Chapter 3

Harry had just gotten the boys to bed and was settling in with some popcorn to watch the movie he'd been looking forward to all evening when he heard the floo sound. He almost groaned out loud, because there were few people who had unfettered access through the Granger/Malfoy home's wards, and he didn't particularly want to see any of them right now. The Grangers would have been the exception, but they would have arrived by portkey.

"Hello the house!" A voice called out.

This time Harry did groan at the familiar voice and popped up out of the recliner to go and intercept the witch before she woke the kids. He found Pansy Parkinson in the entrance hall, clearly headed towards the main living area. She stopped in her tracks when she saw him.

"Potter?"

"Parkinson." He greeted tersely.

"What are you doing here?"

Harry resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He wasn't the one who'd just barged in unannounced. "I'm babysitting Scorpius. Hermione and Malfoy are at the theatre. What are you doing here?"

She ignored his question. "But why are you here? You do have your own house don't you?"

Harry didn't even try to hold back his eye roll this time. "Yes, but there's more room for them to play here, and my boys think that coming over here is an adventure, whereas Scorpius is a little more wary coming to my place. It's just easier." He was absolutely not going to mention how much he liked the state of the art entertainment system Richard Granger had talked Malfoy into buying which Harry was embarrassed to say he liked so much that he'd briefly considered buying a new house just so that he could have one installed as well. "Now, again, what are you doing here?"

"I came over to see my best friend and my godson."

"Well as I said, Malfoy is out, and Scorpius is asleep. Surely you know that it's past his bedtime."

She glanced at her wrist which was adorned by a delicate watch. "Oh, I didn't realize how late it was."

And for some reason, Harry got the sneaking suspicion that she was lying to him, that she felt like she needed the excuse of seeing Scorpius in order to come over. And that gave him pause. His feelings for Pansy Parkinson were confusing at best. At one time he'd despised her nearly as much as he'd hated Malfoy. But, like Malfoy, he'd recently learned that there was a lot more to her than met the eye. Unlike Malfoy, she seemed to be fighting tooth and nail to keep anybody else from realizing that, him in particular. It was as if she wanted him to hate her, and he'd had enough conflict in his life to resent the- what he considered to be- unnecessary attitude.

"Well, you can wait for Malfoy to get home if you'd like. It'll be a few hours, but I was just about to start a movie," he waved her towards the cinema room, doing his absolute best to be hospitable even though he really just wanted some solitude.

"Thank you so much for inviting me into my own best friend's house," she snarked, crossing her arms over her chest.

He stopped, turned back to face her, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Why do you always do that?"

"What?"

"We're having a reasonably civil conversation and you can't just let it remain civil. It's like you're constantly raring for a fight."

"We're not friends, Potter," she snapped.

"I didn't say we were. I used the word civil for a reason. Do you have a problem with me in particular? Is this a Boy-Who-Lived thing? Because I know it can't be about blood status, or about the fact that I'm a Gryffindor, or really even our history in general, because you've made friends with Hermione just fine."

"Hermione is marrying my best friend."

"Yes, your best friend is marrying my best friend, which means that we're pretty much stuck together. I suspect, in the not so distant future, that we will be sharing godchildren. Don't you think we should at least aim for civility?" He asked, again emphasizing the last word.

It was like letting air out of a balloon, so quickly did she deflate.

"I know we can manage it," he decided to press his luck. "We did okay at the Christmas gala."

"It's not personal Potter. Or maybe it is- I just-"

He cut her off by holding a hand up.

"I feel like we should be more comfortable for this discussion. Won't you come in?" He asked with exaggerated politeness.

She blew out a breath and even laughed a little. "Yes, thank you."

"I was down in the cinema room, I have popcorn but I definitely saw some of those biscuits you like in the kitchen earlier, so I'll go and get them and I'll meet you there, you know the way." He ran off before she could say anything.

When he found her while levitating a tray with a plate of biscuits and a pot of tea on it in front of him, she was curled up in one of the luxurious recliners and was giving him the most curious look. He settled their snacks on the low table in front of them, next to his popcorn, and settled into the adjacent recliner.

"You remembered which biscuits I liked?"

He shrugged. "It wasn't that hard, you practically hoard the shortbread when it's around." He picked up the plate and offered it to her, she selected one and took a delicate bite.

He just watched her, not really sure where to go from here, when she surprised him.

"I'm sorry, okay?" She blurted.

He just raised an eyebrow in response.

"You represent everything I was raised to hate."

"Well I'm not going to apologize for that."

"I don't want you to. When I look at you I feel guilty, and I don't like that. I don't like that when I look at you and Hermione, I see me and Draco. I don't like how easy it was for me to hate you but also, I sort of just want to keep doing it because I also really, really don't like being wrong."

Well. He hadn't expected that.

"Have either Hermione or Malfoy ever told you about the first time I saw them together? As in, I mean, they weren't officially together yet, but they were friendly."

Parkinson's lips curved into something that resembled a smile. It was almost pretty.

"She may have mentioned something about a temper tantrum."

He laughed. "I'd threaten you not to ever tell anybody this for fear of emasculating me, but practically the whole country knows I'm wrapped around Hermione's little finger, so really I don't have anything to worry about."

She actually did smile this time, and it was pretty. "One of your more endearing qualities, actually."

He actually reared back in surprise and she laughed.

"It's a rare wizard who can truly appreciate a powerful witch as opposed to being intimidated by her, or trying to subjugate her," she added.

"Ah. Well, she is that. And I would never."

Parkinson settled in, looking more comfortable now. "So, tell me about this temper tantrum and what Hermione did about it."

He laughed. "She dragged me to the back of her flat and proceeded to point out that I was being pig headed. That it was clear Malfoy had changed and that we were hypocrites for not giving him a chance, especially given that a more open minded world was exactly what we'd fought for."

She frowned. "What's your point, Potter?"

"That the war is over. That against all odds Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy are disgustingly in love. That it's okay to evolve. That you should stop looking at me and feeling guilty. We don't have to be best friends, or friends at all, but I don't want to be a symbol of everything that went wrong for you either. Especially because if you see your relationship with Malfoy in my relationship with Hermione, then we are well and truly stuck together, because they're the real deal and neither of us is going anywhere either.

She nibbled on her biscuit. "That's really decent of you to say."

He shrugged. "Animosity gets old after awhile, you know? And especially with all this stuff with Ron lately...and Hermione doesn't have a lot of people in her corner. Too many people are intimidated by her as you said, or they still have a problem with her blood status. But you seem to genuinely want to be her friend, so I just think the least I can do is try to get along with you."

She nodded and then wrinkled her nose in an almost comical manner. "You're not going to try and hug me now or something, are you?"

He let out a startled laugh. "No, to be honest, except for Hermione, and my boys of course, I'm really not much of a hugger."

"Good."

"But I have to warn you, Hermione is going to keep hugging you whether you like it or not, until you learn to like it."

"Yeah I'd kind of figured that out," she sighed dramatically. "Okay, that's enough of this touchy feely stuff. What monument to bad taste of a film are you about to subject me to?"

He bit back a smile. He was actually glad to see her snarky demeanor return. When she wasn't being cruel or just purposefully difficult he actually liked her spunky personality, she was funny and kept him on his toes. And if she started being outright nice to him that would just be too weird.

He placed the popcorn on the armrests between them, picked up the remote, and did his best to keep a straight face. "It's an action movie. You're going to love it."

Author's Note: Those of you who follow my other stories might already know this but I have my own little tradition (superstition) that when a story surpasses 1,000 followers on this site I write a bonus chapter to thank you all. This is that chapter for this story, and that's why it's a little different. Plus I've been itching to write Harry and the beginnings of what you can probably see happening here :) How are all you lovely people doing out there? Stay safe. Sending you my virtual love. Thanks for reading!