to your floo system."
Hermione's eyebrows rose so high they nearly touched her hairline. Why the hell was Pansy Parkinson of all people asking to connect to her floo?
She hesitated for barely a heartbeat before calling out, "Permission granted."
The fireplace roared to life with green flames, and Pansy Parkinson stepped into the flat.
"Hermione, darling, are you home?" Pansy examined her surroundings while looking for Hermione. The flat looked exactly as she had expected.
A large chair sat beside the fireplace surrounded by stacks of books. The walls were lined with bookshelves that looked fit to burst, and made the modest flat seem even smaller than it was. Rather than Gryffindor reds and golds, soft shades of greens and blues created an inviting environment that was surprisingly reminiscent of the Hogwarts library.
Pansy was about to investigate the kitchen and ask a house elf for tea when Hermione entered the room.
"Pansy," she said politely. She frowned in confusion and pulled her fluffy white robe tighter around herself. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I heard you had dinner plans and thought you could use my clothing expertise." Pansy walked past Hermione and into the bedroom where she perched herself on the edge of the bed facing the closet. Gesturing towards Hermione who stood hesitantly in the doorway, Pansy said, "Show me your best options."
Hermione only stood uncomfortably in the center of the room, weight shifting from foot to foot and eyes looking anywhere but at Pansy.
Huffing a sigh of frustration, Pansy stood from the bed and began digging through the pile of discarded clothing on Hermione's floor. Finding nothing of interest, she moved on to the closet. Pansy rifled through the dresses, muttering comments about uptight bookworms and their lack of fashion sense under her breath, and finally threw her hands up in exasperation. "You have nothing," she declared. "Stay put."
Hermione stared dumbfounded as Pansy disappeared back into the living room and through the fireplace.
She must have looked like an idiot, standing in the doorway of her bedroom and staring open-mouthed at her empty fireplace, but the last ten minutes felt like a fever dream. Was Pansy Parkinson actually trying to help her get dressed for dinner with Draco Malfoy?
Before she could properly process what was happening, Pansy came striding back through the bursting green flames of the fireplace looking ever so much like a painting of a Valkyrie Hermione had once seen. She had a swath of grey fabric folded over her forearm and a pair of red heels dangling between her fingers.
"Get dressed," she commanded and handed the outfit to Hermione. "I'm going to do your hair. It's your first dinner together so no make up."
Hermione nodded along and did as she was told, too afraid to disobey Pansy lest she leave her to sort out her outfit by herself. She quickly slipped into the grey dress and pulled on the heels. The dress itself was simple; it had a square neckline and fell just above her knees, but it clung to her curves enough to be both sophisticated and alluring. She released a small prayer of thanks to whichever gods were looking out for her that Pansy had known exactly what kind of dress Hermione needed.
Pansy stepped up with her wand and quickly cast a few spells that Hermione had never heard of as well as a de-frizzing spell she knew all too well. When Pansy finally guided her before the mirror, Hermione's jaw dropped open in awe.
"Wow," she whispered to herself. "How did you…"
"She was already there, I just helped you pull her out," Pansy said with a smug smile. "Now go enjoy your dinner."
Hermione nodded, and watched the pretty witch in the mirror do the same. Her hair fell in silky curls about her shoulder, beautifully framing her face and not at all the lion's mane she was so used to taming. The tall heels emphasized her already perfect posture, and gave her an air of confidence that was similar to the way Pansy held herself just behind her.
"Thank you," Hermione said.
"Don't thank me yet," Pansy retorted as she walked back to the fireplace once more. Grabbing a handful of floo powder, she gave Hermione a wink and said, "Good luck."
Hermione waited only a few moments before grabbing her purse from the top of her dresser and following Pansy into the fireplace.
She stepped through the restaurant fireplace and immediately paused. She only had a moment to steady her breathing before a hostess was leading her to an open table and her waiting began. She was early, but Hermione was always early. Hermione thanked the hostess as she took her seat and immediately began over-thinking every possible way she could position herself in her chair. Scoffing at her own absurdity, Hermione ordered a glass of water from the waitress and tried not to stare too obviously at the fireplace as she waited.
The next half hour crawled by at a snail's pace. She ordered a glass of wine from the waitress to try and calm her nerves, but it only ended up causing her rising frustration to heat up that much faster. Her lower lip throbbed faintly from the stress of her constant, anxious chewing. She had smoothed the skirt of her dress and adjusted her hair more times than she could count, and the pitying glances she was receiving were beginning to wear on her limited patience.
Hermione tapped her finger against the table and glanced at the restaurant door for what felt like the millionth time. She sighed in disappointment and checked her watch again. Draco didn't strike her as the type to be late, but it was already nearly thirty minutes passed the time he agreed to meet her.
Her face flushed with embarrassment as the waitress came by and gave her yet another sympathetic look. "Still waiting," she asked in a kind voice.
"Not for much longer," Hermione replied with a frustrated frown.
The waitress caught on to her annoyed tone of voice and nodded in understanding. "If he doesn't show, he wasn't worth worrying about. Your drink is on the house, love, so when you decide you've had enough you don't have to worry about it."
Hermione smiled in thanks but felt the small bubble of hope in her chest begin to deflate. This dinner had been his idea so he had to come, right? She huffed in frustration and downed the rest of her wine. Her irritation slowly burned into anger as the minutes passed slowly before she finally gathered her things to leave. So much for people changing.
Setting a few Sickles on the table as a tip for the kind waitress, Hermione grabbed her purse and quickly left the restaurant, this time through the front door. The thought of going home was less than pleasant. Chewing on her lower lip, she ran through her options. She needed to go out, to go somewhere she could relax. Without missing a step, Hermione flicked her wand to her right and the silvery form of her patronus burst forth. The otter darted in and out of invisible waves as it tried to keep up with her brisk pace.
"To Ginny Weasley: I need to get drunk. Meet me at Luna's house for a girl's night in a half hour."
The otter dashed off to deliver her message, and Hermione apparated with a sharp 'crack'.
She threw off her clothes as she crossed her flat towards her bedroom until she was standing before her closet in nothing but her underwear and borrowed heels. Pulling pins out of her hair and roughly shaking out the curls, she stared into the chaos of her closet and glared.
This whole ordeal was just insulting. Clearly she had a higher opinion of Draco Malfoy than he deserved, and if that were the case, she wanted nothing to do with him. Luna had been wrong about him, of that she was certain. He had stood her up which bruised her ego, but it wasn't the end of the world. The best remedy for a bad date was a better night.
Hermione grabbed a black dress from the very back of her closet, one Pansy had thankfully missed, changed clothes and apparated to Luna's house. When she arrived, she found Luna trying to pile her hair onto her head using her wand as a hair stick and Ginny digging violently through a pile of discarded shoes.
"You cannot call a girl's night last minute and expect me to look like my usual flawless self," Ginny exclaimed. She pointed the sharp heel of a shoe at Hermione and glared. "You ordered a night to forget, and that takes planning."
"You mean a night we won't forget," Hermione corrected calmly. Ginny had pointed far more dangerous things at her; a shoe was hardly threatening.
"No I don't." Ginny's voice was muffled while she searched for a specific pair of shoes in the closet. "You need to forget the last few hours as well as the rest of the night. I plan on having you wake up with a man whose name you won't remember, in a bed you'll never see again, and the name 'Draco Malfoy' permanently forgotten."
Luna nodded along seriously, her hair precariously balanced on the top of her head in an impressive top knot. "A night to forget, indeed."
Hermione shrugged, knowing it was best not to question their combined logic, and plucked a pair of emerald heels from a discarded pile. "Try these," she said and tossed the shoes to Ginny.
With flawless reflexes, Ginny caught the shoes and slipped them onto her feet. The shoes matched her skintight dress; it went beautifully with her bright red hair and offset Luna's pale yellow dress perfectly. Hermione couldn't resist the appreciative grin she gave them. Her friends looked brilliant.
"Bloody hell, Hermione." Ginny finally got a good look at Hermione's dress and whistled. "Where have you been hiding that?"
Hermione spun in a quick circle to show off her little black dress. It was by far the sexiest dress she had ever owned. A friend of hers had bought it for her during her stay in the muggle world, and she had only had the chance to wear it once. The dress was made for one night stands and drunken regrets.
"You both look brilliant." Hermione linked her arms with both of them and grinned wickedly. "Let's go forget."
They passed the night in a blur of thumping bass, blurry faces, and far too many drinks. The women bounced from one bar to the next, both in magical and muggle London, until they were too drunk to stand let alone apparate anywhere. Hermione yelled something vaguely about visiting the loo, and although Ginny nodded she wasn't entirely sure she heard her over the music. Either way, Hermione pushed her way through the crowd and into the thankfully empty bathroom.
She braced her hands against the sink and closed her eyes. The world spun around her at a nauseating speed and the smell of the bathroom sat heavily in her throat. If she breathed too deeply, she might puke. Breathing in a careful, steadying breath, Hermione looked up into the mirror.
The woman that stared back looked lost. Watery, unfocused eyes gazed back at her from under dance-ruffled curls. Her cheeks were flushed red in rather unattractive blotches, and the lazy smile on her lips looked more queasy than happy.
"Pathetic," her reflection seemed to say. "One bad date, and you drown yourself in bars and forgettable men. Such a strong, independent woman."
Her smile slipped into a sneer, and hot tears pricked behind her eyes. Waves of self-loathing crashed through her, and the lump in her throat grew so thick she could hardly breathe. She was no war heroine, she thought with a bitter laugh, she was an orphan masquerading as a witch. All it took was one lousy dinner for her fragile self-confidence to all but shatter.
"Pathetic," she whispered to her reflection. She roughly pushed her hair out of her face and sighed. Hermione was nearly ready to leave the bathroom and further drown her sorrows when a glittering flash of blue caught her eye in the reflection of the mirror. She squinted and asked, "Widget?"
Sure enough, a little hummingbird darted up beside her face and chirruped quietly in her ear. She had never seen a bird look sad before, but Widget was gazing at her with the most doleful little eyes.
"What is it, love," she asked the little bird quietly. "Why are you here?"
Widget didn't answer, he merely tucked himself up under her jaw and ruffled his feathers against her skin.
"You were wrong, Widget." She smiled sadly into the mirror and watched the hummingbird tuck itself even further against her neck. "Focusing on my love life was a truly terrible idea." Hermione was startled by the sound of the bathroom door being loudly thrown open, and quickly pulled her hair around her shoulders to hide Widget from view.
It hardly mattered, as the woman who came staggering in was clearly too drunk to see much of anything, least of all a tiny bird on someone's shoulder. Her makeup was smeared under her eyes with dark tear stains running down her cheeks. Her bright red lipstick was smeared across one corner of her mouth, and her dress was so rumpled Hermione could barely tell what it would have originally looked like.
"Christ, these lights," the woman muttered and threw up a hand to shield her eyes. She finally noticed Hermione and smiled crookedly. It was the sort of smile that was less friendly and more apologetic, as though she were apologizing for being there. "Bad night," she asked.
Hermione found herself shrugging helplessly and said, "You could say that."
"Men," the woman scoffed. She fumbled through her purse, triumphantly pulled out a hair tie, and began the laborious task of piling her messy blonde hair into some semblance of a bun. "You can treat 'em as well as you like, but the second a buxom bitch with pink hair strolls up…" She growled under her breath and splashed some cool water on her face from the sink next to Hermione's.
"I tell him I love him, tell him he's the only one for me. But does that matter?" The woman scoffed and aggressively scrubbed at her cheeks with wet hands. "Of course it doesn't. 'Don't worry, Ella. She means nothing, Ella.' As if someone else's knickers in our flat means nothing."
Ella, at least Hermione assumed that was her name, looked back up at Hermione with a fierce expression. "Men are absolutely exhausting."
"They are," Hermione said at last. "They're idiots, the lot of them."
"Yes they are," Ella agreed with a thump of her fist against the sink. "Just as you think you've found a good one, they go and do something so foolish you consider swearing off of them entirely."
Hermione grumbled, "If only it were so easy." She swept her hair back off her shoulders and realized Widget had left without her noticing.
"Are you here drinking to forget a man or hiding in the bathroom from one?"
"The first," Hermione said with a frown. "We were supposed to have dinner tonight for the first time, but he never showed."
"Is that all?"
Hermione's eyebrows rose. "Excuse me?"
Ella rolled her eyes. "So he missed dinner, big deal. He probably got caught up with work or simply forgot."
"So I should give him a free pass," Hermione asked hotly. "Because he probably just forgot."
"Not because of that," Ella said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Because he probably doesn't even know how torn up you are about it."
That brought Hermione up short. She was probably right, Draco most likely had no idea Hermione was this disappointed by him missing dinner. For all she knew, there could be an owl waiting at her house with a perfectly good explanation, and she was too busy crying in a bathroom to find out.
Ella had a smug grin on her face and nodded at Hermione's dumbfounded expression. "I bet it wasn't even really a date, was it? It was probably a friendly dinner between almost friends, and your disappointment has blown it completely out of proportion."
Hermione nodded dumbly, her eyes still wide with shock.
"Then go home and get sober," Ella said. "Give him a call in the morning, call him an ass, and tell him he owes you dinner and desert." She scrubbed at the makeup under her eyes until it was nearly gone and reapplied her lipstick. When she was satisfied she added, "At least you can teach him some manners now. I have to go flirt with the bartender until my man realizes his mistake." Ella winked slyly at Hermione and strode out of the bathroom, all signs of intoxication gone.
"Merlin," Hermione mumbled to herself as she gazed at the bathroom door. "What the bloody hell was that."
Hermione barely had a moment to collect herself before Ginny and Luna came bursting into the bathroom. That poor door was taking a beating, she thought absently.
"I told you she would be here," Luna said. "Hermione wouldn't leave without telling us."
Ginny looked disappointed rather than relieved. "I had hoped you'd found a bloke and gone home with him," she said. Her voice sounded whiny and somewhat slurred.
"Rather the opposite," Hermione said with a tired shake of her head. "I think we should call it a night."
Luna immediately began nodding, but whatever she tried to say was drowned out by Ginny's loud moans of disappointment.
"Ginny," she said loudly. "My feet are absolutely killing me, and I'm fairly certain we've been to every bar in town already."
Ginny opened her mouth to further complain, but Luna lifted up on her tiptoes and whispered in her ear. Whatever it was put a large grin on Ginny's face and had her immediately ushering the both of them out of the bathroom. Hermione laughed along with Luna who was looking quite smug, and began digging through her purse for their portkey as the walked through the crowded club. They made out the door without much hassle but had to sidestep a woman with vibrant pink hair that came dashing past them, sobbing loudly into her hands.
They watched her run down the sidewalk with varying degrees of interest and concern as they made their way to the all next to the club, hopefully out of sight enough so the muggles couldn't see them use a portkey.
"Bad night," Ginny mused with a laugh which earned her a swift elbow to the ribs from Luna.
"Found it," Hermione called. She held out a pale blue tea cup for all of them to grab onto. After Ginny made a cheeky comment about how a hangover potion or a shot glass would have been more suitable to their situation, Hermione muttered the password and the portkey swept them away.
They collapsed in a heap of laughter in the middle of Luna's home. Hermione shoved playfully at Ginny whose legs were now draped across her stomach and tried to lift her own legs off of Luna's back.
"Would you like to stay the night, Hermione?" Luna pulled her wand from her hair and used it to light the lights around the room. She propped herself up on her elbows and said, "It'll be just like old times."
"Luna, you didn't even live in the Gryffindor tower," Ginny pointed.
Luna tilted her head to the side and frowned slightly. "Well then, it will be just like old times should have been."
"How can I say no to that," Hermione said with a laugh. She could worry about Draco in the morning.