"Hermione, what do you think: should I add salt or wine to the stew?" Theo Nott asks from the stove without looking up as he's stirring what he hopes will become Boeuf Bourguignon for tonight's party.
"Why are you asking me?" The witch laughs as she's inspecting the labels on the red wine bottles, all lined up on the kitchen counter. "Is it because I'm a woman that I should know how to cook? May I remind you that I'm hardly domestic, you can ask your dearest boyfriend about my cooking skills when we were teenagers."
At which point Theo finally looks up from the stove "No!" he answers mildly offended, "I was just asking because…. Hey, you look nice tonight, very nice! I like the red lips with the pumps coord!" He pauses and then seems to come back to himself "Come on, help a wizard here: salt or wine?" he continues on, offering her a taste of the stew from the spoon.
She quirks an eyebrow at him "Then you're asking because I'm muggleborn? I don't know which one is more offensive: asking me because I'm a woman or because I'm muggleborn?"
"Merlin, witch! You're the only one in the kitchen with me!" upon which he almost forcefully shoves the spoon in her mouth."Salt or wine?" he asks with finality.
Hermione tries, she really does. She knows he really wants Blaise to feel welcome in their little motley crew of Slytherdors (or is it Gryfferins?). She can tell something's not right with the stew, but she is incapable of discerning what would improve the dish. Out of options she simply answers with a tilting smirk "Both? Both is good!" she reaches for the closest wine bottle and hands it to him "If in doubt, I'd say more wine sounds great. I wish it had been an option when I was seventeen."
"So tell me, who's the red lipstick for?" Theo asks her with a sparkle in his eyes as he reaches for the salt on the counter. "I thought you brought Luna with you tonight? Am I misinformed? And don't even tell me otherwise, one doesn't wear these shoes hoping to remain single…"
Hermione looks down at her shoes and smiles to herself. Very little escapes him, which was one of the reasons why he was such a great match for her best friend. Harry was so used to hiding since the war ended, protecting his privacy and covering up everything personal in his life, he needed someone that didn't need to be told how he felt, someone who understood that even the Chosen One had off days and needed a safe place to just be a young man with a haunting past but a bright future. Theo offered the perfect puzzle piece to Harry's jigsaw. Seeing them come together had even inspired Hermione to run an inverted correlation in her latest applied arithmancy project at work … but she digresses and has to shut this down quickly lest Theo runs away on the subject of her love life, or lack thereof, all evening.
"I don't have time for a boyfriend." Hermione answers, still admiring her shoes.
"You said that two years ago." Theo replies quickly.
"Yes, and it's as true today as it was then ...besides, relationships are for people waiting for something better to come along."
Theo finally drops his spoon at that, and cannot help a bewildered reply: "Spoken like a true cynic."
"I'm not a cynic. I'm a realist." Hermione intones in all seriousness.
"Actually let me rephrase: you are a realist masquerading as a cynic who is secretly an optimist."
Hermione has a hard time not pulling her tongue at Theo. One can be too old for such antics, she reasons, but the astuteness of his observation hits too close to the truth all the same. Instead she chooses to go with the proven strategy of changing the topic.
"Luna and I have decided to hit the town later tonight after dinner. We figured we'd need some pick-me-up after the oozing display of coupling bliss we're going to witness." She mockedly glares at him "Besides she wants to talk more about running into Marcus Flint at La Perla in muggle London buying a robe for his mother …." She can't help but bark out a snigger on that last word.
Theo feels like he's missing something judging from the animosity of her reaction "Well I barely know Flint, but that sounds like a decent thing to do…"
"No Theo, you won't make him out to be a good man: La Perla is a high-priced lingerie store … they use so little fabric that I doubt very much it would provide Mrs Flint with the right support…" She knows he can put the rest of the story together on his own.
"So you've quickly jumped to the assumption that he was hitting on Luna while he was buying lingerie for another woman?" Theo wipes his hands on the tea towel and crosses over to her side of the counter.
"Not an assumption, but a near certainty: is his mother even still alive? Anyway, needless to say Luna loved the mother story, hence why I must sit her down and give her a serious sisterly talk … and I cannot do that sober. I'll need the help of alcohol to convince Luna of something she doesn't already believe."
Theo bumps her shoulder and gently chides her "You know love, there is more to life than watching other people live it." Hermione huffs but smiles at Theo "I'm not watching other people live, I'm watching over my friends! Very big difference!"
The door bursts open suddenly as if a bombarda had been cast and in walks Pansy Parkinson "I thought I'd find the two of you together ... Theo, what concoction have you decided to poison us with this time?" she says by way of greetings, "Hermione darling, you know I love you but there's no need to put on fuck-me shoes if you're not going to use the hair potion I got you for your birthday..."
Theo rolls his eyes but still answers good-naturedly "Hello Pansy, I can tell you're doing well. And to answer you: Boeuf Bourguignon and her hair looks great as is" He winks at Hermione, "To what do we owe the pleasure of your company in the kitchen? I cannot believe the drinks are already running dry in the living room?"
"Nothing of the sort, but Percy and Harry have decided to get the Ministry shop talk out of the way first thing, so I took the earliest opportunity to slip through the back and hunt for the two of you until we get more Slytherin numbers."
Hermione can only just imagine how she must have been eager to escape. Pansy was now a beloved member of their little group, but it wouldn't be lying to say she had been also the most unexpected addition. Harry and Percy had connected after the war in the most surprising way: Harry through the Auror department had to liaise often with Percy Weasley from the Office of the Minister for Magic and they both built upon a loose familial connection to a firm friendship. They initially bonded over their disenchantment of the administration: having been famously sullied by the Ministry during his Hogwarts years, Harry had kept his cynicism firmly in place even as he joined the Auror Department. And Percy, finally coming to his senses at the climax of the war, had learnt the hardest way possible that all was not always well with civil service.
And yet through all this, they both remained strong believers in the duty of public service and their conversations on how to fix the wrongs of the world could run for hours. As a matter of fact, they were both in the middle of a similar exchange the day Pansy stepped through the floo and Percy saw her for the first time. Theo had only recently started dating Harry quietly, and Percy rarely stopped over at Grimmauld Place but that day he was in the living room, a glass in hand and mid-sentence when his eyes stopped on Pansy and travelled from her toes to her eyes and never left them. Harry often jokes that he had never thought Percy could ever be left speechless by anything or anyone, but Pansy did it. And Theo clearly saw his poised and self-assured friend blush under the attention. He had never thought Pansy could ever be flustered by anything or anyone, but Percy did it. The attraction was felt instantly in the room so much so that Harry and Theo quietly left through the door unnoticed. The story of Pansy and Percy started that day.
"For the nth time Pansy, I cannot in good conscience be counted as a Slytherin! I know you mean this as a compliment, but I wasn't even a hat stall!" Hermione laughs
"What on earth is a 'nth'?" Pansy asks incredulously "Stop using your Arithmancy jargon on me Hermione, you know what I mean: you're the least Gryffindor of all the Gryffindors I know!" Pansy raises one finger "Number one: the fact that you're an Unspeakable speaks volumes that you couldn't be a Gryffindor. Last time a herd of them was let loose in the Department of Mysteries, they almost broke the fabric of time or something." She raises a second finger "Number two: I hate to admit to it but no amount of alcohol or conniving from my part has ever managed to unearth what you're actually working on!" she raises a third digit jubilantly "Finally, and I cannot believe I have to spell it out: I like you. I couldn't like you if you were not Slytherin. Not happening!"
Hermione has already heard different versions of Pansy's demonstration, but this time she bursts out laughing with genuine mirth at Pansy's circular reference "But Pansy, you're dating a Gryffindor yourself! How can any of this make any sense?"
Pansy smirks back "I'm dating him, he's not my friend. I do things to him that I wouldn't do to my friends. And he definitely does things to me I wouldn't let my friends do! Not. The. Same. Thing."
Hermione is almost jolted by the strength of Pansy's statement. That's it! The vector imbalance in her arithmancy equation! She had regressed the original suite based on the Friendship Compatibility Model posited in 1904 by Lukas Karuzos, but she had it all wrong! Friendship and love do not run on the same compatibility scales - they must be following a different regression model, she wonders if-
"Hermione!" Pansy snaps her fingers in front of Hermione's eyes "Hermione, Morgana help me! You're doing it again! Stay with us, I was about to delight you both with more details of my last weekend in Iceland! Did you know there is a volcano that magically generates its own wards around hot springs? Well Percy and I …"
Hermione is internally cringing at another story, most likely saucy, about Pansy and Percy's weekend in Reykjavik. It is really too much for her vivid imagination to have to listen to another of their romantic escapades. Pansy is definitely right when she says love and friendship do not run on the same scale: if only she could spend a get-together without mental images of Percy naked in a hot spring, she'd be extremely grateful, no matter how good a friend he is.
"There you all are!" Luna Lovegood pops her head through the door "Theo, did you know that there is a faint greenish glow emanating from the kitchen attracting wrackspurts, but only when you're the one cooking? Most surprising really. Oh I almost forgot why I followed the trail: come on, time to provide reinforcements, Ginny is here and Blaise has just arrived. I'm afraid he brought an inordinate amount of nargles with him! He must be nervous, poor thing."
Mildly bemused, but not at all surprised by Luna's choice of interruption, they all follow her back to the living room to welcome Blaise and provide the safety that numbers can provide, especially if left alone too long with Harry and Percy. Hermione is the last one to enter the room, just in time to catch a glimpse of a tall figure and broad back dressed in a dark fitted suit jacket and perfectly tailored trousers exiting through the floo.