Vonne: Thanks so much for all the reviews. I'm trying on making my little entries here as short as possible to leave room for all your reviews. So, anyway, I've tried my best to answer your questions below. Look to see if yours is there!

Now, here it is... chapter nine!

Chapter Nine:
As You Always Were

Draco Malfoy straightened his tie, fixed his faltering posture, and extended a hand towards the lumbering door. Goyle's place wasn't much on the outside, but, what did he expect? Since the end of the war, Goyle had made it known that he'd gotten a small job, though he didn't specify, and managed to just barely make it on his own, sans the company of his parents. The exterior of his school friend's home was small, a bit too square, and covered in emerald vines, more likely due to the fact that Goyle was too lazy to even bother to conjure them down rather than the notion that he'd simply just liked the look of them. More surprisingly Draco was shocked to find that there was not any sign of a welcome mat at the foot of the door, since Goyle had so obviously been taken up in the craze of being more friendly. However, with the sick notion boiling up in the pit of his already nauseous stomach, Draco recoiled away his hand and decided maybe he'd turn back now when he saw he really had a chance.

Why had he even come there in the first place? The night before he had been so sure he wouldn't have done such a thing. However, his run in with Hermione may have had more than a fraction to do with it. He'd thought, perhaps he did need to see his old friends again, since old enemies like Hermione Granger were making him feel a bit better, for the truth of the matter. Then again, the thought of being comforted by the likes of her slightly unnerved him. It wasn't, of course, that he'd loathed her, had never truly hated her since the end of his sixth year at Hogwarts. In fact, she'd been making him slightly nervous for quite some time and that particularly was where his problem in lied. One ultimatum whisked through his mind as he stood at Goyle's door stiff as a board: what would you rather it be? Find comfort in the people you used to not be able to stand a little more, or find in the people you couldn't stand just a little less?

He'd decided on Goyle and Pansy, whom he'd only loathed on occasion. However, even this decision had proved eager to come back and haunt him. Still quite unsure about the whole business, he slunk away from the door, jittery and sweating, and allowed himself to fall back against the vine-covered walls that overwhelmingly tainted Goyle's new home. Perhaps it was the simple concept that shook him. Goyle was on his own now, standing considerably on two feet, despite his ability to consider the fact that not many liked him. But maybe Draco lacked that ability, and heavily so.

So, no, maybe he wouldn't pay Goyle a visit. Perhaps he preferred his company in solitude. "Oy! Draco!" A beckoning voice from about him made Draco's shoulders sink. Of course, Goyle wasn't going to let him run out on him that easily and Draco had been foolish to think anything else otherwise. He had been, after all, quite the opposite of what he'd always remembered him to be. "I didn't think you were coming!" Goyle was perched out his window, his large body just barely fitting through it. His hand was held out and he lifted up a tiny tea cup, the smoke trailing out from the top like a gray burst of mist. "Well," he said when Draco only remained standing, "don't just sit there... it's unlocked."

Malfoy's eyes shifted briskly; so it seemed there was no comfortable way out of this one. Bracing himself, he straightened up, nodded morosely, and walked stiffly towards the front door, whisked it open, and took in the smell of tea instantly. "Holy shit, Goyle," Draco mourned, shaking his head bitterly, "I was aware that you'd changed, but I didn't think you'd turned into a house wife!"

Goyle's heavy footsteps clamored down the stairs and when he'd came into view, even Draco couldn't help but reeve backwards. He'd looked no more proper than Lucius Malfoy at family reunions. In fact, he could have fit into the family quite well. As polished as he appeared, his hair was slicked back and his teeth shinny from having been brushed continuously. There was not a miserable look about his face and even his eyes sparkled with excitement. Suddenly aware of his own sloppy presence, Malfoy raised an inquisitive eyebrow, asking suspiciously, "Tea? Nice clothing? Goyle, enlighten me: what's the occasion?"

"Pansy isn't here yet," Goyle mused, giving his house one more glance over. "But she'll be here and I thought, why not make the place look nice? Me included."

Draco only nodded carefully. "Ah," he said with careless intentions, "I shouldn't have asked."

Goyle's previously perfect posture flickered. He dropped the falsely superb facial expressions and frowned a rather ugly one. "What," he asked blandly, without any specific tone to his voice, other than that of being most certainly unamused.

Rolling his eyes, Draco scooped up the extra tea cup that had been set out for him. He tipped the thing up to his thin lips and watched Goyle stir over the thin edge of it. When Goyle only stood there, waiting impatiently for an answer, Draco replied defensively, "nothing! Forget it," though he couldn't help but grace his face with a sly little smile of his own. "I just thought, you being a changed man and everything, that you'd have gotten over Pansy by now."

Goyle's entire posture fell. In fact, for good measure, he whipped off his coat, tossed it on the back of the sofa, and pressed his lips harshly together. "Is it such a bad thing, Draco, to try and look put together for once? For fuck's sake..." He carried on, ignoring Draco's inevitable little giggles, and flopped himself down on the sofa looking weary and tired and, for the most part, rather embarrassed. "Besides," he said, after looking back at Malfoy who hadn't moved from his spot on the ground, "at least I tired." Malfoy only raised his brows and kept his arms crossed along his chest. Sipping his admittedly awful tasting tea, he decided to keep his unsatisfactory opinions to himself. He even remained stone-faced as Goyle noted, "you look like you didn't even bother to change clothes since yesterday night."

Shrugging, Draco shrugged honestly, "I didn't."

"Lovely," Goyle sneered.

However, Draco wasn't given much time to come up with a response. A slightly aggressive, but most definitely delicate, little knock came on the door and both boys looked up at one another. Malfoy only raised a brow, though Goyle's otherwise sunken and disappointed hopes seemed to quickly lift. He nodded anxiously over and Draco, yanked himself up from the couch with haste, and stumbled towards the door as he reached back towards the sofa and pulled his coat through over each lumbering arm. Before he approached the door he inhaled, smoothed back his already picture perfect head of hair and made a jab at the door knob, reeling it open perhaps with too much anticipation.

Open and ready to compliment, Goyle's little mouth gave a tiny twitch before being cut off by Pansy, who's shadow was only just barely visible. "Goyle!" she practically sang eagerly, "always a pleasure!" She strode into the light, shifted brashly in her navy blue coat, and pushed her bob-like dark hair back behind her ears, revealing two spectacular diamond earrings. Goyle only gawked; true, he'd seen Pansy quite often, though he was very commonly struck by her. Smiling with sweet affliction, she cooed breathlessly, "now, where is he? Where's Draco?"

"Here," Malfoy spoke up, not bothering to move a muscle. He lifted a hand only just barely and offered her a smug grin in the distance. Looking onward, Goyle bit his lower lip, completely baffled by the lack of interest Malfoy seemed to show Pansy with every visit. He hadn't, after all, seen the woman in five years and still he bothered to pay her no such attention. However, noting Goyle's annoyance, Draco swallowed hard, pressed himself forward as if to play the part of a good guest, and set down his steaming cup of tea. Arms spread limply wide, he tried harder, "ah, Pansy, always a pleasure."

"Always a pleasure?" Pansy huffed, knocking down Draco's hands with one swat of her own, "surely you could think of something more appropriate to indulge me with."

"Alas," Goyle said, saving his friend in ways more than he knew, "Draco's ability to indulge has been overshadowed by his far keener indulgence with liquor."

Malfoy nodded, offering a boy like expression when he said in complete agreement, "true."

Gaping, Pansy locked her stare with Draco only for a moment. Then, she allowed herself to smile once again, patting Malfoy on the shoulder, "well, at least he has a hobby." Finally she strode from both men and sat down floppily on Goyle's couch, crossing one thin and long leg over another. Draco scrutinized her quickly, hoping she hadn't caught him looking. She was, quite honestly, very attractive. She had kept her hair short and cropped just below her chin, which ended her lovely face in a heart shaped point. Her hands, which were covered in dark blue gloves, were slender and graceful upon the top of her crossed knees, and her delicate little feet danced around through the air in elegant circles.

She had not overdone herself with makeup either, relying on her more natural features to get her by. Her long and dark eyelashes swung freely before her face as she talked and flirted and she managed to look everything but nervous. When Goyle offered her a cup of her own tea, she took it instantly, peering over the rim of it as she sipped, though mostly keeping her gaze on Malfoy. Draco considered her in general and he noted instantly that she hadn't seemed to chance in the slightest. "So, Pansy," he bemused rather rudely, "what have you been up to as of lately?"

"You mean as of five years?" Pasny asked, humoring him with the same unmistakably harsh tone. "Keeping to myself. You know, I have been getting out of the house a lot. It is good for me." Draco grimaced, tossing Goyle a bitter glance before returning his focus back to Pansy. Of course Goyle had told Pansy that Draco kept to himself. Why wouldn't he have? Sitting on the couch opposite the woman, next to Goyle, Draco thought of five different ways to absolutely murder his friend once Pansy did leave. "It's not all that tough anymore, though I have always been blessed with the gift of being a woman. That always seems to calm those bitter old men down. I seem to find that after about ten minutes in my presence, they're more than thrilled with the idea of me being around."

"So," Malfoy said, feeling the urge to interject rise furiously behind his lips, "is that what Goyle invited you over here for? To show me how life isn't one uncontrollably downward sinking hole?" Stiffly he smiled with such bitter expression that Pansy even blinked, dumbstruck.

"Of course not," she lied, though her fibs were not as top-notch as Draco's. Instantly, he caught on and, downing the rest of his tea like a shot of vokda, he cocked his head to one side, bowed politely and made a hasty effort towards the door. "Wait, Draco!" Pansy cried out, loosing a sense of her previously seductive attitude. "Don't go!"

However, Malfoy was gone before she could rise up from the couch to stop him. Opposite her, Goyle shut his eyes, had buried his pudgy face in the palms of his massive hands and seemed instantly to check out entirely. Looking back from Goyle to the door, Pansy thrust her hand bag to the mattress of the couch and followed Malfoy's exiting steps, hot in pursuit. She whisked the door open, leaving Goyle alone in his overly cleaned house, and stood momentarily at the doorstep until she located the vanishing vision of Malfoy as he staggered away from the house. "Oy!" she called out, sounding more like the girl-version of her self that Draco had not long forgotten, "what the hell is your problem?"

"My problem?" Draco shouted over the rushing wind. He was almost 100 yards away from her, and his voice was haunting, almost hoarse in all it's anger. "You're asking me about my problem? Don't make me laugh. And, another thing, I don't need Goyle's help and I certainly don't need yours, okay?"

"I'm not trying to help you," Pansy hissed, advancing forward with balled fists, "and thinking so is entirely selfish!"

"So then," Draco said, huffing as he watched her come towards him, "what the hell are you trying to do, huh? Trying to turn me into a dellusional object of society? Well, no thanks. I've already told Goyle I'd rather drink my life away then--"

"Shut up!" Pansy cried, flinging her arms through the air as if she'd truly had enough. "Do you ever even listen to yourself talk? Draco, you make no sense when you're angry. Now listen to me: I'm not trying to help you. I don't want to help you. Goyle, now he may be, but I don't want to fix you. I like you just the way you are... the way you always were."

Draco blinked, wincing slightly. He looked back at Goyle's house and then, when his eyes found Pansy again, he noticed a bit of longing her her eyes. She took one last final step towards him, now so close to him in the wind that her hair whipped around her face and he hit his numb cheeks in the process. Her slender fingers gripped his face, coddled him underneath his hardened cheek bones and all he could do was freeze. "Pansy..." he started off, feeling both sorry and angry with her. Butterflies launched up in his stomach. What if Goyle could see her now? What if he managed to get up from the couch and actually catch a glimpse of him with her? "Pansy, I am not a nice person. You shouldn't have ever liked me how I was... then or now."

Shrugging, Pansy said thoughtlessly, "who needs nice people? Kindness is overrated." There was a tint of water in her eyes, though she didn't let any tears fall from her face. Instead, she took to brushing back Draco's own unruly blond hair, pushing it slowly behind his own ears, now red from the cold. Then she advanced on him fully, lunging forward with such eagerness that she almost knocked him over in the process. Her lips touched his so fiercely and they felt cold and unusual on his face. He stood stupidly, allowing her to do all the work, too numb to move.

He'd never even seemed to realize that Pansy had any sort of romantic feelings for him, never had any clue. Though, as she moved her lips around his seemingly dead ones, he figured that everything did make sense now. The flirting, the extra attention. Through Draco's entire ordeal with the war and the Death Eaters, he'd been too preoccupied to take notice to her. And now, when it all came to it, all he could manage to do was to stand there stupidly, allowing her to pull him in close. He didn't feel anything special as he allowed her to kiss him, though he felt a strong ping of guilt and enthusiastic pity. But Pansy was eager and when she pulled away there was a look of confusion etched on her face. "What's wrong?"

"Pansy. I'm not the same person that I was five years ago." Draco said, not bothering to pull away. Instead, he hung there loosely, avoiding her eyes. The feeling of extreme embarrassment overtook him rapidly. He tried to prevent himself from sweating or saying something rude. He couldn't possibly think to push her away; he hadn't seen her in five long years, and such a move would be, at most, awkward. He did, however, say to her shakily, "I haven't been that person for a long time. I'm not my father, I'm not a Death Eater."

"Well, then," Pansy sniffed, letting her fingers trail down from Draco's face. She let her hands linger at the edge of his chin and she brushed it sweetly, "I'm sure I'll like whoever it is you've become. Who is it that are you now?

Shrugging, Draco spun around from Pansy's grip, forcing her hands to fumble to her side uselessly. "I don't even know anymore," he sighed and once again he started down the path, ignoring the huffs from Pansy as he did so. It didn't take long to loose the ability to be able to hear her calling him back to her, though he pushed her cries away hastily and continued down away from the house as fast as he could. Not even therapy would have know what to do with him now. So, plunging his hands into his pockets, he fiddled with the tiny radio, wondering why he'd even brought it along with him in the first place...

"You still there?" Draco said into it after his long bit of calling his tests into the speakers. There was a slight pause, a ruffle of something through the other end, and then something grunting. Draco, along the gravel road, looked back, seeing just the faintest hint of Pansy's shadow. She had given up calling for him, and her hands hung loosely at her sides. Around her slender frame, her navy robes flapped about vibrantly, a beautiful yet undesirable ghost in the distance.

The static gruff from the radio spooked him enough, though. "So," came the voice, now most certainly that of a female. There was something familiar to the ring of it, though Draco couldn't quite make it out underneath all of its hostility. However, he couldn't help but feel slightly better about his afternoon when he voice came again, saying, "you've come crawling back."

"Seems so," Draco said, just as casually, though he couldn't quite mask the misery that tainted his otherwise pitch perfect voice. "So did you."

"Didn't think I'd go away that easily, did you? Thought you could scare me off."

"I still think I can."

The voice chuckled, a bit girlishly, and then huffed before regaining its composure, "alright then, try me."

Malfoy leaned back, having walked far enough into the forrest near Goyle's house to come in contact with a cluster of trees. He wasn't going home anyway, he was going to the pond, probably the only place where he could think of going anyway. The pond was, in all aspects, satisfactory enough. Besides, no one really ventured there much anymore and Draco quite enjoyed his solitude there. "In due time," he sighed, this time more down than he'd wished to have hoped.

"Huh." The voice said, a little bit concerned. "Funny, it's weird to hear you sound so miserable."

Stumbling beyond the brush, Malfoy shrugged, "why's that?"

"Well, the last time we'd talked you'd been almost too hostile."

"The last time I'd had probably a bit too much to drink," Malfoy admitted, though he wasn't exactly sure why. Momentarily he considered remaining angry with the voice, but now, having embarrassed himself in front of both of his childhood friends, he was stripped of as much anger as he had left. "I'm still unhappy with you, though," he informed the voice feebly, as if to convince himself alone.

Laughing, the responder said carefully, "ah, well that makes two of us. So," the woman on the other end side, "why are you so unhappy?"

Draco's mouth flew open. For a swift moment he considered verbally chewing out the woman with all he could think of. Why was it that she considered him miserable just by the very sound of his voice? Was he truly that obvious? However, he stuck to keeping calm, slapped a hand across his face, and felt the notion of desiring to cry overtake him. And why? Such an action would only convince him that he truly was loosing it. So, he sucked it up, coughed a bit too spastically, and said through the speakers, "I don't know why I'm telling you this."

To which the female voice responded testily, "I don't know why I'm still listening." Though she said so with an earnest care that made Draco Malfoy smiile slightly, despite the circumstances.

"Me neither."

Huffing once again, the female barked playfully, "alright, don't push it. We're talking about you here, last time I checked." Ah, perhaps Draco had been wrong about the woman after all. Sure she'd been quite intolerable at times, but he quite admired her sarcastic wit.

Maybe he could use a therapist and the radio, he considered briefly, was his own way of achieving one. This way he didn't even have to look his therapist in the face. Feeling slightly safer behind his secrecy, he staggered through the brush, found the shadow of the sparkling pond, and flopped down to his knees before taking a seat. "I don't know, well, thats not true. It started several years ago. Long before the war... maybe sometime around my fifth year at school."

"School?" The voice asked, gently, "what school?"

Malfoy looked up from the palms of his hands, this time laughing, "ah, ah, ah, what do you take me for?"

"Sorry," the voice beamed, "had to ask."

Against the trunk of the tree, Malfoy slunk lower, slunk so low that he was pitted on his back against the dewy grass mercilessly. He didn't flinch when the water seeped slightly through his shirt. In fact, he felt slightly comfortable as he did so, relaxing into the earth for the first time in a long time. The night had pitted on him faster than he'd expected. "Anyway," he added, "my friends think I should talk to a therapist." Biting his lip, he waited for the voice to agree with his unnamed friends, because that, of course, was what everyone had been doing. Therapy was, in their minds, the only answer. However, whatever Draco Malfoy had against therapy was foreign to him. Maybe, just maybe, he hadn't quite lost his stubbornness.

"Therapy is not the only answer," the voice came back to him with, "though he helps when you've got someone to talk to."

Freezing, Draco was half in the middle of running his hand through his hair. He froze, staring at the pond of water and then back at the radio in his hands. "Yeah," he said, feeling slightly warmer in the freezing cold water, "it does... just a little. But that... that doesn't mean they're right."

"Oh, no," the voice teased back, "not at all. Don't worry you can sleep soundlessly tonight. What they don't know won't hurt them."

"Very true." Draco beamed, very much liking this woman's way of thinking.

"However," she continued, "that doesn't include me. See, I like to know certain things. So, I will be your mysterious therapist of sorts, if you agree to tell me exactly what you are trying to scare me of."

"And what would you possibly gain out of listening to me speak?"

"Ah, well," the woman chuckled, "it does tickle my impervious sense of being curious."

Malfoy considered this. So she was curious, but sooner or later, she'd be dying to know less and less. "Alright, darling," Draco mused as if drunk, though he was currently anything but. "I'll make you a deal."

"Hm," the voice considered, "and what would that deal be?"

"The deal is this: I'll tell you whatever you want to know... anonymously," Draco added with a sense of fascination. The woman was, quite frankly, a very clever girl. However, having fun riding on his sense of superiority, he said with a cocky intake of breath, "you won't even get through the majority of it before I manage to scare you off."

There was a pause, and then a sigh as the woman responded, "I'm pretty hard to scare off." Though the stench in her tone reeked of knowingness, as if she understood much more than he'd have possibly anticipated.

"Ah, we'll see about that," Draco responded with a tongue-in-cheek attitude. "So, deal?"

Another momentarily break overtook the two of them. Then, finally, without question, the woman said with anxious determination, "deal."

Vonne: Reviews make me smile.