This is me crossing some T's and dotting some I's on Hermione's behaviour the last chapter. Again, Grammarly is my not-perfect companion. The next chapter is already cooking, definitely with some adventures. I promise.
Enjoy the holidays!
Chapter 7: Meddling
"Draco, tell me what's wrong." Pansy cornered him after dinner, as the group was on their way to the pontoon. A sunset swimming party was on their schedule, a few carrying the drinks and glasses with them.
"Nothing, everything is just peachy."
"I'm not stupid, something is bothering you, and I bet it has to do with the swot." She nudged him in the arm to force him to a stop. "You two left earlier alone, at first, but returned together. None of you looked very happy, yet both sported a suspicious blush. Spill the beans, you know you can trust me."
"What do you want me to say, Pans?" He raked through his hair, visibly torn from within, "She's not who I thought she was. She's so much better than I expected."
"You are falling for her."
"Hold your hippogriffs, Pansy. I'm no Hufflepuff to fall in love in a few seconds."
"It's longer than a few seconds, Draco. I'm not an idiot." She sought to fix his gaze on her, "What happened between you two?"
"Do you want the graphical version or the short one?"
"Cheeky. Wait… what?" Her mouth fell open, "She's supposed to be a prude lion!"
"Pff, the one who launched that gossip was clearly a jealous witch. There's nothing prude about her." He kept rubbing his face on his palms. Hermione's dismissal, in the end, stabbed more than he cared to admit.
"How far did you go?"
"You should rather ask what we skipped, that list is shorter."
"Holy cow!" Pansy reeled from one surprise to another, blinking her eyes in wonder, "Okay, I see the picture. What I don't understand is what's wrong with your little encounter."
"The encounter was perfect, that's not it. It's the end that is fucking my mind." Pansy frowned, confused, "She told me flat-out it was only an itch we scratched, that we might get to repeat, but I shouldn't be looking for a deeper meaning because, and I quote, the chances that she and I become a couple are as low as Filch marrying Professor McGonagall."
Pansy chuckled but recomposed herself.
"Why is it bugging you?"
"Because I get shut down without further reasons. I mean, I know we have a dark history, but hell… she keeps digging up old skeletons."
"What did she say then?"
"She said nothing. It's not about words, it's about being rejected without a decent chance at redemption. I was so fucking wrong about a ton of issues, and it fucks my mind to know I want to set it right, and yes, for fuck's sake, I want more, but she rebuffs me."
"Hey, don't lose hope. You're changing the perception of Harry and Ronald. My female guts say that whatever occurred, freaked her out and she's protecting herself from being hurt. This Draco is all new to her, she doesn't know you the way that I do. She only knows the git - pardon my English - you've shown her."
"Should I grovel? Kiss her feet and the ground she walks on? Take a seat, you might have to wait a while before hell freezes over." He pushed her roughly away but sent a silent apology right behind it.
"Something tells me that it will all be fine in the end," Pansy shoved a few blond tresses from his forehead, "Don't give up just yet." He nodded, but she kept looking at him, now with a naughty smile, "Make her see that your sex-god title isn't totally unearned."
He rolled his eyes, letting out a harsh breath, "She's the goddess."
"I'm standing right here you know?"
Draco snorted at the jealous display.
"All kidding aside, when it's the right person..."
"Who made you the queen of divination?" Slamming his arm around her shoulders, Draco headed toward the group following the sound of laughter - more Ron's barking mixed with Theo's higher pitch. "Are you going for a piece of ginger yourself?"
"Don't push it."
"I spilt my beans to you, share your secrets."
"I'm knocking my head against the wall, to readjust my current thoughts. My mother will kill me, after my father."
"I look forward to being the godfather of your ginger-haired offspring."
"Easy... or you can kiss your dream goodbye of having a blond curly heir flying on his kiddy broomstick."
"It will probably remain a dream."
"You'll eat those words!" She took the two glasses over from Tracey, offering one to him, "Let us toast to our merging with the Gryffindorks."
"Pray to Salazar for some patience."
Harry added, "Hope that your lions aren't hungry for a good snakehead. Their teeth are sharp as hell," ticking their glasses with his own.
"Potter, what are you doing?"
"We can't have a snake-gathering inside a lion's den."
"Then tell your lioness to be less rough to a friendly snake."
"Friendly and snake in the same sentence?" Harry snatched the drink out of Pansy's hands and sipped, "Strange, it's not spiked."
"Ugh, gross! Saint-Potter's germs all over my drink, how dare you?"
"You prefer Ron's perhaps?"
The called-out wizard flushed, the finger drawing 'I'll kill you'-sign on his throat at his best friend. It only fueled Harry's fun.
-oOo-
In the girl's dorms, Lavender's snoring filled the room, and Tracey was murmuring in her sleep about heights, don't push me so high. The snakes want to bite me, mum…
In the lower bunker, Hermione didn't fall asleep, no matter how many sheep she counted nor how often she had already turned in her bed.
"Consciousness problems, little swot?"
"My soul is clear, miss viper." A loud snore from the higher bed annoyed both awaken witches, Pansy's fingers tingling to smash her pillow on the blonde's head.
"Nah, I think your mind can't stop thinking about a young attractive blond wizard, who's willing amend things, though the witch in question cuts him off."
"Has he gone crying on your lap, asking for a pat on his head, the poor boy?"
Pansy looked sternly down, "I told you not to hurt my boy. I've asked you to keep an open mind, remember?"
"I am, otherwise I…"
Pansy jumped out of her bed, waving at Hermione, "Let's go for a walk, we can't talk here."
Rolled in their blankets, the women sought a way to the pontoon, too lazy to walk all up to the top and watch the night from the rooftop.
"I think I'll miss the briny smell of the sea." The ocean was lazily lapping at the stone walls. Pansy chose a place near the edge, sitting in a Buddha pose.
"Yes, it's refreshing." Hermione tightened the blanket around her, the cold breeze was a tad too icy for her taste.
They remained silent for a few minutes, eyes on the moonlight shining on the water surface.
"Draco didn't gossip to me like one of those bints at Hogwarts. I couldn't, however, ignore something was eating him from the inside. So, I pushed the buttons as I'm used to."
"You know then what happened."
"Do you want the graphical version or the shortcutted one?"
"Geez, and they speak about women…"
"I'll give you the graphical, to meet your request, my dear. You blew him away. I don't know if you sucked his dick dry or used your magical vagina and fucked his brains out. Pardon me for my blunt English, but this is who I can be. Brutally honest." Pansy tucked her hair behind he ear, a sign to those who know her, that she's nervous. "The fact is you cut him off, afterwards, claiming it to be an itch with no possibility to grow into something more."
"I don't want him to hurt me. He's done a perfect job in the past. I don't trust him."
"Who he used to be before the war and who he's now, are two different people. Woman, that man saw things I don't wish to my worse enemy. Suffered at the hands of people who should protect you in the first place, not throw you in the fire pit as the sacrificial lamb." Hermione wanted to retort, but Pansy held up a hand to stop her, "I'm not talking his behaviour well, he did and said things that weren't friendly. Fuck, even I did it."
To calm her temper down, the dark-haired drew a deep breath, "I'm not proud of my actions and compared to Draco's they look innocent as fuck. But, I know that he's trying to mend. You say you don't trust him. That's bullshit. Each of these tests, you've trusted him to help you till the end. You didn't doubt that he would let you fall." Calming her nerves was apparently not a success. Much against her will.
"You can't compare my trust in his abilities to my trust in his mindset."
"The man has been harbouring a crush on you for years, witch. You broke his nose, and he fell head over heels for you. At Yule ball, I was next to him just along for the ride. I was fucking jealous of you, that night. I confess. You snagged the celebrity, your dress was awesome, and on the top of it, my company saw green of jealousy. Of the man he was worshipping before that dance!"
Hermione huffed, "Yule ball… don't remind me."
"Of what? Being the queen of the night with Krum at your side?"
"Ron asked me because I'm a girl…"
"Huh?"
"He asked me to the ball as a last resort, you're a girl. It took him bloody four years to discern that, the tosser."
"Was that why you were crying at the stairs? We made a bet at the common room, but it seems no one assessed it correctly..."
"First, he complained that Viktor was too old for me and was using me, and afterwards he told Harry that girls get scarier when we get older."
"I would have punched him in the face!" Pansy was angry in her place.
"I sent him to bed."
Pansy roared, "Like a naughty boy who needs punishment. Girl, you're really something!" She bent half, laughing. "Hi Hi."
The laughter died on Hermione's face, when the subject of their conversation returned to her mind, "Draco…"
"Scares the shit out of you, yet, you can't deny that there's something brewing, can you?"
"He called me a mudblood, made me feel lower than dirt. How am I supposed to forget all that? A shag against a wall doesn't wipe years of distrust."
"True, but if you cut him off before he can apologise decently and show you how much he changed, you'll never move on either. Tell me, was this one of the many meaningless shags you had?"
"What do you mean?" Hermione knew very well what she meant, but tried to evade accepting the truth.
"I'm not so bright like you but I'm not an imbecile like blond barbie downstairs. You have a shag that felt good but doesn't beg for more, and you have the shag of shags, the one that goes straight to your core and craves after an encore. Specify the Draco episode. Under which category does it qualify?"
Hermione hid her face in her hands. It was easy to dismiss a fact as a blip on the radar, while in reality, it was not insignificant. He wasn't a John Doe, another number on her book of conquests.
"Your silence speaks louder than you think. I bet Draco woke up feelings you're not open to exploring. I bet that if he were someone else, you would want to grab the chance and investigate what this is all about. It scared you. It scared the shit out of you like it's scaring me to admit that the ginger downstairs might be invading my life."
"The ginger downstairs never wished your death."
"Neither would the young adult nowadays. You've heard the kid that was barely dry behind his ears." She inched closer to Hermione, "I even dare to say, he feels guilty for not protecting you at a precise moment."
"It wasn't him who held the wand against me. He would have died."
"The fact doesn't ease the guilty feeling." Pansy grabbed her hand for a squeeze, "Don't shut him out. Man up, and allow him to show who he is. Maybe, he's your missing puzzle."
"What if he hurts me?"
"What if your ginger breaks my heart?"
"Leap of faith?"
"We are women, goddammit. We'll jump together."
-oOo-
The blond wizard behind the wall walked quickly back to his bed, registering the typical noises of someone rising to their feet and heading to the door, in this case, the large entrance. Unable to catch the sleep he had a similar thought and found them making the curve ahead of them. Curious, he remained behind, sitting on the floor, back resting against the wall.
For a moment, he wished to be able to put his hands around a certain neck for her incessant meddling. Until the questions were asked which he wanted to know the answer, the reasons behind the actions.
Pansy had judged Hermione's behaviour correctly, the witch did fear him hurting her. Deciding it was better for her to keep him at bay, than to risk harm.
You can't promise to anyone you won't hurt them along the way. One wrong word, an unintended gesture. His natural talent to rile her up would probably seal the deal, sooner than wished. He didn't have a manual of instructions lying around to guide him on the right path. He is who he is, even if it was an improved version of who he used to be.
Fates would decide.