Chapter 26: Impulse
19 May, 2018
12 Grimmauld Place
Like Brothers
It has already been established that Henry, Duke of Grimmauld, fondly called Prince Harry, is Prince Draco's closest relative. Born a matter of weeks apart, hardly anyone needs reminding that the two were famously brought up as brothers following the deaths of Prince Harry's parents. While each young man took considerably different approaches to their roles as working royals—with Draco opting to attend university at Hogwarts whilst Harry entered the British Army—the two continued to enjoy the close relationship they'd shared as adolescents throughout their adult lives.
It's been said that Prince Harry was among the first to welcome Hermione into Prince Draco's intimate circle of friends, and to this day, she and Harry maintain a close friendship. On the occasions Hermione has been photographed publicly with both princes following her engagement, it seems quite obvious that she and Harry share a particularly special bond. While there was at one point speculation that Prince Harry may have once considered Hermione a romantic prospect, the rumour has since been dismissed by both parties. As Harry has been like a brother to Draco, so has he been for Hermione, say friends of the couple.
This is… perhaps more credit than I deserve (a rarity, really, that Rita Skeeter would attribute anything but debauchery to me), seeing as Draco and I certainly had our differences. I'll admit, for example, that as everyone else watched Theo and Daphne ride off into the sunset after their wedding, I wasn't too concerned with them. I already trusted they were happy, so I busied myself observing something else: that something had broken between Draco and Hermione. Something sacred was gone, warped and hollow in the air between them, and their separation, temporary though it was, set in motion a chain of events that none of us saw coming.
Least of all me.
1 October, 2014
London, England
"Well," Ginny said, falling brusquely into the seat opposite Harry with a muted groan, "that was more of a headache than usual."
"Oh, was it?" Harry asked neutrally, sipping his coffee and waving amicably to the many photographers outside the cafe window before re-focusing his attention on her. "You look well, Gin."
"Yes, well," she sighed. "It's so nice we can still enjoy such private time together," she said insincerely, as four camera flashes went off outside. "Anyway, how've you been?"
"Oh, fine," Harry said, knowingly evasive. He doubted it was worth discussing anything with this sort of rabid hounding going on outside, and besides, Ginny already knew most of everything. "Steve's been a bit of a downer, but that's to be expected."
"Ah, and how's Nancy?"
"I don't know," Harry said honestly. "She isn't particularly interested in speaking to me at the moment, and I figure it's not exactly the best time to seek her out."
"Well, did you see the papers?"
"Mm, papers?" Harry echoed with faux-bemusement, half-smiling, and Ginny kicked his foot under the table. "Ouch, Gin—yes, fine," he sighed, "I've seen them. But you know as well as I do it's hardly worth acknowledging anything in them."
Unsurprisingly, the guests at Theo and Daphne's wedding—most of which were the dreadful acquaintances of one of the two noble families—weren't particularly tight-lipped. DID PRINCE DRACO AND HERMIONE GRANGER SPLIT? screeched the Daily Prophet, citing as proof the fact that Draco and Hermione (called by Harry and Ginny, for purposes of discretion, Steve and Nancy) were observed by 'close family and friends' being notably cool towards each other. The Palace, which had not confirmed rumors of their relationship, did not bother addressing rumors of their breakup, either. Draco had immediately returned to the Royal Navy and Hermione was being vigorously harassed, but hardly more than usual. The only difference was that the headlines featuring Hermione's walk to work now highlighted her solitariness as a flaw.
"I'm surprised you haven't rushed to her aid," Ginny mused into her cup of tea, and Harry tried very hard not to sigh, instead opting to return her unladylike kick beneath the table.
"I told you," he said, "it's not like that between us."
"Like hell it's not. You really haven't even considered it?"
"Nancy's a friend. Her well-being concerns me."
"Is that what you call it?" Ginny tutted softly, lifting a brow. "Dirty boy."
"Gin, honestly."
"Well, how's it going with Dreama? Let me guess, things are over," she said, subtly sparing him a smile, and Harry shook his head.
"She ended it, actually," he said, and to that Ginny paused, her brown eyes widening.
"No," she said, surprised. "She did, really?"
"Yes, really," he said, obscuring his mouth with a cough into his napkin to add, "She didn't think there was anything serious between us."
Those had been Luna's exact words, in fact. "Oh, don't misunderstand, the sex is very good," she had assured him in something of a softened pep talk, "but it seems to me perhaps you want more than that."
A ludicrous argument, really, as it was something Harry typically said to other people. He'd felt oddly out-of-body upon hearing it, and not exclusively because he was still inside her when she brought it up.
Needless to say, it had been one of his less impressive orgasms.
"I didn't think you wanted serious," Ginny remarked into her tea cup.
"I don't," Harry said. "I never have."
(He'd said the same thing to Luna, who laughed, and then sobered quickly. "Sorry, I thought you were joking," she said, scrutinizing his expression with a frown. "It's just that you seem like a very sensitive person, don't you?"
"Are you calling me a soft summer prince?" Harry asked, mildly devastated, and Luna glanced slowly down.
"You seem objectively quite hard," she remarked, making it a matter of professional journalistic integrity, "and not strictly a prince, so no, I suppose not?")
"Well," Ginny said, leaning across the table to brush her lips against Harry's cheek as the flashes went off, "I guess we'll probably have to marry each other eventually, then, won't we?"
The photographers, having gotten what they wanted, promptly shuffled out, probably making their way to wherever Hermione would be next. That Harry had no idea where that was depressed him about as much as the idea that he and Ginny would eventually have to settle for each other—and it was very much a mutual settling.
"How are you and what's-his-name?" he asked, leaning back, and Ginny grimaced, now free to prop her feet up on the chair beside him.
"They're fine," she said. "He just wants, you know. Serious and all that."
"Men," Harry said, shaking his head. "They're totally unreliable."
"I told him I was never really considering him," Ginny agreed, pairing it with a conspiratorial eye roll. "He doesn't get it, apparently."
"Doesn't want to get it, I imagine," he said, adding fondly, "You're a catch, Gin."
She sniffed her opposition. "Well, I don't want to be caught."
"A relatable feeling."
To that, she spared him a doubting smirk.
"What?" he demanded, and after a moment of silently communicating his stupidity, Ginny leaned back, sighing.
"Could you order chips?" she said tangentially, staring moodily at her saucer. "I'm positively starved, and I can hardly eat like shit around the rest of the team."
Harry reached over to the seat beside him, curling a hand affectionately around one of Ginny Weasley's narrow feet. He could feel the familiar shape of her high arches through the canvas of her shoes; could picture them the way they had often been, settled against his chest with her hair spread out over his pillowcase.
A pity not all loves were built to carry eternities, he thought. If only some loves were given honorable deaths instead of an ongoing media circus.
"Chips it is," he assured her, beckoning to the waiter to order.
Draco hadn't spoken much about what had actually transpired on the evening of Theo and Daphne's wedding. He wasn't especially communicative to begin with, but even so, his silence on the subject of Hermione was hardly unnoticeable. With Theo on his honeymoon with Daphne, that left Harry behind to attempt to pry open the lid on the Prince's jar of feelings, which he had never been especially good at. He scarcely knew how to deal with his own, and Draco's were certainly another story.
"Did you fight?" Harry asked him.
"No." Draco had been listless, almost jittery.
"I don't understand."
"What's to understand? There wasn't a fight, it just wasn't working. Sometimes things don't work."
"Yes, but—"
"It was making her miserable, and I certainly wasn't much better. It's not her fault, it's not mine, it just is what it is. And besides, I have my parents to contend with at the moment," Draco said with a gloomy look of revulsion, "and I can hardly expect her to wait."
"Well—" Harry hesitated, unsure what to say. "If that's the case, maybe you should actually consider Lady Susan," he said, and Draco's mouth tightened. "Only because you seem like you're not getting whatever it is you wanted out of your relationship," Harry hurried to add, "and because she is, you know. A reasonable possibility, don't you think? Surely it would ease things for you, at the very least."
Draco's grey gaze settled irritably on Harry's. "You sound like my father."
"Well, I'm just saying," he insisted, defensive. "I'm worried about you."
"Don't, Harry. I'm fine."
It was disheartening, Harry thought, how easily Draco could pretend everyone else was an idiot. It must have been something he'd learned from Prince Lucifer.
"Jesus, Draco," Harry sighed. "You're not fine, nor should you be." He could feel himself falling into all sorts of traps, never quite grasping Theo's proclivity for helpfully-worded doublespeak. To him, that was as inauthentic as lying. "Maybe you didn't have a fight," he added doubtfully, "but you can't honestly expect me to believe this was the outcome you wanted."
That, gratifyingly, produced some results. One result, or one truth, which was more than Harry had expected to receive.
"I just want to get away," Draco finally said. "From this, from her, from everything." Obviously, he did not mean Susan. "Maybe if I'm gone," he explained quietly, "they'll go easy on her."
Then Draco had looked vacantly out the window, adding, "I just want to believe I've let her down for the last time, that's all."
Harry couldn't bring himself to say anything.
Shortly after that conversation, Draco had gone.
Harry intentionally did not seek out Hermione for a number of reasons. Firstly, he wasn't entirely sure she wanted to speak to him. Sure, she'd smiled at him at Daphne and Theo's wedding and it certainly seemed their previous conflict was over, but he wasn't convinced that meant she had any interest in picking up where they left off. Secondly, Harry was becoming increasingly more concerned that he'd brought up Lady Susan Bones to Draco out of something very suspiciously like self-interest. His own feelings, loath as he was to acknowledge them, had not changed much, or even remotely, or even at all.
Harry was highly disappointed to find that, upon running into Hermione at Blaise's flat on the evening of 2014's Halloween (the theme was "historical betrayals, traitors, and other instances of treason," presumably because Theo and Daphne were still not back from their honeymoon) nothing at all had changed. He still felt something warm in his chest the moment she turned to face him, pleasure alighting on her cheeks as she called out for him to join her.
"Harry!" she said, as brightly enthusiastic as always. It was one of the things he liked about her, that she was so completely and unreservedly not-British. She seemed to feel without restriction, which was a novelty for him. "God, I'm so relieved you're here," she said, making her way over to him in the corseted gown she was struggling to maneuver. "I was a bit early," she half-whispered, gesturing over her shoulder, "which Tracey did not care for."
Unsurprising. Harry had yet to sort out what Tracey did care for, which often didn't even seem to be Blaise. He was also rather unsure what her costume was supposed to be, but that was hardly out of the ordinary.
"What's this?" Harry asked, gesturing to Hermione's gown (or, more accurately, her struggle with said gown) with amusement, and she sighed.
"It's Daphne's Anne Boleyn costume," she said. "Funnily enough, Anne works for rather a lot of themes."
"Well, you look marvelously uncomfortable," Harry congratulated her, and she gave him a swat of disapproval.
"Well, I am, though by now I've drunk nearly enough to distract myself," she grumbled, shifting her skirt around. She smelled, as usual, like a bit of rose and vanilla; something flowery and comforting. "I should have known the rest of you would be unreliable with your arrival times. What are you supposed to be?" she demanded, eyeing his costume with unobscured skepticism.
"I'm Benedict Arnold Cumberbatch," Harry said, pointing to his deerstalker. "Obviously."
"Obviously," Hermione said with a roll of her eyes, and glanced over his shoulder. "No Ginny?"
"We're off at the moment," he said.
Her brow arched. "And Luna?"
"Actually, Luna did not have much of a sustained interest in me," he said smoothly, pouring himself a drink as he caught signs of Hermione struggling not to say something, probably about their previous argument. "That, I think, has run its course. So," he determined, turning to her with his glass held aloft, "I'm afraid you'll have to keep me company this evening."
She raised her glass to his and then faltered for a moment, pausing.
"You know, I've been meaning to tell you I'm sorry," she began, and he cut her off with a shake of his head.
"Bygones," he said firmly. "I was harsher with you than I should have been."
"No, you were right, but—" She hesitated. "I just… wasn't in a very good place at the time."
He'd told himself he wouldn't ask, but it slipped out: "And now?"
"Now? Oh, well." Her cheeks flushed with discomfort. "It's different now, isn't it? Everything is."
"Different as in better?" he attempted, deciding to be optimistic.
"Well, um." She fidgeted, brushing a wayward strand of hair away from her face. "I quit my job," she said, apparently changing the subject from the invisible and unmentionable topic of Draco, and Harry blinked, surprised.
"You did?"
"Yeah. I never really cared for it," she said, draining her glass and reaching over to pour herself a new one. "I was getting tired of sucking up to Lady Sooz. And anyway, without—well, you know," she said, once again not mentioning Draco's name, "without any reason to have an 'uncontroversial job,' I hardly need to stay there. It didn't pay particularly well, and it turns out I don't really give a shit about public art," she said, and instinctively, Harry fought the urge to look over his shoulder for Pansy. She was elsewhere, dressed as Aphrodite (who, as he foggily recalled, had treason-adjacent liaisons with Ares), and surprisingly had not come running at Hermione's sudden use of obscenities. "So yeah, I guess that's, you know. Over. Thank god, honestly." Hermione took a sip of her new drink, apparently deeming it satisfactory. "It's like I can breathe for the first time in a year."
"What are you going to do next?" Harry asked, and Hermione shrugged.
"Who cares?" she said, though it was obvious to Harry that she, in fact, cared. He already knew she was worried about affording her flat; he certainly wasn't going to mention it, but he doubted that particular concern had gone away. "Go on vacation with Blaise, I guess."
That, he thought, seemed rather unlikely to happen, but for her sake, he played along. "How impulsive of you."
She slid him a—did his eyes deceive him? Was it actually coy, or did he merely want it to be?—teasing glance, half-smiling. "Yes, I'm impulsive now. Like you," she added with a hint of not-so-innocence, shrugging again. "I think it works for me."
Harry felt something voracious climb the notches of his ribs to roar within the caverns of his lungs.
"Yeah," he murmured. "Yeah, it does work for you," and she smiled at him. A smile, full-stop, and he suffered an old, resurrected creaking in his chest at the sight of it.
"And how are you?" she asked, inserting a little of her gentleness into her tone. That, he thought, was another thing about her. Her ability to soften was unlike anyone else he'd ever known. She had a loyalty to her affections, a sincerity to her emotions that he had always craved, thinking that if he'd ever had it, then perhaps he'd be someone else entirely. Someone worthy, or at least worthier, by virtue of her deeming him apt.
He never spoke much about his parents. He'd never been quite sure, either, why he'd decided to tell her about them all those years ago when they'd been looking out over the lake at Hogwarts. He'd always kept his tragedies to himself, for the most part—except for with her, that day. He supposed it must have been that craving again, that festering sense of needing her to see there were depths to him. A circuity of thought, really, that he could share with her because he should, because he ought to, because she was a safe place for his sadness. Harry had envied Draco most of all for that, for the safety in loving Hermione Granger. For the knowledge that someone intelligent and compassionate and utterly without pretense or superficiality would find something worthy in him to love.
"It's hard," Harry eventually said, "every year. But it's nice to be here with you," he told her, taking a sip and gambling on the tingle of recklessness absorbing into his blood. "I'm glad you came tonight."
He hoped he hadn't imagined the flicker of something illuminating Hermione's face.
"So am I," she murmured, the two of them raising their glasses in perfect synchronicity.
Maybe it had been the drinks. Maybe it was the way she didn't leave his side. Maybe it was that his usual mannerisms, the nudges and brushes and occasional bumps of familiarity, were returned in a way they hadn't been before. Maybe he was flirting; maybe she was, too. Maybe it was the way he eventually got drunk enough to talk about his dad, to remember the words James had once spoken to Lily: Take your time. I'm sure enough for the both of us.
Maybe that was why Harry followed her when she went to Blaise's room, complaining about her shoes and insisting Blaise surely owned some sort of velvet slippers she could change into, and maybe that was why Harry had shut the door behind them, lingering beside her as she opened Blaise's wardrobe door.
"Do you ever think about it?" Harry asked, and Hermione paused, caught. He knew that look on her face and felt comfortably certain it was guilt.
"Think about what?"
"You know what." He was feeling bold, as he often was. That was his nature, wasn't it? He'd pursued her that way until he'd noticed Draco's lingering glances, but now Draco had been the one to fuck up, hadn't he? Harry pushed the thought of Draco aside. For once, he thought, let me be more than the spare, more than second-choice, more than her afterthought. "You know what," he repeated, and Hermione turned to look at him, the halo of her curls messy and glowing in the dim light from Blaise's nightstand.
"You and me?" she asked, and Harry, already having ventured further than he ever suspected he would, nodded silently. "Yes, I… thought about it. I think about it. From time to time," she added, clearing her throat, and Harry's heart leapt to his mouth.
"And what do you think about?"
There was no mistaking it. Her gaze skated over his chest and she was devouring him, eating him alive. Oh yes, he thought deliriously, I've already fucked you, haven't I? Somewhere in your dreams, in your sleep, maybe you were wide awake—fuck, maybe you knew exactly what you were doing when you pushed my imaginary head down to your spectral lap. Somewhere, you and I have already been together, haven't we, and it was good, wasn't it?
I could do it for real, he promised her silently, and he saw her cheeks flush.
"Stop looking at me like that," she said, clearing her throat. "It's just… Well, you were right, weren't you? That things would have been different with you."
Jesus, fuck. "Yes."
"Not that I'd do it over," she added hastily.
"Of course not."
"But if I did—"
"It'd be different."
"I mean, that's just an assumption."
"No, it would be." His heart was pounding, and he could hear the rush of blood in his ears. "You really think anyone cares what I do?"
"Harry, don't say that—"
"No, I'm serious. I'd have dropped everything for you."
The idea of it, of being someone's priority, seemed to make her mouth water, and he couldn't say he blamed her. "You say that," she said, weakly insistent and half-convinced, "but look at you and Ginny."
He shrugged. "Ginny's not you."
Oh, he was saying the right things, he could see it. He could see her posture giving way, and she took an unsteady step that sent her careening into him.
"I," she began, and looked up at him. "You'd get tired of me, Harry."
He shook his head. "Not true."
"You don't know that. And anyway, it's not as if I wouldn't have the same problems with you—I mean, look at me, even now! We're broken up and I still have the press to deal with—"
"It'd be different, Hermione. I don't have to answer to anyone. I don't choose," he clarified, voice suddenly little more than a rasp, "to answer to anyone."
He watched her swallow, indecision pulsing at her throat.
"You're drunk," she said after a moment.
"So?"
"I'm drunk," she said, looking at her hands—which were resting on his chest—as if she didn't know who they belonged to, or how they'd gotten there. "I'm just sad and drunk and stupid," she whispered, spreading her fingers out; digging them in, staking her claim. "I'm lonely and scared and—"
The words 'fuck it' leapt again to mind as he bent his head, tugging her mouth up for his. FINALLY, his brain shouted, his entire body screaming with his rapid loss of restraint. YES, THIS, PLEASE, seemed to echo through all of his muscles, and he hoped, he hoped, that she would feel it, too. That she would respond in kind, as if every single fragment of bone, every sliver of her constitution would yield to his, letting out some kind of primal shout at the wait that was finally fucking over—
Her teeth collided with his, her mouth still open, and the last thing he saw before his eyes closed was the wince, the flinch, as what was supposed to have been a long-awaited comingling of exultant breaths was, instead, a train wreck of a collision. "Ouch," she muttered into his mouth, though her arms slid up to encircle his neck, as if she wanted fiercely to fix it. Her tongue slid into his mouth, darting experimentally along his; her rhythm was counterintuitive, he found himself frowning with confusion, struggling to match the pressure of her lips. He pushed when she pulled, he could taste liquor on her tongue, it all felt… off. It felt spectacularly off, and he suddenly felt a wave of nausea at the memory of how many kisses he'd had that felt precisely like this one tasted: drunk, lonely, and sad, precisely as she'd said they were.
Harry suddenly felt conscious of his own saliva. Was there too much of it, was that it? He was overthinking, overprocessing, he wanted to force the whole thing into acquiescence and it showed. She made a sound like, oof, too rough, and he realized the shadow of facial hair he'd neglected to shave was hurting her, scraping her mouth when he'd aimed his kiss incorrectly. Worse, it seemed like she was kissing a ghost; like her kiss was designed for someone else to be on the other side of it. She seemed to be kissing him with a desperation vastly different from his, imploring him to respond to a choreography he didn't know, that he couldn't guess, that he kept getting wrong. He bit her lip, an accident, and she recoiled, pushing him away.
"Oh god," she said, her expression suddenly contorting, and he felt the blood drain from his face.
"Hermione," he croaked, feeling a horror he didn't actually know how to name. What was he going to say? I can do better, don't you understand, I'm Prince Harry, I'm fucking Prince Harry, half my skills belong in the bedroom and I swear, give me another shot, I can un-fuck it up—
"That," she said, gingerly holding a hand to her mouth, "was a mistake."
Then, to his disbelief, she promptly burst out laughing, almost howling quietly into her palm.
"Oh my god, that was a disaster," she wailed, half-hysterical with something that could easily have been tears or laughter or both. "That was like kissing my best friend, or I don't know, my brother, I don't even—"
"Yeah," Harry said weakly, swallowing hard. "Yeah, I, um. I guess we just, I don't know. Got carried away—"
"Well, at least I have an answer now," she said, wiping a pool of tears from the corner of her eyes as she laugh-sobbed a hiccup. "God, what a relief. All this time I've been asking myself what if, what if I'd just picked Harry—what if all this time he's been right there, you know? God." She shook her head, shuddering. "Wow. Okay, look, let's not tell anyone about this, okay?" she said, and abruptly sobered. "Can we keep this between us? I mean it was just a kiss, hardly anything, but still—"
Immediately, a montage of alternate-universe disasters flooded the back of Harry's eyeballs, like blinking back stars: he and Hermione falling into bed together, him with his hands all over the haunted skin where Draco had been, then surely doing so again because who could only do it once? Harry never did it once, certainly not if he felt like this, and then of course Draco would barge in, would find out, his grey eyes narrowing with fury, How dare you?
What the fuck had he been thinking?
"No," Harry agreed, suddenly violently ill. "No, we can't tell any-"
But before he could finish—before he understood what was happening—Hermione was yanking him with her into Blaise's wardrobe, the bedroom door bursting open and followed by voices, angry, their whispered shouts slicing into Harry's mental phantasms of calamity.
"What are you doing—"
"Just shh, someone's coming—"
"—not doing this again, Neville, have you lost your mind?"
Harry frowned at a frantically motioning Hermione, catching unusual tones from Blaise's voice as the bedroom door slammed shut, two sets of pacing footsteps audible from the other side of the wardrobe.
"You told me to make her happy, Blaise, didn't you? You insisted I propose—"
"Yes, well, I hardly meant propose to her and then continue doing fuck-all else, did I?"
Harry brought a hand silently to his temple, frowning. Either Blaise, dressed as Brutus, and Neville, dressed as Judas Iscariot, were having some sort of argument that he didn't understand, or he'd recently suffered a head injury.
"What would you have me do, then?"
"Make a bloody choice, Longbottom! You can't have everything! You certainly can't marry her while you're still—" Blaise broke off, furious, and took a series of heated steps, seething venomously, "You can't expect me to fuck you in good conscience while you're promising your life to Pansy."
Hermione's hand rose, forced over her mouth as she inhaled sharply.
"This was never in good conscience, Blaise," Neville's voice snapped, "my conscience is shit. I've told you, Gran insists on the marriage, I can't get around it any longer—"
"And what about me? What am I supposed to do? I won't keep lying to her, Neville, I can't, and I certainly can't be the one who loves her more than you do while you run off and marry her—"
"You didn't seem to have any problem with it before. A year and more of lies and now you feel guilty, Zabini? Because I bought a fucking ring, that's the difference?"
Harry's head spun. The wardrobe suddenly felt impossibly emptied of air.
"Yes, it's the fucking difference," Blaise hissed. "We have to be done here, do you understand me? This has to end—"
Neville was dismissive, unconcerned. "You say that every time."
"I MEAN IT EVERY TIME," Blaise snapped, but almost immediately, he seemed to wither, his voice dropping to nearly a whisper. "I can't do this, I can't watch this, I have to leave." He was nearly inaudible. "I don't want to want you, Neville, anymore. I don't want any of it, and it's only for Pansy's sake I haven't fucked off to god knows where—and don't you see the irony? I am hurting her, I'm the one quietly destroying her life, and then because she's hurting, I can't bloody leave!"
"You don't want to leave. I know you don't." Neville's voice, too, was close to unrecognizable, meaner and harsher and yet somehow more vulnerable, too. "Don't lie, Blaise, not to me. Don't you get sick of lying to everyone?"
"Don't—"
"You know I don't want to do this. I've tried a thousand times to tell her, I swear, but she doesn't want to hear it. She doesn't want to hear me at all. Pansy, my grandmother, they only want things to look perfect, to seem perfect, but with you—"
"Neville. For fuck's sake. Don't."
"None of you ever want to hear the truth, do you?" Neville was bristled and wounded. "Well, you don't get to deny everything, Blaise, and certainly not me. You have to know, you have to know that I love y-"
"STOP."
Harry flinched. Blaise was breathing heavily now, obviously distressed, and Hermione's hand shot out, tightly gripping Harry's wrist.
"This," Blaise said hoarsely, "is not happening. Not anymore. Never again."
"Blaise, please—"
There was the brief sound of shuffling feet, hands grasping at clothes and a forceful gasp of a kiss, and then one of them tore angrily away.
"Blaise, don't leave—Blaise please don't—"
The door opened and shut, the sound of the party drowning out anything that had been in the room, and in the sudden loss of sound, Hermione slowly pushed open the wardrobe door, climbing unsteadily out.
"We have to tell Pansy," she said instantly, and Harry balked.
"What, right now? But—"
"But what? She has to know," Hermione said, and her face paled slightly. "And I'm going to tell Draco what happened between us, too."
Immediately, Harry felt a tightening of panic in his chest. "Hermione, are you sure—"
"Yes. I have to tell him. I'll tell him it was a mistake, that I was lonely and you were comforting me, that it didn't mean anything. And in the meantime, I'm telling Pansy about this," she said firmly, stumbling in the direction of the door as Harry apprehensively held her back.
"Listen," he urged her, "maybe we should talk to Blaise, first, or Neville. Tell them what we heard, and then—"
Hermione stiffened, turning to stare at him.
"I thought you'd be the first to suggest we tell her," she said, mouth tightening. "Aren't you the brave one, Harry? The one who tells the truth?"
No, he thought, I'm the one who believes that being in love can make you weak, can make you reckless. I'm the one who knows best how to suffer in silence, and you, lucky you, you'll probably never understand.
"Fine," he said, letting her go. "Tell her, then."
Hermione's eyes narrowed. "You're not coming?"
He shook his head. "Take her home," he suggested. "She'll be upset, and she certainly won't want an audience. She'll hate me for it, and you, if there's anyone else there to watch her find out. You know she will."
Hermione frowned. "But—"
"Just get her out of here and tell her," Harry said, firmly this time, and for a moment, Hermione was silent, but then she nodded, resigning herself to what had to be done.
"Okay," she said, and slipped out of the room, leaving Harry and his losses behind.
Harry fell asleep that night swimming with thoughts of Hermione, of Draco, of whatever damage he might have done the evening prior. He checked his phone the moment he woke, expecting to see something from Draco, but saw nothing. Perhaps something else had distracted Hermione; was it possible she hadn't told him yet?
Harry bolted upright, suddenly remembering what that distraction might have been.
"Henry," came Pansy's voice the moment he dialed, answering after a single ring. "What a pleasant surprise."
He blinked, startled by the toneless sense of normality in her voice.
"Hey, Pans," he said, and then, gently, "What are you up to this morning?"
"Oh, I was thinking of running some errands," she said. She seemed to consider it for a moment before adding, "Would you care to join me?"
"Is…" Harry began, and faltered. "Is Hermione there, or…?"
"No, Hermione's at home, I believe. Meet me in fifteen minutes, then?"
He stumbled out of bed, nodding. "Yes, sure. Breakfast?"
"Oh, shortly. Just one thing I have to do first."
She sounded nearly cheerful, and Harry stumbled over to his wardrobe, selecting a pair of trousers and a crewneck sweatshirt. "Okay, well, I'll be right there, then—"
"Wear athletic clothes," she suggested, and he faltered, glancing down at what he had just donned. "Some trainers, at least."
An odd and slightly discomfiting suggestion. Would they be burying a body?
No, he reminded himself, then she would have told him to wear boots.
"Pansy," he said slowly, "what are we doing?"
"Hm? Oh, nothing," she said. "Just thought we might get a quick game in."
"A game?"
"See you in ten minutes," she said evasively, and then she hung up the phone, leaving Harry to race out the door.
He arrived at her house to find she was wearing some sort of ultra-posh sporting outfit, a dress of blinding, virginal white with a short, cheekily-pleated skirt. Her hair was tied back, the ponytail cascading effortlessly from its jaunty position at the apex of her skull, and she smiled brightly at him, gesturing to the racket-shaped bag in her hand.
"Oh," he registered, "a game of tennis," and she smiled.
"Hello, Henry," she said, leaning forward to kiss his cheek as he returned the greeting. "You look well," she added, and the smell of honeysuckle from her hair mixed with both her perfume and his sense of displacement to bring him a dizzying sense of confusion. "Shall we, then?"
"Where are we going?"
"Oh, just to the tennis club," she said. "My mother has a membership, you know, as does Augusta, and I recently got myself one, too. It's lovely, secluded, private—"
"Pans," Harry said warily, and she flashed him another unsettling smile.
"Come on, then," she said, beckoning for him to follow as she made her way to her car, the driver already waiting. Harry, who was pretty sure he was at least marginally captive in this scenario, followed her without comment, shifting into the seat beside her as the car took off.
"I don't have a racket, Pans, so I'm not sure if—"
"Hm? Oh, don't worry about it," she said, her attention fixed outside her window.
Harry cleared his throat, shifting in his seat.
"I'm surprised you're not cross with me," he said, and she didn't turn.
"Whatever for?"
"Did…" He broke off. "Did Hermione talk to you, or—?"
"Hermione's always talking, you'll have to be more specific." Pansy turned to give Harry a glance, half-smiling. "My goodness, Henry, you seem unusually tense."
Harry didn't think it worth bringing it up that Pansy, a girl he'd known from childhood, was never this calm unless something horrible was festering beneath the surface. He'd seen her fits of rages as a child and knew she was capable of fury beyond compare, even if she'd learned over time to lock it up somewhere in a vault of secrets. At eleven years old, she had told him, coldly, that he would never amount to anything, diminishing him to several years' worth of silent emotional trauma all because he'd teased her about her nose.
Harry knew Lady Pansy Parkinson was capable of a great and terrible meanness, and he waited rather impatiently for it to out. It was only when they arrived at the club, though, him striding in her wake with an assured sense of imminent disaster, that he realized what she must have had in mind.
"Oh, hi Harry," said Neville Longbottom, who was waiting for them in a set of athletic clothes as crisply white as Pansy's. He seemed his usual self, not at all like the version of himself he'd been the night before, and Pansy smiled coolly at him, holding out a racket.
"Here," she said, "a gift," and Neville smiled, grateful.
"Wonderful, so thoughtful of you," he said, kissing her cheek, and for a moment, Harry saw a flash in Pansy's dark eyes—something dreadfully sinister, her fingers tightening around the strap of her bag—that made him wonder if it wouldn't, in fact, be much wiser to run. "Are you playing too, Harry?"
"I sincerely hope not," Harry slid between his teeth, and Pansy gave them both a smile, withdrawing her own racket to give it a testing smack against the heel of her hand.
"Well, I just thought, it's so silly of me—all these tennis lessons you've been taking and I've never once asked to join you," she said, and Harry caught the motion of Neville's smile faltering momentarily. "I thought I'd finally give it a shot."
"Oh," Neville said, "right, well, yes. Harry, are you—"
"Why don't you serve?" Pansy asked smoothly, flashing Neville a pointed look instructing him to take his place on the opposite side of the court. She turned, giving her racket another hard smack, and then smiled at Harry. "This'll just take a moment," she assured him, brushing her thumb briefly over his cheek, and he sighed, tugging her into him.
"Should I be worried?" he asked, muffling the question into her hair, and she gave his rear a light smack with her racket.
"Not about me," she said, and he reluctantly made his way off the court, observing from the other side of the fence.
Right from the start, it was clear Neville was at a disadvantage. "Fault," Pansy called as the ball hit the net, shaking her head, and Neville scurried forward to retrieve the ball, attempting again. On the third attempt, he successfully hit the ball over the net, which Pansy returned with ease, sending Neville stumbling over his feet as it hit the ground.
Pansy's lips pursed almost imperceptibly, thinning as her eyes narrowed, and Harry felt a brief wave of anxiety. Pansy was an excellent tennis player, viciously competitive even when she wasn't angry.
And it was becoming clearer and clearer that she was.
The match did not get much better. Even when the ball was successfully volleyed back and forth, Pansy found a way to send it into the most difficult places to reach. Neville was panting, obviously struggling, wiping sweat from his brow while Pansy looked no less winded than she had all morning. Harry, much to his dismay, found himself watching the slim muscle in her arms and legs, the power in her serve, the accuracy of her swing. She was no less talented or athletic than Ginny; if not for her upbringing, perhaps Pansy, too, might have pursued sports with more vigor. Harry, despite his ongoing sense of fear, found himself impressed and, perhaps unwisely, smugly proud.
At the end of the first set, Pansy strode forward, taking her place on the court for the new serve, but Neville balked as she approached him, hastily backstepping.
"We're switching sides," she informed Neville tightly, the fury Harry had expected now beginning to spark in her expression, evident in her voice and by the tightening of her knuckles. "Do you not know the rules by now, Neville?"
Neville, who was dragging in heaving breaths, shook his head quickly. "No, no, of course, just a bit… a bit out of it, I suppose—"
"All that tennis," Pansy mused, swinging the racket a few times through the air as Neville flinched, obviously sure she intended him to be her next target. "What was it… nearly every day for a year, Neville? Hm. I'm starting to think you wasted your money."
It was then, Harry imagined, that it finally occurred to Neville: She knows.
He looked helplessly at Harry, who shook his head. You'll get no help from me, Harry thought, setting his jaw as Pansy flashed Neville another disquieting smile.
"It's my serve," she said, and reluctantly, Neville dragged himself to the other side of the court.
She didn't wait until he got there; instead, she hit a ball that struck him in the shoulder, ricocheting back as Neville stifled a yelp. She walked over slowly, picking up the ball, and eyed it for a second.
Then she resumed her place on the court, serving a ball that proceeded to hit Neville squarely in the stomach.
"PANSY," he coughed up, doubling over, and she wandered over to her bag, producing another ball and serving this one to the same place, leaving Neville to feebly swat it away. It glanced off his knuckles, prompting him to swear under his breath, and when he looked up again, Pansy was waiting, both hands on her hips.
"My fault," she said, and added graciously, "Your serve."
Neville grimaced. "Pansy, let's talk about this—"
"About what?" she asked, eerily calm.
Part of Harry feared for Neville's life even as the other part of him soared, watching her exact her revenge with the precision he'd always admired. She certainly had a meanness, but a careful one. She had a sense of vengeance that was sharp as a knife.
Neville gaped at her.
"Serve the ball," she said again, waiting, and even while Harry hoped Neville had the sense not to walk into that trap, he also badly wanted to see what would happen.
This time, Neville's serve was acceptably mediocre, and Pansy backhanded it directly into what appeared to be his esophagus, prompting him to drop his racket, choking. She flipped her ponytail over her shoulder, wandering over to his side of the court, and Neville stumbled backwards so quickly he tripped over the fallen racket, collapsing clumsily on his back.
Harry, now quite certain he should intervene, rushed onto the court, just in time to see Pansy lean over Neville.
He thought for a moment she was caressing him, but upon closer inspection he could see she was removing something from his shirt; a tag, he realized, proving that Neville's ensemble not only looked new, but that it was, in fact, new.
"You didn't even love me enough to lie properly, did you?" she said softly, crumpling it in her hand and casting it aside.
"Pansy," Neville choked out. "Pansy, please, I never wanted to hurt you—"
She raised her racket, eyeing it, and Harry could see from a distance the disruption in the stringing; she'd broken part of it on her last serve. She tossed it aside as Neville made a low sound of apprehension, dragging himself away from her, but then she turned and said nothing, either to Neville or to Harry, and removed herself from the court.
Harry hurried to catch up to her, the white pleats of her skirt swinging aggressively as she walked.
"Where are you going?" he asked her, a little urgent with concern, but Pansy seemed to have lost some of her rage-serenity by then, looking lost and uncertain instead. He shook his head, darting in front of her to say, without room for refusal, "You're coming with me."
Her dark eyes were dazed, unfocused.
"I want a drink," she said.
He nodded. "Alright, then we'll have one," he said, and tucked her securely under his arm, leading her back to the car.
They did not have one drink.
They had several drinks, all gin and tonics sloppily made by Harry with Pansy perched on the counter of the kitchen that he never used in the house where he never stayed (his godfather's former townhouse, now his), but which he knew would be available for several hours of potential disconsolation. She sat with her ankles crossed, sipping delicately even while the gin seemed to flow and flow and flow, the drinks made with considerably less effort each time. After about half an hour Harry gave up on spritzing limes, even on shaking or stirring. Eventually, however-many drinks in, Pansy gave a little hiccup and shoved her glass into his chest, shaking her head.
"This is disgusting," she said, flouncing down to her feet and stumbling until he caught her elbow, propping her upright. "I'm making us the next one."
He watched her blearily make her way to the bottle where it sat on the table. The corner of her skirt was folded up slightly, revealing white shorts that hugged the curve of her arse; below that, the line of her hamstring; beside that, the little shadow of muscle on the lateral plane of her thigh.
"What about Blaise?" he asked, tearing his gaze away, and she shrugged.
"He's dead," she said, and Harry blinked.
"You didn't kill him, did you?"
She gave Harry something he assumed was supposed to be a glare, though it was slightly obscured by the way her makeup had started to smear a little at the corners of her eyes. She hadn't cried, he noticed. He wasn't sure if he expected her to.
"Of course I didn't," she said. "He's just dead to me."
She dug around in her bag, pulling out her mobile, and showed it to Harry. It had forty-five missed calls and messages from Blaise, ten from Hermione, five from Draco, and one each from Daphne and Theo.
"I have no interest in speaking to him," Pansy said gruffly, and stumbled back, bumping into Harry's chest and glancing impatiently over her shoulder at him. "Watch it, Henry."
"Yes, my fault," he said facetiously, and then hesitated before adding, "So you've decided to punish Blaise more than Neville, then?"
She frowned at him, abandoning the effort of making a drink and instead picking up the bottle of gin, shaking her head. "I'm not punishing him."
"Of course you are," Harry said.
"Why, because I don't want to hear his excuses?"
"Because he loves you," Harry corrected, observing her skeptical blanching with a shake of his head, "and there's nothing worse you could do to him than disappearing entirely from his life."
"Not true." She slid the back of her hand across her mouth, the moisture from the gin still slick on her lips. "Could always beat him at tennis," she said, hiccuping with an unbalanced step to the side, and Harry shook his head, steadying her with his hands on her hips.
"There could be nothing worse, Pansy, believe me," he said in her ear, "than living a life you're not in."
She stiffened for a moment, the diamond on her finger flashing as her palm slid resentfully over her mouth.
"If that were true, he wouldn't have done this," she said, discarding the words to let her hand fell back to her side. "He threw me away, not the other way around."
"Did he?" Harry spun Pansy around, catching her shoulders as her darkened scowl met his imploring look. "Believe me, Pans, he had to have had a good reason for all of this. This is Blaise we're talking about, you and I both know he loves you more than anyone—"
"Yes," she scoffed, "and look what that got me." Her eyes slid to the floor, then to where Harry's hands were curled around her arms. "I don't want to forgive him," she said, so quietly he almost didn't hear it, and he grimaced.
"Maybe not today," he said slowly. "And maybe not for a while, but—"
"Harry, he—"
Her eyes widened, one hand clapping over her mouth, and he saw it: the little glitter of moisture in her eyes that meant she was about to break.
"Harry," she struggled to whisper, his name emitting like hardship through her lips, "he lied to me. To me. He fooled me, he tricked me, he—"
It wasn't 'he fucked my boyfriend,' Harry noted, though either way, it wasn't a thought she could finish. He pulled her into him, resting his chin on top of her head as she dragged in a gasp, suddenly succumbing to anger, or sadness, or to the particular suffering of both.
"I thought I knew him," she said hoarsely, "but I didn't, not at all. All those times I told him my secrets, all the weapons I gave him thinking he'd never use them, I gave him the means to ruin me and he did." She rasped out a sob, resting her forehead against Harry's t-shirt. "I see it now," she muttered, shaking her head. "He kept saying to leave him but he wouldn't say why, he couldn't just tell me—"
"Maybe there was a reason."
"What possible reason?" she demanded, leaning back, and Harry watched a tear slip down her cheek, her lashes wet and her lips parted and her face flushed pink with emotions she so rarely showed. "He let me believe I was going mad—and all that time he could have told me, he could have told me, and at least—at least if I'd known, I wouldn't feel so… so stupid—"
"You're not stupid." Harry shook his head, wiping the tears saturating the shadows beneath her eyes with a slip of his thumb. "You love Neville, you love Blaise, you didn't want to believe either of them capable of this—"
"No. No." She shook her head vigorously, fists curling to tighten her fingers in Harry's shirt. "No, I never loved Neville, I never did. It was always that I needed him, that I thought he could solve my problems, but I loved—"
Her hand flew up to her mouth again, battling back the words on her tongue as she glanced up again, pained.
"Please don't make me feel that right now," she said, begging him for the first time that he could remember. She'd always been too proud, too stiffly arrogant or aloof, too something else that he had never been. She had always been his opposite, driven by duty and carrying burdens he'd never understood. Just discard them, just drop them, he'd always wanted to say, to plead with her, but she never had. She'd always carried everything herself, only giving others spare, fleeting glances into everything she locked away.
"Okay," he said, "okay." His head spun, the heat of her in his arms joining up with the gin in his system to flood him, head to toe. "What do you want to feel, then?"
"I want what you give to everyone else." He could feel her heart racing, her hips pressing into his. It occurred to him that he was leaning against the counter, that Pansy was in his arms, that once when he and Draco were sixteen he'd said, "Have you seen Pansy lately?" and Draco had groaned, "Harry, talk about other tits all you like but she's practically our sister," and so he'd thought to himself yes, okay, so there was one girl he could never touch and it was Pansy, and it registered in his memory that he couldn't set his hands on her breasts, couldn't put his mouth on her thighs, certainly couldn't sink his teeth into that perfect arse, that wasn't for him, she herself wasn't for him.
"I want," she said softly, "the Prince Harry treatment."
He swallowed hard. "The what?"
"I want you to try to win me," she said, her fingers rising to toy with his lips. "Tell me you want me. Try to get me in bed, Harry, like I'm someone you might actually chase," she said, and furiously, with truly unhelpful timing, he was sure his erection jerked against the unspoiled white of her delicate, tempting pleats. "You're good at it, aren't you?"
"Good at what?" he asked, dazed and somehow even drunker, and she smiled, the little smudge of mascara beneath her eyes suddenly seeming like a charming eccentricity rather than evidence of alcohol mixed with sorrow.
"You'll make me come, won't you?" she whispered, her fingers tight around his collar, her thumb sliding across his throat as he shuddered. "I'm good too, Henry," she said, and part of his brain screamed: Call me that when I'm inside you. "I'm very good."
"We shouldn't," he struggled to say. "No, we shouldn't," he insisted, slightly more convincingly that time, "you're sad, we're drunk—"
This time, the second time in two days he was touching someone he shouldn't, it was Pansy dragging his mouth down for a kiss. It was something he'd almost never thought about; unlike with Hermione, which he'd imagined for years, this was a collision he'd never expected to feel, which he'd told himself would never happen, that maybe—if he got lucky—might happen in a dream but not like this, not his platonic friend Pansy, not the girl who'd mocked his hair and, on the occasion of his enlistment, kissed his cheek with the parting benediction, "Don't die or I'll kill you." It was something Harry had ruled out a long time ago and hadn't rehearsed even once—so the moment her lips touched his, he braced himself for impact, for failure, a mirror image of the kiss from the night before.
Instead, though, he gasped, something like a spark alighting on his tongue.
"Yes," Pansy murmured, digging her nails into the back of his neck, "like that."
He kissed her back hungrily, voraciously, with palpable starvation, until he became aware of what he was doing and tried, hopelessly, to stop.
"Pansy, Pansy, wait—"
Her hands tugged at the waistband of his joggers, the ones he'd put on thinking he might play tennis, not let his oldest friend satisfy her previously unconsidered curiosities about his penis. He inhaled sharply, her palm brushing over the head of his cock, and she glanced up, her dark eyes filled with a recklessness that looked precisely like wickedness on her.
"Henry," she said, sliding her hand slowly along his shaft, "surely I don't have to ask you not to disappoint me."
He gave another full-bodied shudder, gritting her name between his teeth. "Pansy, listen, you're very—" He glanced down, noting the perfect framing of her décolletage by the white tennis dress. "Persuasive," he choked out, "but still, I don't think this is a good idea, I don't think I should—you know, while you're—"
"Vulnerable?" she asked, her hand stilling where it cupped his cock through his trousers, and he swallowed, staring down at her and trying to remember the many, many reasons this was surely a bad idea.
"Um," he said, and she seemed to falter for a moment, the insecurity he knew she quietly possessed blooming over the flush in her cheeks.
"Sorry," she said, taking a step back. "Of course not." She cleared her throat. "You're right," she said crisply, exhaling. "You're right. We shouldn't, of course, this is nonsense. I'm being unreasonable. Worse," she said with a little laugh, "I'm being impulsive, which we both know is not my strong suit."
"Well, not too many women I know would carefully plan a tennis massacre, so maybe 'impulsive' isn't the only worthy thing," he said, and she gave him one of those sad, drunk smiles, brushing her hair back and smoothing down her skirt.
"True," she said, reaching for the bottle again. "Better we didn't do something we'd regret," she added, and took a long sip, wincing as it went down.
Harry watched her, the image of her blurring slightly as he dragged his gaze from her lips to her breasts to her waist, to the way her hips flared out gently, and to that skirt, fuck, that little skirt with the pleats, the toned lines of her legs, the thoughts of them wrapped around him. All of it, the thoughts he'd never had before, rendered him suddenly incapable of blinking her away.
"Pansy," he said, and she looked up, setting the bottle down again with a gulping swallow.
"Henry?" she asked.
"Get on the table," he said.
She blinked, surprised.
Then, slowly, she leaned back, reaching for the table behind her and lifting herself up to perch at its edge, waiting.
He took two steps to close the distance, his hands finding either side of her face and tilting her head up before lowering his lips to hers. This time, the kiss was slower, less aggressive. He took his time, intending to make her feel it. Whatever she wanted—however she wanted to be wanted—he decided he would do it. This was what he could give her, this was what she had asked, that no one else could give her. It would have felt noble and unselfish if Harry hadn't been so fucking into it, into the taste of her, which should have been gin and more gin but was actually the flavor, somehow, of her lips, sweet and honeyed. He dragged her hips forward, hitching her thighs over his hips, and she fumbled with his trousers as he slid the little shorts down from beneath her skirt, depositing them on the floor and feeling the velvety slickness at her slit.
"I thought you found me repulsive," he reminded her softly, laughing it into her mouth, and she tightened her legs around him.
"You are," she said, tugging him into her as she lay on her back and he climbed on the table after her, propping himself up on his elbows. "But I'm permitted to have a weakness from time time."
The idea of it—that he could be her weakness, even for just a day, an hour, a minute—was oddly satisfying. Lady Pansy Parkinson, never fully content with anything, was turning to him for satisfaction, and that was something shy of miraculous. Harry, shoving aside thoughts of Hermione and Draco and Neville and Blaise, resolved that he would deliver on his offering as many times as possible before they both eventually sobered up.
"Do me a favor," he said, taking a fistful of Pansy's ponytail, "and call me Henry while I fuck you."
She let out a sound like a strangled moan, only he could hardly believe it possible. That would mean that she, the girl who never allowed herself release—the woman who never lost control—was coming undone in his arms, and at the thrill of it, he leaned forward, putting his lips next to her ear.
"Let go," he commanded, sliding inside her as his tongue slid over the diamond-studded lobe of her ear, and this time there was no mistaking the full whimper that escaped her lips.
"Henry," she gasped, and he thrusted into her with the oblivion of certain error, not stopping until she cried out, half-sobbing his name, to let the bottle of gin crash to infinitesimal shards of nothing on the cold kitchen floor.
He remembered very little of the rest; how they'd made it up to his old bedroom, fucking again until they passed out cold, waking up later that evening to discover they were both sticky with sweat and spilled gin. He had black smudges of her makeup smeared across his abs and traces of her perfume on the inner linings of his arms; she'd left her dress on his kitchen floor in a pool of liquor and glass. The following conversation—let's not talk about this, yes you're right let's just call this two friends making each other feel better, okay good perfect I have to go—was mostly mumbled through pounding heads and respective touches of embarrassment, though he'd kissed her forehead and told her she could stay if she wanted.
"I said I wanted the Prince Harry treatment," she said with a grim laugh, "and that means a hasty exit."
It only occurred to him several seconds after she said it that he should probably retort with something, only the mush of brainless non-thought inside his head prevented him from doing so. What he would have said, he wasn't entirely sure. Possibly that he didn't bring girls here, not here to the house he'd shared with his godfather; maybe that he'd never had sex like that, like he could fucking die and it wouldn't even matter; perhaps that she'd gotten far more from him than anyone, both because he'd wanted to and because he knew she would never stand for less.
But he didn't say it, and not because he didn't try. It was because before he could, he was brusquely interrupted, Pansy handing him his phone and motioning for him not to say anything as she tiptoed into his bathroom, wrapping a sheet around her as she went.
"Harry," Draco said, and it was only after Harry had answered the call that he remembered maybe Draco knew, maybe he didn't, that Harry had kissed Hermione. His heart plummeted into his stomach, a ripple of panic leaving him with a cold chill, until Draco quickly continued without waiting for an answer. "My grandfather's been in a collision."
"What? Fuck," Harry said, bolting upright and immediately wincing, pressing his hand to his temples. "Ouch, I—What do you mean, is Abraxas okay?"
"He's fine," Draco said. "Rattled, but that's all. Listen, I need you to do me a favor—"
"Yes, anything," Harry said quickly, motioning for Pansy to wait as she reappeared in the doorframe. "Do you need me to go to the palace? Should I get Lucius, or—?"
"No, I'm with my father now." Draco sounded agitated, clipped. "Theo's going to join me, I just spoke with him, but listen—I need you to go to Hermione's."
Harry's stomach lurched again and Pansy frowned at the look on his face, grabbing an oxford that was hanging from the corner of the wardrobe and pulling it on to perch on the bed beside him. "Hermione's? Why?"
"I'm positive this is going to drag things up for her, and I just don't want her alone," Draco said, still sounding evasively concerned. "The press will be hounding her again, I'm sure, and without Daphne—" His voice drifted for a moment, then returned. "Anyway, I'll worry about security, but keep her company."
"I—" Harry glanced at Pansy, who motioned for him to hurry it up. "Why me?"
"Well, I'd have Pansy do it, but I can't seem to reach her. And I thought to ask Blaise, but… Well, the point is, Daphne will be with Theo," Draco continued, sounding distracted, "and there's no one else, so—"
"I'll grab Pansy and head over," Harry agreed, and he could practically see Draco's curtly approving nod.
"Thank you," Draco said, and then, "Sorry, I have to give a press conference shortly."
"You? Why not Lucius?"
"He's still on a press moratorium. Anyway, I'll see you," he said, and was gone, hanging up as Pansy frowned expectantly.
"What is it?"
"Abraxas was in an accident, Draco wants us to go stay with Hermione. Do you," Harry began, and hesitated, glancing over her. "Do you want to change first, or just—?"
"Just what," Pansy scoffed, "let Hermione see what I've been inadvisably up to for the entire day? No, Henry, I don't think so." If the use of his full name affected her in any way—it had made his cock twitch slightly in an unhelpful episode of Pavlovian dick—she didn't acknowledge it, adding impassively, "I'll be there after I stop at mine."
"Pansy," Harry said, and then hesitated. "Listen, about Neville—"
She gave him a glare that suggested he watch where he stepped.
"Are you going to leave him?" he managed to ask, and she pursed her lips, folding her arms tightly over her chest.
"I don't know," she said, and before Harry could say anything, she added, "His grandmother would kill him if she knew. Believe me, she won't accept this." She paused for a moment, contemplating something, and then said, "And besides, it would be rather stupid of me to give up the match."
Harry gaped at her, and Pansy sighed impatiently.
"Close your mouth, Harry," she said. "It's unseemly."
"Pans, you can't honestly tell me—"
"I'm not telling you anything," Pansy sniffed. "I simply haven't decided."
"But—"
"But what?" she prompted, glaring at him. "What am I supposed to do, Harry? A scandal like this could cripple me. I have to get away from my mother, from my father, I still have to manage to marry well, and if not Neville, then—"
"Pans, you can't possibly marry him!" Harry burst out, finding himself surprisingly infuriated by the thought. "After what he did to you?"
Pansy leveled a dispassionate glance at him.
"Perhaps being made to marry me is precisely the punishment he deserves," she said, and before Harry could think what to say, she'd already walked out of his bedroom, leaving him behind.
Draco had been right; per usual, there was a crowd of photographers outside Hermione's flat. Harry, who was usually quite adept at not being pictured unless he wanted to be, pulled a nondescript hood over his head and darted through after another of the building's residents, making his way to her unit.
"Harry," she said, blinking as she pulled open the door. "What are you doing here?"
"Didn't Draco tell you I was coming?" he asked, but at the obvious look of confusion on her face, he amended the statement to, "Never mind, just thought I'd keep you company. Pansy's on her way, too," he added, and Hermione exhaled with relief, beckoning for him to come inside.
"I'm so glad you've been in touch with Pansy," Hermione called over her shoulder, making her way to the kitchen to pour him a glass of something. "I haven't heard from her since I told her about, you know, Neville and Blaise on Halloween. It was the weirdest thing," she said, re-emerging with two glasses of wine, "but I swear, she didn't even react at all. I asked if she was okay and she said 'don't be silly, Hermione, I'm perfectly well,' and then she just disappeared. You know," she added thunderously, "I have half a mind to cancel my vacation entirely. I'm beyond furious with Blaise, no surprise there—"
Harry, who had just noticed the live stream of the news on her laptop, interrupted as he reached for his glass, gesturing to the screen. "Draco's press conference is starting," he said, and then glanced up at Hermione. "Were you watching the news?"
"Hm? Oh, I was just—Well, I was just making sure everything was alright," she said, going slightly red. "But of course, we don't have to watch this, we can just—"
"No, no, let's," Harry said, turning the volume up as Draco continued speaking.
"—the collision this morning between His Majesty's car and the vehicle containing two paparazzi is evidence that the media's increasing fascination with my family's private lives has begun to sacrifice safety in its pursuit of news. While His Majesty is relatively unharmed, there is great danger in permitting this behavior to continue. We are this nation's public servants, first and foremost, but the safety and privacy of our family must still prevail."
Hermione sat down silently beside Harry, her eyes glued to Draco's face as she raised her glass slowly to her lips.
"I must ask that journalistic integrity include compassion," Draco said. "I would also ask that that compassion extend not only to myself, to my parents, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and to my grandfather, but also to those who do not have the luxury of our security privileges. Specifically, I would ask that the press respect the privacy of Miss Hermione Granger," he said, and Harry glanced at a startled Hermione, "who, unlike the others in my family, does not hold a public position and therefore should not be forced to sacrifice her private life for public consumption. Harassment of Miss Granger by the press is not now and has never been acceptable, and though I take responsibility for not intervening sooner, I now charge the men and women of the media with holding themselves to a higher standard of accountability. It is my hope that together, we can ensure that no further damage will come to anyone."
Harry watched Hermione's hand tighten on her glass, recognizing something on her face that he'd seen once before; four years before, in fact, when he'd realized he'd already lost her to Draco. She was going to fall for her prince anew, or perhaps all over again, and Harry could see there was nothing he could do to convince her otherwise.
For some reason, though, that thought was no longer met with the twinge of pain it had always prompted before. Rather than linger on the subject of Hermione and Draco, Harry found it was Pansy's name repeatedly on the tip of his tongue. He wanted, for some reason, to reveal what had transpired between them; to tell Hermione, who'd always listened to his secrets, and commit the events to reality, so that someone other than himself would know.
Instead, what fell out of his mouth was, "I don't think Pansy's going to leave Neville."
Hermione, who had been watching Draco wave and depart the press conference, suddenly jolted back to the present. "What?"
"I think she might stay with him," Harry said reluctantly, and Hermione, who had been frowning into nothing, suddenly launched to her feet.
"Is she insane?" Hermione demanded. "After what he did to her? How could she—how would she—" Her phone buzzed on the table and she groaned, glancing at it. "Hold on, that's the building, one second—"
She stomped into her bedroom, disappearing, and in the same moment there was a knock at the door. Harry rose to his feet, pulling the door open to reveal Pansy standing in the corridor, now wearing a navy shift dress and looking as if she'd never done anything over the past twelve hours but hydrate and care for her skin.
"Henry," she said.
He cleared his throat. "Hi, Pans."
"No clever greeting, then?" she asked, striding past him to set her purse on Hermione's entry table. "Pity, you're usually so much more reliable than that."
"A bit hungover, I suspect," he said.
"Well," she said, pivoting to face him, "bound to happen from time to time, I suppose. Where's Hermione?"
"She's just gotten a phone call, she'll be right out—"
"PANS," came Hermione's voice, followed by the woman herself, who came barreling around the corner with her mobile phone still in hand. "Pans, you won't believe the call I just got—"
"I expect not, Hermione," Pansy remarked, "as I'm not in the habit of concerning myself with the specificities of your antics."
It struck Harry as increasingly absurd that this Pansy had ever been as astonishingly untamed as the one from mere hours before. Hermione, however, knew nothing of the things Lady Pansy Parkinson-Six Names had said about Harry's dick (and more specifically, how he should fuck her with it), and thus, she was able to discard the comment quickly.
"My landlord just told me he's returning my November check because someone already paid off my rent for the rest of the year," Hermione said, prompting Harry to frown with bemusement. "Which is funny," she added emphatically, or perhaps accusingly, "because I recall specifically telling everyone I did not need financial help."
"Get to the funny part," Pansy sniffed, and Hermione, rather than express any displeasure with Pansy's snotty remark, let out a loud sigh of relief, tugging Pansy into her arms and embracing her tightly.
"I know it was you," she said, and Harry, who was fairly sure Hermione was right, felt himself smiling faintly. "Only you, Lady Parkinson, would so shamelessly disregard the things I say—"
"Sounds unlikely," Pansy muttered, but while she didn't return Hermione's hug, she did grudgingly say, "You're a good person, Hermione. A good friend." She cleared her throat, adding with a detesting sense of displeasure, "It's about time something good happened to you."
At that, Hermione drew back, contemplating something.
"You should come with me," Hermione said suddenly, and Pansy frowned. "On holiday. I was supposed to go with—" She broke off, reddening. "Well, the point is I need that holiday badly, and apparently now my rent's paid off, and as for you and N-"
Harry shook his head quickly over Pansy's shoulder, warning Hermione to silence, and Hermione faltered.
"The point is I want you to come with me," Hermione said, gripping Pansy's hand tightly. "You could use some time away, couldn't you? To, um… clear your head," she suggested, and Pansy considered it a moment. "We could have a girls' trip. Please," she added, a little helplessly, and Pansy sighed, swatting her away.
"Fine," Pansy said. "But only if you promise not to be excessively emotional."
"I promise," Hermione said quickly. "I'll keep my angst to a minimum, I swear."
"And there will be no mention of my personal life."
"None! I promise, none—"
"None of yours, either."
"Absolutely not. Not a peep."
"In fact, no discussion at all."
"Nothing! We won't even speak," Hermione insisted cheerfully, and Pansy sighed, finally relenting.
"Alright," she said. "Holiday it is, then."
"Perfect," Hermione exhaled, relieved, and flicked her hand towards the window, gesturing to the photographers outside. "I don't want to be here, anyway. I'm losing my mind looking for a new job, and I certainly don't want to be around for Abraxas' gala. Probably not for the rest of the month," she muttered under her breath, "seeing how I'm sure Lady Sooz will be around," and Harry blinked, slightly taken aback.
"You'll be gone for an entire month?" he echoed, startled, and Hermione and Pansy both turned towards him.
He thought it was Hermione—who was clearly running from her problems (which, naturally, included Draco)—who'd been the reason he'd faltered, but after a second glance at both of them, he wasn't entirely sure that it was.
"Is that a problem?" Pansy asked, her dark gaze falling on Harry's, and with a flash behind his eyelids, he heard her little sigh in his ear, the ghost of it sending a shiver of apprehension up his spine.
"No, of course not," he said, and forced a smile, certain that if it wasn't already, there was a not-insignificant chance it was about to be.
I was there when Pansy and Hermione left for their trip, both of them fleeing the numerous things in their respective lives that neither had any wish to face. I felt something I didn't understand at the time while watching them go; I was used to being Pansy's childhood friend and Hermione's second choice, but somehow, I had an inexplicable sense that something, somewhere, was changing.
I didn't have long to wait before I discovered my unnameable sense of prophecy was truer than I thought.
a/n: fyi, my book Inheritance has been retitled One For My Enemy. It will still be released on my birthday, January 31. I'll probably read an excerpt on Olivie Blake is Not Writing for next Monday's video, but in general summary: drug dealing witches half-murder the heir to a rival criminal enterprise; inadvisable love, sibling rivalry, and quests for revenge ensue.