Chapter 40: Parallel
19 May, 2018
The Penthouse Suite at The Rosier Hotel
Draco and Hermione: A Royal Love Story
By Rita Skeeter
While many of us here in Britain have been captivated by the blossoming romance between His Royal Highness Prince Draco of Wales and his American sweetheart, Miss Hermione Jean Granger, very few are privileged to know the true story about how the young couple met. A fairy tale from the very beginning, it was love at first sight when Draco took notice of Hermione, the daughter of hardworking American parents eager to give their only child the education they had both been denied by curses of circumstance. At the time, Hermione had risen to the top of her class at Stanford University in sun-kissed, tropical California, and was granted acceptance as a foreign exchange student to Hogwarts University. Needless to say, the effervescently pretty Hermione, along with several would-be hopefuls who'd learned of Prince Draco's enrollment, was lucky enough to come across the dashing young royal in her classes—though her academics were, of course, her primary concern.
Both fastidious, intensely dedicated students, Draco first caught sight of Hermione's luxurious silken curls in his English Literature class at Hogwarts, and from there, a whirlwind courtship between two intellectual equals began. It is said by their peers that Draco was enamoured with Hermione from the start, and as anyone close to him would be quick to confess, the prince has known with absolute certainty from the moment he laid eyes upon Hermione that she was meant to be his wife, his confidante, and ultimately, his Queen.
I imagine it goes without saying, even for me, that this book is complete and total rubbish. I had never opened it before today, largely because I have better things to concern myself with (i.e., almost anything I could concern myself with), and now I wish I had never opened it at all. The idea that Hermione Granger is being called 'effervescently pretty' (which is, on the scale of lies: bald-faced) or that this 'love at first sight' bollockery makes for a preposterous fairy tale rather than the unceasing nuisance it actually is renders the whole thing single-handedly responsible for the collapse of reputable journalism, probably. It's a complete and total farce as it is—gratuitous bread and circus for the modern, brainless age—and somehow, among all the possible falsities on which to dwell, the most ironic thing about this book…?
That I'm not even in it.
24 March, 2018
Diagon Alley
For the autumn term of 2010, Tracey Davis temporarily suspended her education at Hogwarts University in favor of venturing abroad for a semester at Stanford, a place where it did not snow and where the quality of academics was not overtaken by the presence of an inheriting prince. Which was not to say Tracey hadn't been enjoying her time at Hogwarts; she had, but there was something to be said for true, unencumbered immersion. Specifically, a cramped flat shared with a stranger from a highly mystical part of the United States called the Deep South whilst delving into one of the global hotspots for biotechnology, something Tracey had developed an interest in while exploring the prospect in one of her courses on speculative literature.
It was a hurricane of a four-or-so months, mostly spent in labs or studying for exams. In the end, Tracey determined that she was more interested in the business side than the science side of tech and returned to report to her father, who controlled the country's preeminent communications conglomerate, that she planned to pursue the development of nontraditional streaming methods in media. He advised that she complete her studies in literature—believing, as he did, that business acumen was learned while on the job—and promised her a position in his own company in London after finishing her schooling.
Her mother, Theresa Davis neé Rosier and the granddaughter of one of Britain's most iconic hoteliers, was disappointed to hear Tracey would not be following her maternal lineage into the hospitality industry, but had been pleased to know her daughter (named for herself, though obviously Tracey preferred the less-fussy diminutive) had at least settled on a reputable path for her future.
Naturally, Tracey had not expected to discover that over the course of the same four months, someone had taken over not only her spot in the Slytherin dorms, but also what appeared to be her entire life. It wasn't that Tracey had been especially fond of Daphne, who was a bit of a try-hard, albeit not nearly as unbearable as Pansy Parkinson. (Old money aristocracy was, in Tracey's mind, positively loathsome, having gone to boarding school with enough posh girls touting more money than talent to last a lifetime.) She certainly hadn't been lusting after Prince Draco, either. She had been surprised, of course, that he showed no interest in her, having clearly not done his research about her financial origins, but once he'd started dating Daphne's sister Astoria, it had become quite clear how the Prince preferred his women: polished, snotty, and perpetually out of reach.
Except… then Tracey met Hermione Granger, who was about as unlike Lady Astoria Greengrass as a person could possibly be. Hermione's American accent, which Tracey had slightly adjusted to over time while living in Palo Alto, was positively grating, rendered even more oppressive once Tracey discovered Hermione almost never stopped talking. She was relentlessly annoying, always the first to raise her hand in class and so brutally opinionated that Tracey spent most of her time Britishly wincing, and while Hermione was a nice enough girl ('inoffensive' perhaps a better word? 'Nice' was a stretch), she was certainly nothing to look twice at.
The idea that Draco had shown no interest in Daphne, classically and undeniably beautiful, or Pansy, who at least had terrific tits, in favor of Hermione Granger was truly, inconceivably dizzying. Tracey had a better grasp on genetic engineering than she did on the inexplicable romance between the American and the Prince (which they both pretended, unconvincingly, did not exist) and Tracey assumed, as did everyone else in her year, that the two would eventually split.
They didn't, of course.
Which, for the record, was not the problem.
Despite the fact that Hermione Granger had swooped in and snatched up the foothold Tracey had previously occupied, it wasn't that Tracey envied her. After all, had Tracey been the one to catch Draco's eye, she would have been painted the commoner upstart grasping at an antiquated throne, nevermind her wealth or the opulence of her parents' home in London. Tracey had no interest in a life of celebrity, having already taken care not to fall (as her parents had successfully avoided) into any such traps, so it wasn't envy, neither of the 'secret' romance nor of the abominable clique, which everyone else in their year collectively loathed. Tracey also took no interest in being counted among the others—like Theo Nott, who was either a skinny idiot or a skinny genius and who needed to shut up either way, or Blaise Zabini, who was certainly attractive but could have only had a magic wand for a dick and four extra hours in the day to explain how much sex he was inconceivably rumored to have—so it wasn't that, either.
It was more… irksome, really. An irk, that even after another year and a half at Hogwarts, Hermione never seemed to acknowledge that her acceptance into Prince Draco's uppity crew of beautiful wrecking balls had been the result of Tracey's decision to take her place at Stanford. Worse, Hermione didn't seem to understand that while the others had no knowledge of who she'd been before she arrived at Hogwarts, Tracey certainly did. Hermione's roommate had been relieved of her absence, indicating that Hermione had never understood how little she was tolerated among the students who had firmly alienated her in her journalism courses; she also had no friends at Stanford, as far as Tracey could tell. Hermione had abandoned her former life with little to no sacrifice or loss, but what if Tracey had never decided to leave? Perhaps Hermione Granger wasn't particularly fond of hypotheticals, but it seemed an odd speculation to never seem to make, instead acting as if Tracey's existence made no difference either way.
Moving forward in time, as Tracey generally possessed a pressing momentum that was reluctant to dwell on the past: After Hogwarts, Tracey moved to London, hatefully into the same building as Theo Nott and Blaise Zabini, resulting in her first one night stand with Blaise after a fight with her father about how the baseline media job he'd procured for her was little more than a glorified apprenticeship. "Learn to pay your dues," ranted Elliot Davis, at which point Tracey, who had no theoretical issue with paying dues so long as reality did not mean she would be forced to hunt through poodle feces at the megalomaniacal whim of some production coordinator's recalcitrant dog, had hung up the phone. She had planned to head for one of the neighborhood's pubs until she'd been interrupted by some unrepentant stomping from the flat above her own.
Long story short? Blaise Zabini's cock was precisely as magical as rumor suggested. Longer story even shorter? Sex continued, and progressed, and continued. Mostly out of spite, though there was a certain inability to backslide to the incompetency possessed by the horny aspiring entrepreneurs (read: dickheads who fell on a scale of 'lacking prowess' to 'here exclusively for blow jobs') who were much, much too available to the daughter of Elliot Davis and Theresa Rosier.
Tracey had managed to cut it off with Blaise entirely once, when she'd finally been promoted and begun doing some production work of her own. Blaise had been distant and unreliable at the time, and the inevitable breakup (or whatever you could call eventually dragging yourself away from the bedsheets of someone you know to be wholly repugnant, at least with regard to any conceivable future the two of you might have) had felt like the right thing to do once Tracey was finally making strides in her professional life.
Within a year, though, she discovered a much more somber Blaise in a Diagon pub, bumping into him once again by accident. Realizing that he had become surprisingly successful of his own accord (and that his dependency on the other members of his friend group had pleasantly diminished), it occurred to Tracey that perhaps a lifetime of fantastic sex with a wealthy, albeit eccentric, man was hardly some dystopian outcome.
That venturing a serious relationship with Blaise would finally put a stop to the men her father consistently shoved her into dates with was an added plus, as marrying into nobility did not appeal to Tracey the way it did to Elliot. "What does it matter how many executives reject your proposals when a name like Goyle or Longbottom could secure you a far better future?" he had asked, inanely, just before Tracey knocked on Blaise's door and delivered him something of an offer.
"Let's make it work," she said, "for real this time."
Blaise considered it a moment.
"Does it matter what either of us has done while we were apart?" he asked, and she paused.
"No," she eventually determined, figuring it was better for them both not to know. "So," she confirmed, "you and me?"
Blaise had smiled. "You and me," he agreed.
Tracey wasn't surprised when her life was, very shortly, once again occupied by the lunacy that was Hermione Granger and Prince Draco, who could not seem to decide whether they were madly in love or paralyzingly fearful of commitment or both. Pansy Parkinson, a nuisance even on the best of days, had rushed into some incomprehensible marriage to Prince Harry after unceremoniously breaking her engagement to Neville Longbottom, somehow tricking the rest of the country into believing an accidental pregnancy (which was clearly out of wedlock) was a miracle and not, as it actually was, the very sort of thing that had gotten other women cast aside and disavowed for centuries. At least Daphne and Theo, juvenile idiots who fell somewhere between mildly entertaining and enormously wearisome, had finally admitted their feelings for each other after years of denial so mind-numbingly stupid Tracey found it difficult to believe either one could manage the complexities of running a business, much less both.
Still, it was worth it for Blaise, who was different than he had been. Tracey was unable to understand how she'd been sucked into the orbit of someone as diametrically her opposite as Blaise Zabini, but in the end she fell asleep every night beside him knowing it was undoubtedly love. He was affectionate, continuously inventive in a way no other man was or would even think to be, and though he came with the additional baggage of six people Tracey might have happily done without, she found contentment in sharing a life with him, accepting his eventual proposal with pleasure. Where Tracey's ambitions were lofty to the point of rendering her tightly-wound, Blaise was a soothing presence, rarely taking himself seriously and always willing to help her retreat from the pressures of her life. They were a good match, if an unlikely one, and Tracey had learned enough about business to make an investment that promised prosperous returns.
Though, she also understood that every good investment came with risk, this one included. There was Rita Skeeter, a constant presence that even Tracey's parents took care to avoid ("Are you sure you want to marry one of the Bad Lads?" Theresa had asked her daughter nervously, speculating that perhaps Tracey would not care to have her personal life blasted indiscriminately across the Daily Prophet the way Blaise was so lazily accustomed to ignoring). There was also Prince Draco, who seemed as politely uninterested in Tracey as he had always been. Worse, there was Pansy, now frustratingly a duchess, who continued to be Blaise's closest friend and, despite being noticeably more tolerable since becoming a mother, was still among the most irritating of Blaise's priorities. There had always been some piece of Tracey that suspected Blaise would have chosen Pansy if she'd ever been available to him; despite how happy Pansy clearly was with Harry, Tracey was never quite sure that Blaise couldn't avoid being half, if not entirely, problematically in love with his best friend.
Somehow managing to still be slightly worse, though, was Hermione Granger—who, aside from being the reason Tracey and Blaise had taken their damn sweet time planning their own wedding so as not to be swallowed up by the American's extravagant affair, continued to be the pin around which much of Tracey's life unpleasantly revolved.
Take, for example, the book party Blaise had thrown, ostensibly in celebration of Hermione despite her greatest achievement being that she had successfully managed to delude a prince by virtue of having no conversational filter. From the outside, Tracey could see the appeal; ah, of course, boy beholden to more rules and expectations than anyone on earth fortuitously meets girl who speaks her mind without an ounce of premeditated thought or adherence to convention; naturally, she magically knows nothing about him despite his immense and international fame, so he falls deeply and changes his life accordingly, at which point her refusal to bend to his desires (Anne Boleyn-ing him with everything shy of faux-virginity) thus ensnares him ever more tightly.
A tale as old as time, really.
It worked because it was a trope that usually worked, but when it came to Hermione Granger specifically, there had always been something especially annoying that Tracey couldn't quite abide.
Like, for example, the way Hermione always looked like she knew something Tracey didn't.
"Ouch, Blaise, be careful," Tracey said when Blaise dropped that stupid Rita Skeeter book on her foot, bending down to massage the point of impact and rising back up to find Hermione fucking Granger with one of those looks on her face, wide-eyed and troubled and impossible to ignore.
Blaise, then, had snatched the book up and continued Blaise-ing, as he was wont to do, securing his usual persona of spectacle while Tracey stared unrepentantly at Hermione, who, likewise, continued Hermione-ing.
Tracey waited until she could get Hermione, who was a horrific liar, alone. A bit difficult, seeing as Draco rarely left her side (such a trial, being so beloved by a prince) but Tracey eventually managed to sidle up to Hermione as the latter fetched herself a drink.
"So," Tracey said, startling Hermione into nearly dropping her glass, "I take it you know something about this?"
"Hm?" Hermione said, furiously skirting eye contact. "Know something about what?"
"Please." The effort Tracey reserved to prevent herself from simply shaking the truth from Hermione's twitching grimace was exhausting. "Blaise isn't some sort of romantic comedy heroine. He doesn't just have clumsy little accidents, does he? You know something," she guessed, and watched Hermione's eyes sulkily rise to her own before adding, "Is there something I need to know? Something about whatever happened between Neville and Pansy, perhaps?"
"I really don't think it's any of my business," Hermione said, and while Pansy had stamped out quite a few of her nervous tics, they weren't completely eradicated. Presently, Hermione was fussing with her hair, which Tracey wasn't stupid enough to believe was real. It didn't go from that to THIS overnight; at least, not without massive amounts of professional help. "I'm sure if you just asked him—"
"Oh, like you asked Draco when things were bothering you?" Tracey replied, which was perhaps a touch snide, if she were being honest. She observed Hermione's mouth pursing with disapproval and relented, through gritted teeth, "I just thought since you are typically the most… moral," she determined, watching guilt rapidly manifest on Hermione's face, "of the group, that perhaps you might understand my concerns."
She could see Hermione struggling not to answer, which for Hermione was concession enough.
"Please," Tracey said. "I know it's something."
"No, it's—" Hermione moistened her lips. "It's nothing, really. There's nothing to say. Really, there's nothing," she exhaled, forcing a smile.
The whole exchange was positively infuriating. "Are you sure?"
(Read: Did Hermione really think she was so smart that everyone else was completely brainless?)
"Yes. Yes, definitely."
Lies, surely. Another second and surely media darling Hermione Granger would start to sweat from every one of her royal-approved pores.
Unfortunately, Tracey didn't quite have the patience for that.
"You know, on second thought, you're probably right," Tracey amended, shrugging. "I should probably take it up with him. How's the dress coming, by the way?" she asked, daring Hermione to complain that her priceless haute couture gown was in any way lacking.
"Oh, it's… a lot more work than I thought," Hermione said faintly, as Tracey managed to remember at the last second that perhaps goading a fellow bride was not the most productive use of her time when there was something else afoot.
"I know, right?" she said instead, sparing Hermione a smile and pivoting around, identifying the remaining targets.
There was Daphne, who was usually quite weak except when it came to her close friendships, at which point she became a vault. There was always the small possibility she could be vengefully tricked into confessing something over a vindictive drinking game but, inconveniently, she seemed to harbor no ill will at present. Harry was a bit of a loose cannon, likely to put his foot in his mouth if asked, but he was almost always less informed than the others. In terms of most to least secretive, Draco and Theo were twin ends of the far spectrum from Hermione, which left…
Tracey grimaced, heading for where Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Grimmauld stood alone in the corner, checking her cell phone.
"Hi," Tracey said, and Pansy looked up, dark eyes narrowed. Rightfully, Tracey permitted. It wasn't like the two of them had ever been friends. At worst they were rivals for Blaise's affections, at best they competed for his loyalty.
"What?" Pansy asked impatiently, clearly in peak form.
"You all know something I don't," Tracey observed, watching Pansy's face fail to betray even a trace of Hermione's hesitation. "Just tell me, is it something I need to push?"
Pansy's mouth lined thinly.
"I know you don't like me," Tracey pointed out, and Pansy scoffed something like quiet affirmation under her breath. "But I also know that if anyone's going to be fair to me, it's going to be you." She leaned closer, adding, "I know you won't jeopardize Blaise's happiness, even if it means getting rid of me. And I know you have something of a kink for honesty."
"It's a lifestyle, not a kink," Pansy replied, but seemed to soften just enough to turn an irritated glance at Tracey. "It was while you were apart," she said after a moment, not looking particularly pleased about it. "It's in the past. If you feel the need to dig it up, that's your choice, but you'll need to get it from Blaise, not me."
That was all but confirmation. "And is it something I should dig up?"
Pansy was silent a moment, thinking it over in a way Tracey had not seen her do before.
"A prior version of me would say no," Pansy determined. "I imagine for the majority of my life I might have preferred not to know most things. I suppose anything can be made more tolerable, or at least easier to accept, the less you know about it."
Lucky for her, Tracey thought. "And now?"
Pansy's dark gaze slid to hers.
"I suppose it's a matter of whether you'd rather feel something than nothing, even if that something is pain. Now if you'll excuse me," she sighed, tucking her phone away and aiming herself in the direction of away, "I need to make sure my husband has not gotten into too many questionable antics, and additionally, I would like to exit this conversation."
"Fair enough," Tracey said, waving her away and turning to observe Blaise in his ridiculous Engagement Hermione costume. It was one thing, Tracey thought, to be with someone who seemed entirely outside himself unless he was actively being someone else, and another to be with someone who intentionally kept things from her. The question, of course, was how much of the latter she could conceivably stand.
He caught her eye and wandered over, the Rita Skeeter book propped under his arm.
"You look particularly calculating, my little abacus," he observed, offering her a sip of what seemed to be an absinthe cocktail. "Dare I ask?"
"Whatever happened between Neville and Pansy?" Tracey asked, watching Blaise's hand tighten around his glass at the mention of them. "Aside from the obvious fact that she hated him, I mean."
"Can't two people simply call an end to a hugely public betrothal without cause for speculation?" Blaise joked, which wasn't particularly helpful.
"Did you sleep with Pansy?" Tracey asked, losing what little patience remained that evening, and Blaise choked a little. "Ah," Tracey said, taking that as a sufficiently damning sign. "Is that all, then?"
"All?" Blaise echoed with a doubtful scoff, turning to look at her. "Would that be so easily dismissed if I had?"
She considered it. So he'd reacted to the news about Neville with… guilt? Presumably so, if he was the reason for Neville and Pansy's split. Made sense, really, that this particular group would be both vaguely incestuous and deeply self-sabotaging.
At the thought of it, Tracey was overcome with a wave of complete and utter exhaustion.
"Blaise," she said, "I think I've always made it quite clear I find your friends exceedingly tiresome. If one of you was the cause for another's failed engagement, that does not surprise me in the slightest. I simply hope you'll manage to keep your misdeeds from souring our engagement," she warned, "as I've wasted enough of my time as it is. Am I clear?"
"Crystal," Blaise replied, sweeping a glance over her. "Or did we not agree the past was the past?"
His hand slid down to the waistband of her jeans, promising all sorts of ill behaviors for later. Unfortunate, really, that Blaise was so very compelling, and that Lysistrata-ing any scenario would always come at an unredeemable cost. Tracey, who had to go into the office early the following morning (on a Saturday, no less), had to admit she was crucially unconcerned with whatever Blaise and Pansy might have done three years ago compared to what Blaise would do with her that evening.
"Just… don't make a fool of me, would you?" she told him, locking his hand in place and looking up to be sure he was listening; which, gratifyingly, he seemed to be. "And don't settle for me, either. Let it be me you want now," she said, "regardless of what you might have done before."
"Oh, I want you." He tilted her chin up, inspecting her. "Shall we retire to the bedchamber, my lady?"
"Don't do that," she sighed, removing herself from his grip, "but if you mean do I want to have sex, then yes."
"Marvelous," he told her, kissing her forehead before announcing to the room that they were all politely requested to leave immediately, or else subject themselves to the unholy debauchery of his choosing.
Tracey and Blaise had arranged for a June wedding, which had again been a small but unavoidable irk, as it would most likely be among Hermione's first outings while bearing the HRH title. "It'll be private, controlled—really, a best case scenario," Draco had said while expressing his gratitude to Blaise, perhaps overlooking the fact that Tracey had not particularly wanted the headache of securing a venue that could accommodate the requisite 'privacy' restrictions; in fact, she had required a high degree of groveling from Blaise in order to agree. "Not to say she couldn't handle a more public event," Draco said with a laugh, "but a friend's wedding really is a bit of a lob as far as first appearances go, isn't it?"
While Hermione and Tracey were handling the stress of wedding planning simultaneously, it obviously went without saying that one merited far more assistance and concern than the other. Never mind that Tracey had an actual job and no private staff, of course. Hermione certainly didn't, nor did she keep herself from discussing her bridal trousseau repeatedly in Tracey's presence.
"There's just so many rules," Hermione said to Daphne, now apparently finding it exceptionally traumatic to dress herself. "Things were so much easier when I spent all my time concerned with spreadsheets and adverbs instead of being a princess."
Said the woman who had an entire team of people planning a wedding for her, Tracey thought. The one thing Tracey felt Hermione had a legitimate right to complain about was her pre-wedding diet, considering that Tracey herself hadn't eaten any cheese or bread in weeks even without having to worry about the whole wedding being broadcasted globally. Somehow, though, Hermione had managed to guiltlessly spread some brie on her piece of toast and continue living her life, robbing their single inch of common ground.
"What a trial it must be," Tracey murmured under her breath, prompting Hermione to look up from her toast with a frown.
"Sorry, did you say something, Tracey?"
"Hm? Oh, only that it must be difficult," Tracey said, pairing it with a smile in lieu of pointing out that she, out of everyone, knew precisely what it was to be marrying a man for love despite thoroughly despising everything he came with; which, for Hermione, was a collection of tiaras and the occasional public speaking engagement, and for Tracey was a quietly mandatory Sunday brunch with her fiancé's female friends. She flicked a glance at Pansy, who at the very least looked similarly disinterested. "Do you have a stylist as well?"
"I do," Pansy said coolly. "Though I, of course, required fewer drastic lifestyle changes following my marriage."
"Pans, your wedding was—" Daphne broke off, glancing at Tracey and quickly looking away. "Private," she said, which Tracey felt was a charming euphemism for 'rushed' or 'suspicious.' "I hardly think it's comparable."
"I imagine not," Pansy replied in her usual bored tone, which Tracey observed with a little thrill. It wasn't often she had someone to conspire with among this group, even if it happened to be the woman her own future husband had slept with.
Tracey had come around to the idea of their past rather quickly, actually, realizing that if Blaise and Pansy had slept together and still ended up with other people, then clearly the issue had been resolved. Harry had recovered from his idiotic crush on Hermione, and likewise, Blaise had now recovered from Pansy. If anything, knowing the truth had been a weight lifted from Tracey's shoulders, and she found a considerable amount of glee in knowing Pansy's failed engagement had clearly been so messy she'd slept with not only Blaise, but Harry, too.
What a relief she wasn't so perfect after all.
"I don't know if I could forgive it," Theresa remarked when Tracey met her for dinner that evening. While Tracey and her father had been at odds over her career at Charm UK (the subsidiary of the Spellcast Communications corporation where Elliot Davis sat on the board of trustees) she and her mother remained as close as ever. "Are you sure you can marry a man who still spends all his time with his ex?"
"If there was chemistry there before, it's definitely dead now," Tracey assured her mother, who seemed to be in agreement that was a minor improvement. "I'm certainly not worried about him being in love with her anymore, which is comforting."
"And if she's in love with him?"
"She isn't," Tracey said, confident in that. It was obvious to anyone who looked that Pansy was wildly in love with Harry and actively pretending not to be, just as Tracey was fairly sure Pansy was concealing another pregnancy; probably to avoid stealing Hermione's thunder, if she had to guess. "Anyway," Tracey sighed, picking up her cocktail and returning to the initial subject of conversation, "enough about them. Has Dad said anything about escorting me at the wedding?"
Theresa sighed, shaking her head. Like always, they'd booked a private room tucked away from the main dining area, sharing an aperitif and some conspiratorial reflection on the imbecilic men in their lives. "He's going to do it, sweetheart, I promise," Theresa assured Tracey. "I'm sure he'll be done with his tantrum soon, and then he and I will have a very long, highly punitive chat."
"Is this still about Christmas?" Blaise and Tracey not being invited to Sandringham House despite Blaise's friendship with Draco had been a massive disappointment to Elliot, resulting in what had gradually become a silent standoff between father and daughter. "Or is he genuinely cross I'm not giving up my career to be some nobleman's wife?"
"Your father's very stupid, dear," replied Theresa, who had been born rich and was probably growing richer by the minute thanks to her ceremonial advisory position at Rosier Hotels. Theresa was always far more skilled at keeping out of the media's eye than Prince Draco's family had ever been; presumably, that was why Hermione was always complaining while Tracey was rarely recognized in public.
Theresa was also the reason Tracey wasn't especially bothered by her father's opposition to her wedding. Elliot was a powerful man who had become that way by virtue of marriage to a wealthy woman. That he aspired to the egoism of noble blood wasn't particularly compelling compared to Theresa's far more reasonable belief that partnerships were crucially more important.
"I love the man, but I'm afraid he's frequently overcome with idiocy. Though, speaking of," Theresa said, returning to a subject Tracey was loath to reconsider, "when will you stop banging your head against the media communications wall? You despise production and it's high time you admit it. If you would just give hospitality a chance—"
"Mum, no," Tracey said for the millionth time. "I continue to have no interest in running hotels for rich people."
"But you'd have power," Theresa insisted. "You're a Rosier, which means—"
"It's in my blood, I know, I know," Tracey supplied with a grimace. "Can we not do this again please, Mum? I've been working at Charm for six years. It'd be a bit of a waste to throw that away just because nobody cares about my opinions on streaming, don't you think?"
"Well—" Theresa sighed, recognizing the usual signs of defeat. "The hotel industry is impacted by the sharing economy as well, you know," she said, attempting one final go at it. "AirBnB is just as much a disrupter for hospitality as Netflix is for media, and if all you want to do is revolutionize an industry, then—"
Tracey arched a brow, and Theresa pursed her lips.
"Fine, fine," she said, gradually giving in and appearing to uncover some more desirable change in conversation. "Have you gotten any details about Hermione's dress yet?"
"I'm fairly sure I have an idea," Tracey confirmed. "It sounds like it has a lace overlay, maybe a ballgown? Certainly sleeves." Her own gown, an off-the-shoulder design by Emmanuelle Malkin, was as purposefully unlike Hermione's as Tracey could think to make it. "You know Madam Malkin's design will be sleeker than anything the Palace approves for Hermione."
Theresa hummed her agreement. "Well, so long as you're happy," she said, just as a waiter approached with the house specialty rack of lamb, paired with a mint chimichurri they both loved. "Remember, if it's a matter of expense—"
"Spare none, I know," Tracey said with a roll of her eyes. "Really, Mum, I'm not interested in competing with Hermione. Blaise and I have plenty between the two of us to cover the wedding costs without your help, and if I wanted to be more famous I'd simply…" She waved a hand. "Star in a porno or something."
"That would probably be effective," Theresa agreed, tucking her blonde hair behind one ear. "You have a lovely figure for pornography."
Tracey paused. "You're joking, right?"
"Would you prefer I thought you'd be rubbish at it? Your figure would be lovely for nearly everything—although, don't overdo it on the sides," Theresa advised, arching a brow as Tracey reached for some couscous. "Thanks to Hermione, your wedding pictures will almost certainly be trending on every social media platform. Which, coincidentally," Theresa added, nodding with approval as Tracey carefully limited the contents of her spoon, "is the driving source of marketing for the company this sum-"
"Mum," Tracey warned, and Theresa smiled.
"See? Your grandfather would call that natural authoritarianism," she said, which Tracey ignored in favor of returning to her reasonably portioned dinner.
As if wedding planning were not a busy enough season already, it was an exceptionally active spring. By the time the second of May arrived, signaling the annual Slytherin dorm reunion from their class at university, it was one month until Tracey's wedding to Blaise and approximately two weeks in advance of Draco and Hermione's wedding.
"I can't believe you continue to attend this without me," Blaise remarked, lifting his head from where he'd strewn himself leisurely across their bed. "Why exactly have none of us ever been invited to these reunions?"
"Because," Tracey told him smartly, placing a kiss on his forehead, "nobody else liked you."
"That's impossible," Blaise scoffed. "Are they somehow not aware I've taken points from each and every one of them for daring the indecency of exclusion?"
"That may have something to do with why they don't like you," Tracey said, shifting through her jewelry box for a pair of earrings. Her emerald ones, which she had owned long before Hermione had made emerald earrings some sort of political statement, were out of the question. She located a pair of diamond studs and placed them in her ears, glancing over her reflection. "There," she said, frowning a little at the way her blonde waves weren't quite as lustrous as they might have been; dieting was a bitch that way. "Is that good?"
"You look almost too perfect, actually, considering it'll be wasted on the plebs," Blaise assured her, coming up behind her to admire her reflection with his hands on her waist. "Are you sure you don't want to come with me instead?"
"What, for dinner with the same people you always have dinner with? That's all you, Zabini," Tracey informed him, letting him trace a few kisses along the side of her neck. "I'd rather not have to sit and listen to Hermione fret about whether or not Prince Lucius is attending the wedding. Honestly," she sighed, turning in his arms, "this cult of yours is in desperate need of family counseling."
"Oh, I agree," Blaise said, giving her a kiss on the mouth before she nudged him away, already late without him persuading her to a pre-dinner jaunt of recreation. "Well, I'll miss you," he told her with a sigh, tugging her back to him for a quicker—but still unhelpfully compelling—kiss. "Your sanity is always deeply refreshing."
"Well, it can't all be guillotine jokes and treason," Tracey reminded him, permitting herself a lingering glance (he was very, very handsome; perhaps unfairly so) before aiming herself out the door. "See you later!" she called over her shoulder, making her way out of their flat to flag down a taxi toward the usual meeting place in Diagon.
It was a fairly intimate group, given that not everyone had moved to London after university. About a third of their class had ended up in Edinburgh or Glasgow while another quarter went somewhere further, like Paris or New York, but those who came around for the pub meet-up every year were fairly close-knit. Tracey spotted Millicent Bulstrode just inside the door and happily embraced her, spotting Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle just over her shoulder.
"The usual suspects?" Tracey asked, waving to Crabbe and Goyle before letting Millicent lead her to the bar.
"Well, I've only just arrived, but I think I saw a few extras this year," Millicent said, sliding a pint glass over to Tracey. "That's Padma Patil over there… wasn't she in Ravenclaw? Oh, and there's also—"
"Michael," Tracey said with surprise, recognizing Michael Corner. He'd been in the Ravenclaw dorms as well, but had bounced around socially. He and Tracey had been on a few dates in the past before discovering they weren't exactly a match. "I haven't seen you in ages," she said, standing on tiptoe to give him a hug as Millicent excused herself, heading for Adrian Pucey and Gemma Farley. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, Padma invited me," Michael said, gesturing to wherever she was. "She's been seeing Terence Higgs, remember him? Anyway, she didn't want to be the lone bird among snakes, it seems," he said with a chuckle into his Guinness. He glanced around for a moment, looking back at Tracey with surprise. "You're not here alone, are you?"
"Actually, I am," Tracey said, and Michael frowned.
"Oh, I thought… hm. Well, good for you," he said, shrugging it off. "Better you're not with Zabini. Truth be told, you're too good for him," he added before Tracey could clarify that she wasn't alone-alone. "Personally, I have half a mind to light both him and Longbottom on fire." Michael took a sip of his beer, remarking with a scoff, "I think I might have actually done it if I'd seen either of them tonight."
"I—" Tracey broke off, unsure where to begin. "Longbottom?"
"Showed up at my flat last week. Can you believe it?" Michael demanded, and seeing as Tracey was evidently supposed to know what he meant, she shook her head. "Dickhead goes missing for bloody months, right? Shows up out of nowhere and starts apologizing. And before I can even tell him I don't bloody forgive him and things can't simply go back to how they were before he left—right? Because I'm not a fucking fool!—he interrupts to tell me he doesn't want to go backwards, he just wants to give me closure. Me," Michael scoffed, "as if any of this was ever about me!"
"Right," Tracey said, obscuring her ongoing confusion. "Go on."
"So I say 'am I just a fucking step in your rehab, Longbottom?' and he says to me—I kid you not, he actually said this—he says he thinks the only person he ever really loved was Zabini," Michael spat, "and that I deserve someone who'll love me better than he can—as if I could possibly not already know that!—and then, and then, he has the bloody nerve to wish me well, as if I was supposed to just say 'namaste' and help him find his fucking zen—"
"He loved Blaise?" Tracey asked, her breath quickening, and Michael drained what remained of his pint.
"Right?" he said nonsensically, setting his glass on the counter with a smack. "With how selfish they were it's impossible to believe either of them capable of loving anything, isn't it? Which I'm sure you know all about," he added with a scoff. "When did Zabini finally come clean, then?"
"About… Neville Longbottom, you mean?" Tracey said, and Michael nodded.
"The thing is, I think we all knew Zabini was fairly evenly split, right? About fifty-fifty, as far as the whole sexuality-gambit goes," Michael said, which was not, in fact, something Tracey knew. "At the very least we suspected, so when Neville tells me he and Zabini were lovers for, I don't know—a year," he estimated, and Tracey blinked, suddenly reconceiving what might have happened between Blaise, Neville and Pansy, "I'm not terribly surprised. I mean sure, the proposal to Parkinson was a bit unsettling to learn about—though, off the record, she and Greengrass make an excellent team, I won't lie to you—but when I asked Longbottom what the fuck that had to do with anything he just gives me some bullshit line about how he knew right then Zabini would never conceive of a future with him, still expecting me to care that he's in my fucking flat—"
"Hang on, stop," Tracey said, shaking her head. "You're telling me that Blaise and Neville used to sleep together," she said, struggling to process this, "and then Blaise… proposed to Pansy, but then…?"
She reached for her glass, desperate for anything to make the last ten minutes make any sense, when Michael's eyes widened, noticing her engagement ring for the first time during the exchange.
"Oh god," he said, face paling. "You're still engaged, you… you didn't know any of it, did you?"
Tracey took a long drag from her glass, shaking her head.
"Jesus fuck," Michael exhaled, raising a fist to his temple. "Fuck, Tracey, I'm so sorry—"
"Just tell me what happened," Tracey said, feeling strangely, unnaturally calm. Almost serene, really, as if all of her emotions had somehow become a reflective surface that contributed to an uninterrupted numbness.
Michael proceeded to rapidly explain everything he knew, including the background on his fight with Neville. Apparently the two had been seeing each other, pretending to be dating Ginny Weasley and Susan Bones respectively, until one day Ginny and Susan decided to come clean, persuading Neville it was for the best. Alright then, Michael thought, assuming that meant Neville would finally be free to take their relationship public. Instead, immediately after telling his grandmother, Neville disappeared without breathing a word to Michael, showing up two months later to explain he'd needed some time alone to decide what he really wanted. It was Blaise, Neville said, not Michael, but he wanted Michael's forgiveness (which he did not receive) or at least Michael's understanding (also a no) or, at the very least, the sense that he had been honest for once (which Michael had not enjoyed). When Michael had pointed out (rather spitefully) to Neville that he could not have Blaise even now, Neville had simply shrugged and said it was the punishment he deserved for being a coward for so long by refusing Blaise to begin with.
Which led them backwards, at which point Michael revealed to Tracey that the reason he had thought he was in a relationship with Neville was because the latter had confessed to him some weighty emotional truths: that his affair with Blaise had been the happiest time of his (obviously very pathetic) life, and thus his biggest mistake was letting Blaise believe they were better off apart. Tracey, meanwhile, ordered three more drinks, waving away anyone who approached them and probing Michael with questions.
"So Neville cheated on Pansy? With Blaise?" A nod. "And then she… got pregnant, I presume?" Another nod. "With Harry's child?" A shrug, which seemed to mean 'I assume so.' "Which Blaise didn't know, so… he proposed?"
"Dizzying, isn't it?" Michael said with a darkened laugh. "Honestly, with as much as we know about all of them, they're lucky we're not shameless enough to go to the Prophet. I swear, I nearly dialed Rita Skeeter the moment Longbottom left, I was beyond furious. I mean, for one thing," Michael scoffed, "at least Zabini picked you. Neville just used me—"
At that precise moment, something clicked unfavorably in Tracey's mind.
"They all knew," she realized, suddenly remembering every expression in the room when Neville's name had come up at Hermione's ridiculous book party. "Every single one of them." The look on Hermione's face in particular flashed through her head again, lingering there. "Jesus," Tracey exhaled, reaching for her drink, "they all knew, and they just sat there and watched me ask about it like an idiot—"
"That whole group of friends is a toxic cesspool," Michael muttered, as Tracey shook her head, still impenetrably numb. "As if it wasn't enough being trapped in that four-year game between Greengrass and Nott, but then to get roped in by the others, too—"
It seemed Michael wanted to commiserate with her. She didn't blame him for that, but she wasn't there yet, either.
"I have to go," Tracey said, suddenly rising to her feet. The pub suddenly seemed hot and cramped, and the last thing she wanted to do was answer questions about her engagement or her wedding. "I just…" She swallowed heavily. "Sorry, Michael, I just have t-"
She cut herself off, not bothering to complete her thought, and pushed through the crowd, heading for the door.
"Hi—hi, Tracey! Tracey Davis!" came a voice outside the pub, and Tracey turned reflexively, blinking into a camera flash. "Lovely reunion," said a youthful photographer, waving to her as he snapped another picture. "Where's Hermione Granger tonight, Tracey?"
"I don't know," Tracey replied dully, folding her arms over her chest as another flash went off.
"Is it true they call her New Tracey, Tracey?" A little flick of annoyance tapped the mirrored surface of Tracey's feelings, bouncing off somewhere in her stomach. "Is that some sort of inside joke between you? Tracey… Tracey! What's it like being among Hermione's close friends?" Another stone, this one almost enough to crack: We're not friends. Clearly we were never friends. "Do you have any thoughts on the Prince's upcoming nuptials, Tracey? Will you be part of Hermione's bridal party?" She blinked through another too-bright flash. "...Tracey! TRACEY!"
She forced herself down the street, only half-hearing when Michael jogged after her and then slipping quickly around the corner, disappearing into the crowd.
It took a while for the fog to clear. Unlike when she'd thought she discovered a history between Blaise and Pansy—which had felt revelatory, even illuminating, making Tracey feel clever and possibly stable compared to the rest—this discovery had left her with the hollow sense she'd never really understood anything. If Blaise could betray Pansy—if he could undermine Pansy's marriage, and sleep with Pansy's fiancé—then what sense did the world even make? He loved Pansy more than anyone, and the knowledge of what he'd done turned to a dull roar in Tracey's ear, ringing against the surface of her thoughts.
Before long it was time for Draco and Hermione's rehearsal, which was something Tracey might have bothered being annoyed by if not for the fact that she hadn't quite recovered from her conversation with Michael. Instead, she kept asking herself the same question over and over—do I actually know who I'm marrying?—and repeatedly wondering if anything had actually changed.
She had gotten past it when it was Pansy.
Why was knowing Blaise had actually been with Neville in the past somehow any different?
That she was acting strangely seemed not to go unmissed. "Trace, you're being a bit weird," said her mother, after she had canceled Sunday dinner for the second week in a row. "Is this about your father? Call me back, sweetheart. Let's discuss it before you wind up in one of your moods."
"You're a bit thin," remarked Madam Malkin during what was supposed to be her penultimate fitting, frowning as she circled an expressionless Tracey. "I thought you only planned to lose five pounds? This must be closer to one stone. Are you planning to wear an additional bustier, or should I make adjustments accordingly?"
"Paul at Charm rang me this morning—what's this I hear about you refusing to budge on the live sports campaign? You can't go telling my executives how to run their quarter production budgets, Tracey," ranted her father, who had called her for the first time in weeks. "Just because you don't agree with something doesn't mean you bloody well get to mouth off to the men I hire!"
Tracey had requested the afternoon of the rehearsal off, as it was going to be an effort to make it through London traffic to pick up her gown in time to make the dinner. When her supervising production manager refused, she simply removed her Charm UK badge from its usual place in her pocket and placed it in his hand, taking the photographs of her parents and Blaise from her desk and leaving without further commentary.
She had chosen a green dress for the occasion, as Hermione Granger did not own a patent on the color, and more importantly, it made Tracey's blonde hair look especially bright. She fixed it in a French twist, deeming her appearance satisfactory but only removing herself from the bathroom when Blaise called out to her that it was time to go.
"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" he asked, not for the first time.
He looked concerned, which was comforting. Concern looked especially handsome on Blaise; it concentrated his brows in a way the emphasized how polished he was, making his jaw and cheeks especially pronounced.
"I quit my job today," Tracey replied. She did not look at her engagement ring; she had recently begun to wonder whether it had been purchased for her or for Pansy, which was an unproductive thought.
"Well, that's good," Blaise said. "You hated your supervisor, didn't you?"
Tracey nodded.
"We'll be fine," Blaise assured her. "If it's money you're worried about, we have more than enough. You can take your time finding something you prefer."
A comforting thing to say. Concern and comfort. Blaise Zabini would make a very supportive husband.
"How do you feel about it?" he asked her.
"A bit like my father's going to kill me," she said, adding, "Mind if I leave my mobile at home in case he calls again?"
Blaise gave a genial shrug. "Fine with me," he told her. "I'll be right there, won't I?"
Yes, she thought.
Yes, he would. She would make sure of it.
She was… pretty sure she wanted to make sure of it.
"Sure," she said, and the two of them got in the car, making their way to the rehearsal at Westminster Abbey. She'd heard a variety of noise about Hermione and Draco spending their night together at his London base, Clarence House, and some incautious whispering about whether or not Prince Lucius had been seen in the days leading up to the wedding. Naturally, though, Tracey ignored it, casting a bored glance over the headlines that suggested Narcissa had come to London alone and focusing instead on her wish to simply see the wedding over and done with.
"Is there… something else?" Blaise asked later, once the rehearsal run-through had concluded (Hermione looked the blushing bride, surprise surprise; Tracey fidgeted in silence from afar, having no part in the ceremony) and they were headed from the Abbey to Buckingham Palace. He leaned over in the backseat of their private car, his hand splitting the distance between them. "If I'm being honest, I'm not entirely sure this is about your job."
Tracey fixed her attention out the window. "Going to take points for my heinous opacity, are you?"
She thought he'd laugh, but he didn't.
"No," he said. "I never want to take points from you."
It struck her as a nice thing to say.
Perhaps even sweet.
She turned slowly, looking at him.
"What happened between you and Neville?" she asked, and Blaise's lips parted, then paused.
"Tracey," he began, and she shook her head.
"I already know everything. Michael Corner told me all the sordid details," she added, catching his flinch. "I just… I want you to tell me why I shouldn't be furious," she remarked with a bitter laugh, "or why you had to do it, or why it was him, or why you let me believe it was something other than what it was—"
"I told him it was over," Blaise said firmly. "That it was going to be the last time, and it was. I wanted it to mean nothing and I swear, I never contacted him again, it was just the one time and then he and I never even sp-"
"One time?" Tracey asked, blinking. "Michael told me you were together for months, even years."
"Yes, but then I—"
Blaise stopped, catching himself, and Tracey saw it.
She saw the look on his face that meant if she let him, or if she gave him an out, he was about to fucking lie.
"One time," she echoed, "while we were together, you mean? Not like before, when we were on and off," she clarified, watching him swallow. "One time after I said 'let's do this for real' and you said 'okay'—one time after that?"
She watched his tongue slip between his lips.
"Tracey, I—"
"It's a fucking yes or no question, Blaise," Tracey said, feeling a little piece of rubble, some tiny burst of rage, bury itself in her sheen of apathy. "Did you sleep with Neville Longbottom after you and I were already together?"
There was no escaping it. Even he seemed to have noticed.
"Yes," he said, his throat obviously dry. "Yes, I did. One time."
"When?"
"New Years. Two years ago."
"Two years…? Blaise, Jesus." The car pulled up to the private entrance at Buckingham Palace, pausing there as neither Blaise nor Tracey made any attempts to exit the vehicle.
Tracey turned brusquely to Blaise, suddenly wishing him to pay for his crimes with brutal, no-holds-barred honesty, which was perhaps the thing he hated most in the world.
"Did you love him?" she asked.
He winced, but nodded. "Yes."
"Have you contacted him since he came out?"
A shake of his head.
"Tell me the truth."
"I am."
The tiny fissure in her heart cracked a little more. "How can I possibly believe you now?"
"I don't know. But I'm telling you the truth."
The crack broadened to a crevice. "Did it hurt you, finding out he came out?"
"Yes."
"Good." She wanted to cry, or to scream. "Is it because you wanted to go public and he wouldn't?"
He inhaled sharply, exhaling, "Yes."
"And now you could be with him."
"No. I'm with you."
"You mean you're obligated to me," she said bitterly.
"No, I'm with you. I love you."
"More than you love him?"
The question slipped out nearly by accident; if she had managed to stop herself, she might have wondered in advance if she really wanted to know. But she had asked, and Blaise had opened his mouth, and in the single, cardiac-arresting moment he didn't speak, Tracey Davis realized two things at once.
One, that Blaise wanted very badly to say yes.
And two, that no matter how fervently he might compel himself to say it, it would be, without question, a lie.
Whatever pretty surface remained of Tracey's heart promptly and with violent discord shattered to tiny, infinitesimal slivers, becoming damage so damningly pronounced she knew it would very shortly escape containment.
"I have to go," she said, shoving her door open so hard the footman jumped back, and Blaise scrambled over the seat to follow her.
"Tracey," he said, his voice an unnatural timbre of pleading as she realized she'd left behind her mobile phone, cursing herself for her lack of foresight and weaving back through the arriving cars. "Tracey, wait, please—"
"Tracey!" Hermione exclaimed, catching her from where she had been greeting her parents. "Are you alright?" she asked, frowning, before looking up to find Blaise chasing after Tracey, obviously identifying the context of her flight.
Hermione fucking Granger, the woman who had filled Tracey's spot in the Slytherin dorms and changed the course of both their lives forever, met Blaise's glance and turned to Tracey with a look of legible hesitation, pity branded into her forehead as if she was piecing it together, as if she knew, when Tracey remembered, abruptly, that she bloody did know, and that no matter how much fake hair Hermione wove into her frizzy curls or how many princes she married, she was still the woman who had fucking known the whole time just how despicable—how shameless—how unforgivable—Blaise's betrayal had been.
"You should have told me," Tracey said, her voice shaking, and Hermione's cherubic eyes blew wide.
"I wanted to," she said hastily, dropping her volume and pulling Tracey aside. "Believe me, I did, but it wasn't my place, and—"
"You don't know what your fucking place even is!" Tracey spat at her, tearing free from her grasp. "You're just some nobody who got lucky, aren't you? So who cares if my heart breaks!" she ranted, feeling tears start to spill and furiously blinking them back. "So long as you get your prince and your friends and your happy ending, what else is there?"
"I'm so sorry," Hermione half-whispered, the color gone from her cheeks. "Tracey, please, I—"
"Don't bother," Tracey seethed, taking off at a near sprint somewhere (anywhere) Hermione Granger wasn't until she collided blindly with someone by accident, inhaling a lungful of toxically overpowering Chanel perfume.
"Did I just see you running from a little squabble with Miss Granger?" said a falsely too-high voice, followed by a red-painted cheshire smile. "Tracey, isn't it? Davis by way of the Rosiers? Not to mention the very reason our little princess-to-be has all of us fawning over her," tutted Rita Skeeter, adding a facetious sigh. "You know, I was ever so surprised when I learned you didn't want to speak with me. You might have been a fascinating perspective on the book—imagine, the girl who lived a parallel life!" she said with a punchy, needlessly enunciated ha-ha-ha-ing of delight. "I suppose it's no surprise Miss Granger wanted you excluded from the narrative, is it? Even I can't blame her for wanting her love story to feel like something more than luck. Without you there's really no her, is there?"
It was the last straw.
… dizzying, isn't it? Honestly, with as much as we know about them…
Suddenly, the fog of hurt feelings and lost futures dissipated into nothing but empty rage.
"Penelope Clearwater," Tracey said, and Rita blinked, surprised. "Spew, that blog. The article in the Hogwarts journal. Ever wonder what those things have in common?"
"You don't mean," Rita began, and stopped, eyes narrowing in calculation. "She wasn't—did she—"
Tracey shrugged, pivoting in the opposite direction. "That's your job, not mine," she said, heading back to find Blaise making a beeline for her.
"Tracey, please," he panted, breathless, "let's just talk about this, okay? Just… let's just get through this dinner, and then—"
Suddenly, Tracey realized why it had been so much worse that it was Neville instead of Pansy.
Because it had been bad enough coming in seventh on the list of people Blaise Zabini loved without learning there was even further to fall.
Tracey strode past him without a word, spotting their driver and lowering herself into the leather backseat.
"Drive," she said, shutting the door before the footman could reach her.
The driver turned over his shoulder. "Where to, Miss Davis?"
She considered it. The flat she shared with Blaise was out, obviously, but she could have always gone bigger anyway.
"Call the Rosier hotel," she decided after a moment. "Tell them Theresa Rosier Davis would like the penthouse."
"Yes, Miss," the driver said, and Tracey closed her eyes, the car pulling away from the Palace and heading towards what felt, for the very first time, like pure, unadulterated luxury.
The truth is I don't hate Hermione, but I certainly don't like her, either. I'm closing the book on all of this, literally and metaphorically speaking, by choice this time instead of sidelined obsolescence.
If I'm being perfectly honest, which I now have plans to do, this whole thing has been a relief.
For the first time in eight years, I personally look forward to not having to hear about whatever happens to Hermione Granger next.
a/n: Next week we will jump slightly backwards in time to cover everything Tracey skipped; though, fair warning, it won't post until Thursday or Friday (May 23 or 24) as I'll be out of town early next week. In the meantime, I think a new nottpott will start posting this Thursday, May 16, in Amortentia. Keep an eye out for Death of a Con Man, which is a new Disney AU. Thanks again for reading!