Snippets
Chapter Twenty-Two
"What the hell, Granger?!" Pansy Parkinson shrieks approximately half an hour after she arrives at Hermione's flat the morning after the gala.
Pansy has upped her game this time– this time, she didn't even knock. She, instead, alohomora'd Hermione's front door and invited herself into her bed, thereby waking Hermione for the second day in a row.
"I'm sorry, Pansy, did I miss the memo that we're now friends?" Hermione grumbles, flopping back against her pillow and rolling her eyes.
"It got lost in the post," Pansy snarks, crossing her arms over her chest as she sits cross-legged on Hermione's bed. "Now, explain to me why there isn't a platinum blonde pain-in-my-arse in this spot instead of me?"
Hermione reels back, her eyes widening to roughly the size of saucers.
"Should there be?" Hermione asks, incredulously.
Pansy sighs audibly, as if she is supremely frustrated with Hermione for simply existing in this moment.
"Of course there should be! The dress! The collarbones! I saw you dancing with him and you left the ballroom holding his hand! Why must you make all of my hard work be for naught?"
Hermione blinks thrice, hoping that this is a bizarrely realistic vision rather than the more likely option of having a witch whom she barely knows interrogating her about the loss of a friend which is still painfully fresh.
"What are you talking about?" Hermione asks, although she knows that asking that was probably a mistake.
Pansy rubs at her forehead and furrows her brow before she responds.
"You're the first witch that I've seen Draco with since– Well, in about three years," Pansy stammers and Hermione knows exactly why. Three years. Astoria died three years ago, and Pansy probably doesn't know if Hermione knows that or not. "I assumed that that meant something. He likes you. But he's– he has… issues. So, I put you in that dress and watched all night as he panted over you and I waited impatiently for him to buck up and ask you to dance. When he did, I assumed that that was that."
Hermione thinks that there's a lot to dissect in that monologue, but for a reason unbeknownst to Hermione's exhausted brain, the only part that it can fixate on is, "Wait, what do you mean that I'm the first witch that you've seen him with?"
Pansy sighs and seems to pause for a moment, as if deciding how best to answer this question.
"Draco has had… shall we say, a 'dry spell' for a number of years now. I haven't seen him look twice at a woman since–" Pansy cuts herself off, looking pleadingly at Hermione, presumably in hopes that she will put her out of her misery by admitting that she knows about Draco's late wife.
"Since Astoria," Hermione finishes for Pansy.
Pansy breathes a sigh of relief.
"Oh, good, you know about her," Pansy exhales, her shoulders relaxing from the tense positioning they had been in a moment ago. "Well, that confirms it then. He does like you– which brings me back to my original point. Why isn't he here?"
Hermione frowns and against her better judgment, her eyes begin to prick with tears. Her heart clenches in her chest at another painful reminder that Draco had effectively ended their friendship the night before.
"He told me that we couldn't be friends," Hermione replies, unsure of why exactly she is discussing this with Pansy Parkinson of all people. She supposes that the witch is simply here and is clearly already invested, so what harm could it do?
"... Because he wants to sleep with you?"
Hermione shakes her head. She's managed to keep her illness private up to this point, but– and she will vehemently deny this fact if ever asked about it– a part of her wants to tell Pansy. Despite not knowing the witch very well, there's something endearing about her. If nothing else, she clearly cares for her friends if she went to so much trouble to try to help Draco.
"Because I'm sick."
Hermione spends the next hour detailing her last few months out to Pansy, who– to Hermione's surprise– listens intently and doesn't interrupt her… much.
"Okay, get up," Pansy claps her hands onto her knees as she crawls up off of Hermione's bed and rounds it. She tears the comforter which had been keeping Hermione so warm and cozy up and off of her, exposing her to the chill of the early Spring air.
"Up? Why?" Hermione whines, wandlessly casting a heating charm over herself to fight the cold.
"We're going out to breakfast," Pansy declares, turning on her heel and stalking over toward Hermione's closet, opening the door and beginning to dig through the racks of clothing she finds.
Hermione rolls her eyes, although she finds herself far less annoyed than she might've expected to be, given the situation. In this moment, Hermione remembers her previous vision in which she saw herself being forced to try on gowns by Pansy Parkinson and by extension, the fondness which the vision-version of herself and the vision-version of Pansy had seemed to have for one another.
As loath as Hermione is to admit it, she thinks that she could see that vision as being plausible now that she has interacted with Pansy for more than a handful of minutes. She's brash and abrasive in some ways, but there's an underlying compassion there which Hermione never would've expected– and evidently, she loves fiercely, which Hermione cannot fault her for.
"Should I even ask what it is that you're doing?" Hermione wonders as she stands and crosses her arms over her chest.
Pansy emerges from Hermione's closet with a sage green blouse which Hermione had entirely forgotten that she owned tossed over one shoulder and Hermione's favorite denims in her hands.
"I'm dressing you. Your closet needs work," Pansy deadpans, her words mirroring the words which Hermione had spoken to her in her boutique. "We'll stop by my shop while we're out and pick out a couple of pieces."
Pansy spreads out the blouse and denims out on Hermione's bed, narrowing her eyes for a moment before deciding that the items are sufficient. She then disappears back into Hermione's closet before returning with a pair of tennis shoes.
"I will eventually wean you off of flat shoes, but… baby steps."
Pansy drops the shoes onto the floor at the foot of her bed and waves her hands in such a way which Hermione takes to mean, 'Alright, chop chop, get dressed.' Pansy then crosses the room and heads toward the door to Hermione's bedroom, presumably to give her privacy to dress.
"Wait, Pansy," Hermione says, her voice cracking slightly. "Why are you doing all of this?"
Hermione tugs on the sleeve of the jumper which she slept in uncomfortably. Up until yesterday, Hermione would've considered Pansy Parkinson to be on her list of undesirables, as it were. In fairness, it was only a few months ago that Hermione would've also considered Draco to be on that list, but she thinks that perhaps Pansy might've even topped Draco in that regard– and yet, here she is, getting Hermione up and out of bed after a difficult night just like a friend would do.
"We're friends now, Granger. Get used to it."
Hermione realizes– perhaps belatedly– that she didn't even address Pansy's multiple declarations of Draco's supposed feelings toward her. Upon reflection, Hermione feels conflicted.
Hermione knows that she has spent several months now watching an alternate version of herself engage in a romantic relationship with vision-Draco, but in terms of how the version of herself in reality feels– she isn't sure. She has certainly surprised herself by how much she has enjoyed Draco's company since that first conversation at the pub.
Hermione doesn't think that she has feelings for Draco– at least not in the way in which Pansy is alluding to– but she certainly does feel something for Draco. She's grateful to him for helping her research her condition. She's angry at him for ending their friendship when it got difficult for him. She's hurt because she had gotten used to the routine of spending multiple evenings per week holed up in Draco's library with him and now she has to adjust back to not seeing him.
Hermione frowns and presses the heels of her palms to her eyes in frustration. That frustration is only amplified when a new vision swims into view.
In this vision, real-Hermione watches as vision-Hermione makes her way through her flat– from her kitchen into her sitting room– holding a large bowl of popcorn in her hands. She carries the bowl through her flat and sets it on her lap when she curls up on the sofa beside a man whom she unfortunately recognizes immediately.
Vision-Draco immediately slings his arm over vision-Hermione's shoulders and tugs her closer to him on the sofa as he presses a kiss to the top of her head. His other hand reaches over to grab a handful of popcorn from the bowl in vision-Hermione's lap.
Vision-Hermione catches vision-Draco's wrist before he has a chance to eat his popcorn and pulls him closer to her, gazing deeply into his eyes. Vision-Draco smiles a suggestive smile down at vision-Hermione as he releases his grip on the popcorn and moves the bowl off of her lap and onto the coffee table in front of them without breaking eye contact.
Vision-Draco returns his attention to vision-Hermione and wraps his free hand around vision-Hermione's thigh, dragging her legs up over his lap. He leans forward, sliding his hand up her thigh and around her waist as he brings his lips down to meet hers.
Vision-Hermione smiles and laughs lightly into the kiss as she coils her arms around vision-Draco's neck, pressing herself as close to him as she can get. She looks happy, which tugs at real-Hermione's heartstrings painfully.
Vision-Draco leans forward, tipping vision-Hermione off balance and onto her back on the sofa. With her arms still wrapped around him, vision-Hermione drags vision-Draco down with her.
Vision-Hermione pulls back just slightly, biting her bottom lip as she threads her fingers through vision-Draco's shockingly blonde hair. Real-Hermione can't hear what vision-Hermione says, but she can see how her lips move to form the words 'I love you'.
Vision-Draco seems surprised by vision-Hermione's statement, but only for a moment. A disbelieving smile spreads quickly across his face before he leans back down and crushes his lips to hers once more. When he pulls back, he rests his forehead against vision-Hermione's and whispers something back to her– real-Hermione supposes that she can likely guess what vision-Draco says in that moment.
When real-Hermione comes to after this vision, the first thing that she notices is that her heart is racing inside her chest, hammering against her ribcage dramatically.
Hermione gives herself a few moments of deep breaths to calm herself before she analyzes this vision.
Hermione assumes that this vision must be a depiction of the first time that vision-Hermione and vision-Draco say those three words to one another– or at least the first time that vision-Hermione had said them to vision-Draco, based on his reaction– and if it wasn't so bizarre to watch, she might find it sort of adorable.
Hermione sighs and rests her head back against the back of her sofa. She thinks that perhaps this vision might've been one of the most difficult for her to watch, even more so than her first vision featuring vision-Draco. In light of the recent end of her friendship with real-Draco, it's especially hard for her to see the vision-versions of themselves still so enamored with one another.
Hermione tucks her knees up against her chest and leans her chin on them as she contemplates some of the theories which she and Healer Greengrass have been bouncing around. One of these such theories is somewhat comforting, but also deeply frustrating– the theory that Hermione is Seeing snippets of her own future.
This theory is comforting in a sense because her visions have seemed to show that her friends and loved ones would then still be active participants in her life and that she would be able to watch her many nieces and nephews grow and even be able to fulfill the dream of having Harry walk her down the aisle at her wedding.
On the other hand, it's frustrating to Hermione to consider this theory because if that is, in fact, the truth, then that clearly would mean that she and Draco would somehow find their way back into one another's orbit. Evidently, it would be in a far different context than it had been up until last night, but they would be in each other's lives again nonetheless.
Hermione isn't exactly sure how she feels about that prospect. She decides, as she lays down on her sofa and curls inward on herself, that if that theory is correct, then sooner or later she is going to have to truly dissect whatever feelings she might have towards Draco.
When Hermione yawns and her eyelids begin to droop, she decides that she chooses 'later' for that particular task.
Hi, friends! Happy Tuesday! (:
Ladies and gentlemen, Pansy Parkinson. I love writing for Pansy so much, lol. She's such a fun character.
FRIENDS. Thank you all so much for your response to the last chapter! I'm so glad that so many of you liked that chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! (:
Fun fact, my two favorite chapters in this fic are chapters 21 (the last chapter) and 31, and no, that was not intentional, lol. The epilogues are also pretty great, if I do say so myself, but I can't pick every chapter as my favorite, lol.
I also really love this chapter, too, though- mostly because of Pansy, lol. Obviously, now we know why Pansy had such a change of heart way back when Hermione was shopping for her gala dress. She was scheming. :P
Also, for those of you who follow more of my work than just this fic, the final chapter of my other Dramione multi-chapter, Love Ain't, will go live this Friday! I hope you're excited because I am. (:
Remind me next week to update y'all on my posting schedule after Love Ain't is wrapped up. There's more coming in addition to just loads more Snippets. (:
All of that said, as always, thank you so much for spending a bit of your time here with me this week, I am truly so, so grateful. (:
If you feel so inclined, please review. I love reading your thoughts, theories, observations, and favorite parts of everything I write, and thank you in advance if you do review. (:
See you again next week!