Chapter 12: A Pompom for Trevor

"I'm never going back to work." Hermione leaned forward and sipped from the full-to-the-brim glass of red wine without lifting it.

"So we're just not talking about it then?" Ginny asked, an eyebrow raised, as she topped her own glass to the rim. "I'm going to have to pump and dump breast milk for a week," she added more for herself as she eyed the three already empty bottles.

"nothing to talk about." Hermione watched her voice make ripples on the surface of the merlot.

"Yea, that's not going to fly here, Granger. I've sat and listened to you and my husband…." She indicated Harry passed out on Hermione's couch "babble on about the elf issue for two hours, and I've kept my tongue. But he's unconscious, and we need to talk about this…." She tapped the newspaper on the table between them, which had been placed, strategically, face down. Ginny flipped it, and Hermione grimaced.

The front page of every wizarding newspaper had one of two pictures gracing its cover. The one where Hermione looks like an elf saving saint, handing the baby to his mother while Draco gazes adoringly at her. Or more salaciously, Draco Malfoy has his hand on her hip, staring adoringly at her while she looks down at the baby.

And my oh my, had it caused a stir. Hermione had been worried that the Free Elf Village would create panic. Wizard's hated change, but no. They were all too busy gossiping about her and Malfoy.

She'd been hailed a politicking genius by the minister himself, who assumed it had been on purpose. "Why else would you only submit those two photos, eh?" he'd laughed as he cuffed her back fondly. She'd take it. The alternative was correcting a group of men in their 50's and explaining that she'd actually fucked Malfoy less than an hour before the photo was taken. No, telling them that would've just been more paperwork. The power balance in wizarding Britain had just shifted, and the people were all too busy focusing on what her 'parted lips' meant.

"I did it on purpose to distract the public." Hermione trotted out the lie she was telling her boss.

"Tell that to someone who doesn't know you've been fucking him!" Ginny smirked and cocked an eyebrow.

"Ginny!" Hermione whispered in fright and frantically indicated the bespectacled boy who lived.

"Oh, fine." Ginny flicked her wand and whispered some words, "he's deaf now. So I take it your home visit went well?" Ginny slurped at her overfilled glass.

"he… he went down on me in his library, and then we did it against a bookcase, next to the only copy of the first edition of Hogwarts a history."

"FUCKING HELL, HERMIONE!" Ginny was on her feet dancing, her socks sliding on the wooden floor.

"Then I found out he was king and I was the Harry Potter of house-elves, and I got freaked out and made an awkward departure." Hermione shrugged and sniffed. She was defeated.

"What did you do?" Ginny leaned forward and took her hand. You could always tell when Ginny was drunk. She got overly sincere.

"I yelled at him, then when he asked why I was yelling, I cried and said 'I don't know" Hermione took a large chug of wine "and then I leapt in the flu, choked on ash because I was wailing and barely made it back to my office."

"Oh, dear." Ginny soothed, "So he's seen your crazy early on. Sometimes it's for the best. I showed Harry my crazy as soon as I hit puberty… I think it prepared him for married life."

"Crazy isn't code for vagina, is it?" Hermione double-checked.

"No, it's that mad, irrational part of yourself that makes you a dick for no reason. You keep it tucked away when making new friends or at job interviews." Ginny explained and leaned back in her seat.

"Yes, well, Draco Malfoy has seen all fifty shades of my crazy." Hermione harrumphed and took another drink.

"I'm going to ask you something else now, and I'm honestly shocked more people haven't picked up on this…." Ginny tapped Malfoy's head. "Why's he wearing his school tie?"

"NO!" Hermione leapt across the table and pushed her face to the picture, then snapped her head back to Ginny "Fuck."

"Oh my god, was that part of your little sex story?" Ginny started snorting with laughter like an excited dachshund.

"This is unbearable." Hermione slumped back into her chair "poor Malfoy." she cooed and absently stroked his face in the moving picture. She was too drunk to be dealing with it all.

"I know I'm pissed, but hear me out on this. Is it not possible," Ginny hiccuped, "that the man you've been fantasising about since you were a teenager. The man you literally don't shut up about. the man who can make you cum... is all of those things not because of 'sex magic' or a 'problem with your aura' or because he's an 'empty vessel you can pour your creative writing into'…." Hermione interrupted Ginny

"When you quote me, you make me sound idiotic." Hermione snapped.

"That's because my smart friend, on this front, you're an idiot." Ginny grinned with wine-stained teeth. "My point is this" she raised her eyebrows and looked at Hermione with a great deal of drunken sincerity. "Maybe you just fancy him. Maybe you always have a bit, but we all hated him, so you just pushed it down. I don't think this is some weird sexcapade you two are on. I think you're two someones who like each other and are falling for each other. But you're both doing it wrong because you didn't socialise properly as children, what with all the battles and murder and reading."

"You're right. You're pissed." Hermione jutted her chin petulantly in a direction away from Ginny.

"Well, if anything I said rings true, my friend, know this, I support it." the redhead sloshed wine down herself as she slid lower on her chair "fuck"

"I CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING, AND I'VE WET THE COUCH!" Harry Potter stood rod straight in Hermione's living room, his cheeks tinged green. Hermione had forgotten he existed, and his sudden, deafening appearance made her leap from her chair. Ginny quickly, and as discreetly as a drunk wife could, removed the deafening charm.

"I'M GOING TO THE TOILET," Harry announced, only realising he'd shouted once he stopped.

"You going to be sick, babe?" Ginny called after him.

"No, not at all, sweetheart, I'm wonderful." his forced clipped voice came from the bathroom.

"well, that's clearly a lie," Ginny noted, and then they heard him hurl.

Draco Malfoy sat at his desk in Malfoy manor. It was a struggle not to stare at the shelves she'd been pressed against.

"Did you lose a bet?" Blaise Zabini slammed the paper down in front of him.

"Excuse me?" Draco bristled, assuming his old friend's ire was over his hand placement on Hermione Granger's waist.

"The school tie, mate. Why are you wearing a school tie?" Blaise tapped the photo.

"Oh, that…" Draco huffed and slumped into his chair. "I forgot I was wearing it."

"So you're just kicking about the manor, king of the elves, wearing your old Hogwarts tie then?" Blaise leaned across to get a better look at his bygone chum "that's the level of Rich, Crazy bastard you're aiming for?"

"It was for Granger?" Draco said as if this explained everything.

"You wore your Slytherin tie for the Gryffindor princess?" Blaise chuckled as he fell back into the chair across from Draco's.

"does our bond of silence still stand from the war?" Draco asked quietly, eyes affixed to the desk.

"It does, Malfoy, but if you're back into some Dark Lord raising or Death Squad shit, I want none of it." Blaise waved his hands animatedly in front of his face. "Do you know what muggles bring to the table, Draco? Mini skirts, cocktails, porn and race cars, I like all those things. I want to keep them!" Draco was sure Blaise was half-joking, but the mere implication that he, Draco Malfoy, didn't love muggle things too stung.

"It's not that kind of secret." he reached his pinky across the desk and waited for Blaise to offer his. In seconds, their pinkies were hooked, and Blaise was renewing his pledge of secrecy.

"Hermione Granger and I have been engaging in vigorous and very satisfying sexual activity." Draco blurted out loud for the first time. And, Merlin, did it feel marvellous.

"ARE YOU PLAYING WITH ME, MALFOY?" Blaise was on his feet, his knee on Draco's desk as though primed to leap upon his friend.

"No, I swear on my jawline." Draco breathed.

"I can't believe this!" The handsome and ever poised Blaise Zabini slumped back into his chair as though the force of the news had winded him. " The Hermione Granger? Star of Draco's loudest wet dream circa fourth year?"

"Please never tell her that," Draco begged, worry flooding his brow.

"Already fretting about the stories your friends will tell her must be serious," Blaise noted with a smirk.

"Unfortunately not. I think I killed it. I don't know what I did exactly, she just started shouting and when I asked her why, she cried and said she didn't know and then she ran off." Draco shook his head. "It was just sex."

"It, in no way shape or form, will ever be just sex with you and that girl." the handsome, dark-skinned Slytherin tutted "you and she are like tethered with all your shared baggage, plus you've wanted her since your father told you that you couldn't have her. Like I know it started off as just a rebellion against old Lucky, but… come on, mate, don't lie to yourself. It wasn't just sex."

Draco nodded solemnly. "It wasn't just sex," he agreed.

"Your Grace," an elf entered carrying a large envelope, "Just arrived by owl, from the ministry."

"it's her handwriting," Draco noted with a flutter of his heart.

"How on earth do you know what her handwriting looks like?" Blaise chuckled at his lovesick comrade

"She writes short stories." Draco shrugged nonchalantly. "I read a couple."

"Oh, she any good?"

"Very," Draco spoke as he ripped open the envelope. The first thing that fell out was a massive, fluffy wool ball.

"Weird," Blaise noted.

Draco dragged the note from the envelope and scanned it, trying to devour every letter at once.

Dear Draco,

I'm sorry for how we left things last week. I don't know why I was shouting. I wasn't angry, just scared and overwhelmed and a bit confused. I didn't even tell you how proud I am of what you've done with the elves. I'm impressed with you, beyond measure. You saw an injustice, and in trying to fix it, you've made the world a better place. You're a good man.

I've enclosed a pompom for Trevor. Please pass on my regards to Meryl and the baby.

Yours with love, Hermione Granger.

P.s Can't believe you left on your school tie.

"I take it, it's good news, judging by your face?" Zabini swung one leg over the other as he observed the blonde man before him.

"I think so, yes." Draco nodded, his grin cracking wide.

A/N Hello friends, if you're enjoying this story, please leave a review! It makes my heart glad!