Hermione discovers that, while Draco and Narcissa can now Apparate, the Manor's Floo network is still only connected to two locations: the main entrance of the Ministry, and her own home. Which is flattering, but also a damned annoyance. Draco is so out-of-practice with Apparition, there's no way he'll make it from the Manor to the Leaky Cauldron. Or from the Manor to ten metres outside the Manor, honestly.
With such limited travel options, she and Draco must Floo to her flat that evening and then turn back around to Floo to the Leaky. It's a problem she intends to badger Kingsley into remedying soon…but not tonight. Tonight is for grieving, or healing, or revealing. Merlin knows which, or in what order.
Hermione is still pondering that riddle as they arrive at the Leaky's Floo portal. But the minute their cloud of green dust disappears, she and Draco very nearly Floo right back home. Especially when they see what's waiting for them.
There, flanking each side of the fireplace, are their friends. Harry, Ginny, and Ron stand to one side, newly landed and still dusting Floo powder off their clothes. On the opposite side slouches none other than Pansy Parkinson.
Pansy looks cold, gorgeous, and ridiculously overdressed for a night at the pub. And of course, she's glaring at the lot of them.
Her bright eyes fall on the new arrivals and immediately narrow into slits.
"Pans," Draco greets her.
"Dray."
Her tone is as biting as his is bland. There's a fraught moment when no one else speaks or even moves. Then Pansy rolls her eyes so hard, Hermione can practically hear them pop inside their sockets.
"Oh, sod it," Pansy growls, and she stalks over to the bar.
While Pansy orders, Hermione turns to her friends. "Thanks for agreeing to do this," she mutters, nervous for reasons she can't – well, maybe she can – explain.
"Anytime," Harry says. "Besides, it looks like we aren't the only ones who responded. This is sort of unexpected, isn't it?"
He gestures to the rest of the pub, which is packed wall-to-wall with their former classmates. Gryffindors, mostly, but there's a fair share of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. And also a handful of terribly stiff-looking Slytherins.
Draco snorts. "Did you actually doubt they'd come, Potter? It was Granger's idea – of course it worked."
Harry blinks a few times before studying Draco with a mix of mistrust and appreciation. It's a weird expression, one that Ginny neatly summarizes for all of them.
"So this is awkward as hell, yeah?"
Draco barks out a laugh, and Ginny grins at him in surprise. Then her eyes dart quickly between Hermione and Draco.
"Dear Merlin," Ginny breathes. "You two are officially an item now, aren't you?"
Hermione's head swivels her. "What? How did you—?"
Ginny cuts her off with a shrug. "One: you arrived together. Two: you're standing, like, a millimetre apart. And three: Malfoy is looking at you like he wants to drag you to the loo and shag your brains out."
"Ginevra Molly Weasley!" Hermione gasps.
"Hermione Jean Granger!" Ginny gasps right back at her. "You already have, haven't you? You two have already shagged!"
The tips of Draco's ears flare pink, but he doesn't contradict it. Hermione is about to open her mouth and say something, anything, to give them plausible deniability, when Pansy rejoins their group with two glasses of firewhisky.
Pansy tucks one glass close to her unseasonably thick furs and gestures to Draco with the other. "Numbing agent, Dray?"
Draco shakes his head. "I'm giving sobriety a go. But thanks."
Pansy's well-tweezed eyebrows arch higher, almost into her hairline. Hermione fears that Pansy's going to make this a thing – insist on a round of shots, or start throwing hexes at everyone. Instead, Pansy brushes past Hermione and Draco to shove the second glass of whisky into Ron's chest.
"What about you, Weasel?" she asks. "You look like you could use one of these."
Ron, who has been watching this entire display with unveiled disgust, frowns deeply at her.
"What makes you say that, Parkinson?"
Pansy guffaws. "Because you're fucking chartreuse with envy. And everyone knows that green and red don't mix."
Ron looks like he might protest. But he makes his own sort of "Sod it" grimace, takes the glass from Pansy's outstretched hand, and downs its contents in one swallow. Even Pansy gawks at him, although she obviously recovers the quickest.
"Good on you, Weasley. Good on you." She raises her glass in salute before she follows his lead, knocking back her own firewhisky with a similarly brazen gulp. Her eyelids flutter shut and she utters a small noise that may indicate pleasure or pain. In her case, probably both.
Then she lowers her glass and fixes her icy-blue glare onto Harry. She studies him with the kind of scrutiny one might give to a piece of gum on the bottom of one's shoe. Finally, with what might be actual sincerity, she says, "Sorry about that whole 'Feed him to the snake' thing, Potter. Better your arse than ours back then, yeah?"
Ron lets out a bitter laugh, and Pansy's gaze whips toward the sound.
"You got a problem with that, Weasel?" she snarls.
"I might, yeah."
Ron is clearly spoiling for a fight, and Hermione can guess why. She wants to warn Pansy off – to tell the hostile, fur-bedecked witch to find someone else to torment tonight. But Ron's upper lip curls and he seems almost…excited by the prospect of an argument.
"Because why?" Pansy demands, when Ron doesn't actually define his problem.
"Because your apology wasn't much of one, was it, Parkinson?"
"I said 'back then,' didn't I?"
"As opposed to what?"
"As opposed to 'right now.' Or 'anymore.' Or 'still.'"
"And that's supposed to be good enough for Harry?"
"Damn straight it is."
"You're not even going to try and explain yourself?"
"No, I'm not," she says flatly. "I don't like talking about the War, Weasley. So either get over it, or get out of my way."
Hermione can think of a thousand things to say to Pansy, right then. Most of them unpleasant. But Ron just lifts one ginger eyebrow. Whatever he's searching for on Pansy's face, he must find it, because he steps forward and shoves his empty glass back at her.
"Alright, then. You refill me, Parkinson, and I might believe you."
Pansy appraises him carefully and delivers a quick, decisive nod. "The first two rounds are on me. The next two are on you. If you can afford that, on your Ministry pittance."
Hermione is about to ask how Pansy knows where Ron works, when the two of them stomp away in grim accord toward the bar. Once there, Ron and Pansy begin lining up a long row of shots, the strangest pair of drinking buddies Hermione has ever seen.
After a full minute of silence, Ginny laughs lightly. "Well, that was bizarre."
"That," Draco replies, "was Pansy."
Hermione angles her head toward Draco. "And you think she and I have something in common?"
"Judging by the way Pansy is currently pretending not to check out the Weasel's arse, I'd say yes. At a minimum, you two have similar taste in men." Hermione smacks him on the shoulder, but Draco just raises a smug corner of his mouth. "And you both hit harder than anyone I've ever met. So you have that in common, too."
Hermione glares at him, if only half-heartedly, and then directs a saccharine smile at Harry.
"I know he's making it impossible," she says, in an overly sweet tone, "but could you just ignore Mr. Personality over here and help me put these out?"
She hefts up her beaded handbag to demonstrate.
Harry groans. "We aren't setting up the tent, are we? I just…I'm not ready to see that tent again yet."
"No," she laughs. "Not today. But I do have about five dozen pamphlets about PTSD that I'd like to fan out, on top of the bar. Just in case anyone needs them."
Relieved, Harry nods his assent. Draco, however, clears his throat beside Hermione.
"A tent?" he asks her. "I assume you plan to tell me how that hideous bag and sharing a tent with Potter are related?"
"Later," she promises, lifting onto her toes to give Draco a light kiss.
Harry makes a noise that sounds an awful lot like "Blech" as the new couple breaks apart. Draco looks ready to snarl an insult – probably something involving the use of the word Potter as though it's a curse – when Ginny loops her arm through the blond's.
"Come on, Malfoy," she says. "Let's go see how many of my friends try to hex you tonight. I'm guessing ten. No…twelve."
With that, Ginny tugs Draco toward the swaying crowd farther inside the pub. Harry and Hermione watch them go. Not sixty seconds later, Ginny has to swat Lee Jordan's wand away from Draco's chin.
Hermione shakes her head. "That makes the first, I suppose. Honestly, I think Ginny undershot it with twelve."
Harry chuckles darkly. "I just want you to remember one thing tonight, Hermione."
"What's that?"
"This crazy scheme was all your idea. For the first time in our friendship, I'm totally blameless."
The night has grown quite late – nearing midnight, Hermione guesses – but the party still rages on. Within a few hours of the party's start, its noise shifted from polite din to something riotous and joyful – a cacophony of raised voices, echoing throughout the Leaky Cauldron. Now, it feels as though each person in the pub has discovered, inexplicably, that they want this; that they've been waiting on something like this for the past two years.
In the haze of booze and sweat and laughter, you can't tell one house member from the other. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin – they all move in one accord, one mass of bodies swaying with the pulse of relief and release.
Hermione and Draco still orbit the room separately. But every so often, she meets his gaze over someone's shoulder. Each time, he's watching her with a knowing grin and taking deliberate sips of his pumpkin juice.
It's during one of those heated stares, when she's standing with Ron and Pansy – who is, weirdly, cackling at one of Ron's jokes – that Hermione sees a small brown owl swoop into the pub. The owl doesn't land but instead drops a scroll into Ron's open palm.
Ron blinks once, twice, at the scroll before unrolling it. He scans the note quickly and then breaks into a positively massive grin. Without saying a word to Hermione or Pansy, he runs over to Ginny and George and drags them up with him onto some empty barstools.
"Oi, wankers!" he shouts to the crowd, which lets Hermione know that he's well and truly pissed. Still wearing that giant grin, Ron waves the letter into the air. "Ginny just became an auntie, and George and me are uncles!"
"Which one of your siblings?" Pansy demands loudly. She's slurring, but there isn't a drop of acid in her words. In fact, she sounds rather…flirty. That's an interesting development, one Hermione will have to analyze later.
"Bill and Fleur!" Ron yells, to Pansy as well as everyone listening. "It's a little girl, and they've named her Victoire. Which is French for…for…?"
"Victory," Hermione calls up at him, and he winks at her in gratitude.
"Victory!" he shouts, yanking Ginny's and George's arms up with his in a show of triumph.
At this, the crowd goes absolutely insane. Everyone is laughing and cheers-ing and clapping each other heartily on the back. It's the perfect name, Hermione thinks, given today's date. The entire pub seems to agree: Harry and Luna hug fiercely; Neville grabs a handful of celebratory cigars from the bartender; and Cho Chang offers the Weasleys congratulatory shots of firewhisky, which the redheads down with aplomb.
It's there, in the festive chaos, that Hermione feels a light brush of fingers against her wrist. She turns toward the touch and is surprised to find Draco standing right beside her. He doesn't say anything but he's staring at her, his grey eyes fierce and his lips quirked into an enigmatic smile. She thinks to ask him if he's okay. But before she can do so, his hands cup her cheeks, his fingers tangle in her hair, and his lips crush down onto hers.
It's one of those kisses. The kind of toe-curling, heartbeat-racing kisses that sets you on fire from the inside out. The kind that changes your heart, your head, your everything.
Hermione isn't thinking. She's just kissing Draco back with the same amount of ferocity, her hands grasping at his shoulders, his waist, his hair. There isn't anything else in the world or even the universe but his lips. His tongue. Him.
Only when they finally break apart for air, with their lips still close enough to share each other's breath, does she notice that the pub has gone completely silent. Everyone saw them. Everyone knows. But to her utter shock, the crowd breaks into another round of raucous shouts and cheers.
Over the wild noise, she can make out a few, distinct voices.
"Nice one, Dray!" Goyle bellows.
Luna chimes out, "How lovely."
Pansy loudly suggests that they "Get a fucking room, already," and Theo and Ginny shout, in unison, "Finally!"
Hermione feels Draco laugh against her lips, right before he gives her a second, sweeter kiss. He releases her face to twine his fingers with hers and to rest his sharp chin atop her hair.
Around his shoulder, Hermione sees Ron watching them. He's returned to Pansy by now, holding another two tumblers of what looks like rum. His mouth has twisted to one side, and he glares daggers at Draco's back. But when Ron's eyes find Hermione's, his scowl melts into a begrudging, close-lipped smile. He raises his glass a centimetre higher. It's a salute, she realizes, and about the most approval she's going to get from him.
I'll take it, her answering smile tells Ron. When Draco's head lowers and his lips find hers again, she thinks, I'll take this, too.
That's pretty much the last articulate thought she has, and she doesn't even notice when the clock eventually ticks from 11:59 p.m., May second, to 12:00 a.m., May third.