Chapter 30: Standard Exclusivity Form
Hermione had been forced to move her paperwork to the floor of the small cottage-cum-office. There was so much to get done, and it felt overwhelming. Her head throbbed, and her toes felt numb with cold. Hermione chewed her lip as she scrabbled through a pile of parchment, searching for the Canadian Minister for Creature's details. She knew she'd had it earlier that day, or perhaps it was yesterday. Her stomach rumbled violently.
"Fuck." She swore and rubbed her eyes. It was pitch black outside, and the thrumming at her temples was growing worse.
The door flew open, and Draco stomped in, his breeze scattering parchment to the wind. "I'm cutting you off, Granger." He said plainly, walking toward her.
"Not today Satan." She clucked as she scanned another document, pulling herself together if only to avoid his worry.
"I've missed you calling me that." He crouched down beside her. "You've been working for twelve hours."
"Malfoy, you're not my boss. You can't dictate my work schedule." She scolded, finally finding the name she'd been looking for thanks to Draco's vortex shifting the parchment covering it. She should have remembered, but her brain function was less than optimal.
Draco ignored her and hooked his arms under the petite witch, lifting her effortlessly from the ground. "I'm not your boss, I'm your boyfriend, and you're going to burn yourself out." He strode from the Human-sized cottage in the heart of the elf village with a flailing Hermione in his arms.
"Put me down!" She commanded, attempting to lever herself from his grip.
"No, Granger, you can't fly, so I have to fetch you back to the Manor. It is 9pm," he spoke in a tone she'd come to know and hate. Short frustrated sentences, verbally punctuated with infuriating pauses.
"I'll sleep in the cottage!" She protested further and pushed against his chest.
"You will bloody not." They were flying before she knew it. Her fury continued to simmer as she declined to speak. "You can be mad at me all you like, Darling, but you will eat and sleep."
"You had no right, Malfoy!" She hissed up at him through his safe embrace, "I'm not a toy that you can drag around."
"I am not playing, Granger." His arm tightened around her as he scaled higher, aiming for his open bedroom window. "You didn't leave the ministry so you could treat yourself as poorly as they treated you." He placed her on the floor in the centre of his room and stepped back.
"Fuck you." Hermione spat and stormed into his en-suite, slamming and locking the door behind her.
"very mature, Granger." He shot snottily after her.
Pansy Parkinson preferred to work on an ancient typewriter. Her handwriting and spelling were notoriously bad, surprising for a woman pursuing a journalism career. Her sloppy scrawl and issues with letter placement resulted from having parents who thought reading was beneath their child. A young lady in want of a husband will never be in need of a book. Her mother would scream when their elves trawled her room for missing library tomes.
The typewriter had been charmed by Blaise for her birthday to check her spelling. He'd grown tired of her asking him to do it. She loved it. She loved the sounds it made and the resistance beneath her fingertips. She took a sip of wine as she folded her legs beneath her on the dining chair and stretched her spine, rereading her closing passage on Mrs Pinces murder mystery dinner party. Her personal thoughts on the event? It had been in poor taste, given half the attendees had witnessed at least one unlawful killing in their lifetimes. One of the poor Bulstrode girls had been very triggered indeed and had passed out at the sight of the fake blood. The whole affair had been tragic and, quite frankly, hilarious. Pansy was giving the shindig a glowing review in the simple hope some other twit would host a similar party, and she'd have an evening of entertainment.
There was a sharp rap on her door. Her brows furrowed. So few people entered by the door at the best of times. She looked at her watch. It was past nine at night. "Hello?" she called through the wooden barrier, her wand clutched in her hand.
"Is that Pansy Parkinson?" a familiar but still unknown voice called back.
"Who is that?" She'd neither confirm nor deny her identity.
"Ron Weasley." the voice made sense now that it had a name. Pansy Parkinson blinked. What the hell was Weasley doing at her flat, and how had he found her?
The dark-haired Slytherin tugged the door open, eyeing the man warily through the gap, her wand still trained on him. "Can I come in?" He finally asked when she didn't speak or move.
"Why?" they had little to no connection, their shared history was her calling him poor and him calling her a pug.
"I've got a story I think you'll be interested in." Pansy watched as the ginger man attempted a smirk and reminded her briefly of her nana, who'd had a stroke.
"Best come in then." Pansy opened her door to her modest home and waited for karma to kick her in the arse. Years of taunting Weasley for being a pauper, and here she was living in a shoebox.
"This a muggle building." The man asked, glancing over her bare walls and open plan living and kitchen area.
"Yes, it was hard to find something in my price range with a fireplace." She said because she didn't know what else to say.
"Parents cut you off?" He sniggered as he flopped with far too much familiarity onto her sofa.
"No, I cut them off. What's the story, Weasley?" She took a seat at her dining table and pushed her typewriter to the side, opting to take notes with a quill.
"It's huge." She could smell something on him, like tin, like the smell just before lighting strikes. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and not in a good way.
"Why come to me? You're a media darling." She scribbled ' Hermione?' onto her scroll before he spoke.
"I can't go to other journalists. They're all in her pocket." He rolled his eyes, and Pansy circled the note she'd made. "We've got a common enemy."
"The patriarchy?" she muttered, keeping her eyes on her table. He either didn't hear her or didn't care to.
"Hermione Granger." he raised his arms, the bombshell dropped, and watched her reaction. Pansy didn't respond. She merely blinked and underlined the name she'd jotted down, celebrating that she'd been right.
"She's not your enemy Weasley, whatever little tiff you and she are having shouldn't be played out in the papers." She tried to reason with him and also play it cool. If she seemed too eager to hear what he had to say, there was a chance she could spook him off to a hack with fewer scruples than her.
"She's made an enemy of me with her ludicrous life choices." Ron sniffed imperiously. "She's fucking your ex Malfoy, did you know that?" he leered at her. Pansy had done herself no favours in her early years, fawning over Malfoy so publicly. It had been what her mother told her to do, and she'd been a diligent little honey trap for the Parkinson's social aspirations. There'd been no spark, no attraction. She'd never categorise him as an ex. He was a close friend… who she did some light sexual experimentation with, in her teens. "If she wants to ruin herself with a death-eater, then so be it." he shrugged magnanimously.
"and you want to sell this information to me?" Pansy pulled out a standard exclusivity form from the little tray she kept beside her typewriter. It was the kind of thing she got the Greengrass sisters to sign when they wanted to be 'on the record' about whatever piece of tawdry gossip they wanted to spread. It ensured her exclusive right to the story, to their quote. She tried not to give her eagerness away.
"I don't want money." Ron looked at her with disdain. "I'm not poor." He looked around her poky apartment and added a silent, unlike you.
"The money is a formality. If I'm to break this story, I need a quotable source. You're willing to put your name to this?" She placed the contract in front of him.
"What's this?" He prodded it. He hated reading.
"It just ensures that I have the exclusive rights to your side of the story Ron." She batted her eyelashes and gave him a little pout. "I don't want some bleeding heart hack swooping in and mangling your words. This protects both of us." She bullshitted effortlessly, utilising the tools her mother had passed down to her.
"Oh, cool" he hadn't understood anything she'd said. He pulled the pen he kept in his top pocket (for autographs) out and quickly signed the document, not bothering to read any small print.
"So why don't you just walk me through what you know, how you feel?" Pansy smiled a smile that did not reach her eyes and slipped back into the dining chair.
"I'm fine. I don't care. I mean, it's a betrayal." he swallowed. "Obviously. But it's not like I'm pining after her."
Pansy's quill scribbled as she ignored him and merely wrote the word WANKER over and over again. "no, obviously not." she mumbled, encouraging him to continue, only barely listening in case he revealed anything she didn't already know.
Draco sat on the bed and listened as his furious woman showered. He was shocked she hadn't left. He'd expected it when he deposited her on the floor of his room. He'd expected a slap and the sight of his floo burning green. He didn't care how pissed off she was. He was right, and she was wrong. She looked after everyone, all the time, and never herself. He'd noticed her selflessness to the point of self-sabotage when she'd been a teen. He'd thought it the most ridiculous weakness. He'd watch her, making sure her friends' homework was done before she tackled hers, Harry had enough to eat, Ron had enough praise, and Neville knew where his fucking toad was. While she fell apart. And nobody noticed. Well, that wasn't true, he noticed.
He remembered when she'd been brought to the Manor by snatchers. A stupid thought had rattled through his brain and clung to the walls, niggling at him for weeks after the fact. She'd been far skinnier, and they had not. Ron and Harry were pretty much the same weight they'd been at school, but she'd been bone and not much else. He'd wondered, at length, after their escape, if she was giving them her food rations? If she just couldn't hold food down, given the stress? If she was sick? He'd lain in bed long after her escape, and As the dark lord paraded around his home, he'd come to the terrifying realisation that he didn't simply fancy Hermione Granger. He cared. He really and truly cared about her.
The bathroom door opened, Steam billowed as she exited. Her eyes were red. He wasn't sure if it was from exhaustion or tears. He prayed it was the former. Her brow scrunched as she glanced at him, and she grimaced. "I'm sorry you're annoyed at me, but I'd do it again." He blurted, all the calm and composed words he'd practised flew from his brain. "In fact, I will do it again." he jutted his chin defiantly. "I know you, Granger. You're blinkered by your own dedication, so I'll look after you while you look after the world. Even though, like the house… sorry Hob-Elves, you're resistant to help."
"I'm not an elf, Malfoy." She walked toward him, pulling her towel tightly around her body.
"I know that Granger. It was a metaphor." he snapped, his temper frayed by the sudden fear that he'd ruined everything.
"It's a simile, you plank." She tutted and grabbed one of his overly large Quidditch jerseys from under her pillow. When did things in his house become hers?
"You're being stubborn, Granger." He shook his head in frustration but stopped in time to catch her, dropping her towel and pulling his green jumper over her head.
"I love you." She said, plainly pushing herself onto tiptoes and pressing a kiss to his chin, the scowl never leaving her face?
"Excuse me?" He almost screamed, sure he'd misheard her.
"I said I love you, idiot." She rolled her eyes and scoured his dresser top for her scrunchie to pull her wet hair out of her face. Draco gaped wordlessly. "You've pissed me off, Malfoy. I'm self-aware enough to know that I'm probably not being reasonable, but telling myself that doesn't stop me from being furious… "Draco wondered when she would get to how that translated to love, "despite that, all I want to do is be close to you." she pursed her lips and looked up at him, her bare face still red from the shower and her anger. "What's love, if not wanting to kiss the man you also want to hex?"
"I was going to say it first." He spoke distractedly as he gazed at her.
"The early Jobberknoll gets the worm," she said smartly as she made good on her desire to smooch him. Her lips were combative as she practically hung from his neck. Releasing some of her frustrations via full-contact kissing.
"Wait!" He lifted her to eye level, "I love you too," he said earnestly. She grinned.
"I know you do." she cupped his face in her hands.
"How?"
"I can feel it." she stroked his cheek "sometimes, I feel the love radiating out of you. It's scary and wonderful." She kissed him again, softer though and less like she might bite him. "Let's go to bed."
"You're going to eat first, my love." He'd been remarkably eager to call her his love. His heart thudded at the blush which crept over her cheeks at the words. He held her body to himself as he carried her through the Manor and revelled in the feel of her legs wrapping around his torso. "One day, when you're less stressed, and we haven't just declared our love, I'm going to wind you up and then have angry sex with you," he commented as they passed the many scandalised and muted portraits of his ancestors.
"Excuse me?" She laughed, drawing her head back from his neck, where it had been resting, to better look at him.
"You heard me, love." He smirked. "That angry kissing you were doing back there was scorching."
"You're such a weird man." She laughed, returning her head to his shoulder. Her stomach rumbled.
"and you love me." his hands cradling her bum gave a squeeze, and she sighed happily.
"and I love you," she agreed.