All My Friends Say
Draco's eyes blink open– a decision which he regrets immediately– and focus blearily on the confusing sight before him. The (clearly very late) morning sun is streaming through the open window in his study and while that isn't inherently confusing in and of itself, it takes Draco a moment to orient himself to his surroundings.
Draco is currently lying on his left side on the settee in his study, which is a place which the aforementioned wizard does not typically sleep. His head is also positively pounding, confirming Draco's guess that he must have been drinking last night. He doesn't actually remember doing so, but context clues seem to be pointing in that general direction.
Draco heaves himself off of the settee, tumbling to his knees as he fights off a wave of nausea. Once he is sure that he isn't about to empty the contents of his stomach onto the rug in his study, he stands, bracing his hands on the coffee table to his right as he does.
Draco's next order of business is to make haste for the loo and to find a vial of hangover potion in his bathroom cupboard– in that order, specifically.
Draco downs the sour-tasting liquid, closing his eyes in relief when the immediate effect of the potion is felt. Almost at once, his head feels less like his brain is fighting for freedom and his stomach has stopped turning.
After splashing his face with some cool water to clear his head a bit further, Draco returns to his study and approaches the hearth across from his desk. If Draco had been drinking last night, then the likely companions he might've had were most assuredly his former schoolmates.
Draco decides to start with Pansy, calling out her floo address and closing his eyes as floo travel threatens his stomach's earlier resolve.
"Pansy!" Draco shouts, waiting for the dark-haired witch to emerge from wherever in her flat she might be.
"Oh, good, you're alive," Pansy snarks, crossing her arms over her chest and jutting her hip out as she enters her sitting room. "I thought for sure that you'd given yourself alcohol poisoning last night."
Draco rolls his eyes.
"Then why did I wake up in my study and not at Mungo's?" Draco wonders, raising his eyebrows at his supposed friend.
Pansy shrugs her shoulders.
"Beats me. Theo brought you home. I was already busy flirting with Longbottom by the time that you told the bartender to leave the bottle."
Draco shivers. At this point, he's not even sure he wants to know what had caused him to get completely blackout drunk on a Tuesday night.
"And what exactly prompted my attempt to drink myself into an early grave?" Draco asks, wincing slightly and squaring his jaw for whatever his reason had been.
Pansy furrows her brows, dropping her arms to her sides.
"I'm not sure that I should tell you– not if you don't remember," Pansy breathes, the crease in her brow betraying her concern.
That's the first thing that truly strikes Draco as being odd since his conversation with Pansy began. If Pansy is in any way censoring herself with the express purpose of sparing Draco's feelings, then he knows that Something happened last night– capital intended.
"Pans," Draco states. "It can't be that bad. Just tell me."
Pansy shakes her head, frowning down at the floor for a moment before bringing her gaze back up to meet Draco's.
"I– I can't. Go ask Theo if you really want to know."
Draco grumbles under his breath at the dramatics of his friend before turning on his heel and disappearing back through the floo, this time with the destination in mind of Nott Manor.
"Theo!" Draco calls when he lands in Theo's foyer, dusting soot from his shoulders as he waits for the aforementioned wizard to appear.
Draco steps further into the receiving room, dropping himself unceremoniously onto the sofa across from the fireplace and kicking his feet up onto the coffee table in front of it.
"Now, I know that Narcissa Malfoy didn't raise you to put your feet on people's furniture," Draco's best friend, Theodore Nott, snarks as he enters the receiving room. "Absolute heathen, you are."
Draco is positive that his eyes will likely roll completely to the back of his skull by the end of the day, but in his defense, he thinks that Theo also deserves the eye roll.
"Fair point, but she did raise me not to leave my completely pissed friends for dead after a night out," Draco retorts, raising an eyebrow at Theo daringly.
Theo, for his part, laughs. It's not a full belly laugh, but it's a laugh nonetheless.
"In my defense, you demanded to be left alone. I wanted to bring you here, but your dramatic arse wanted to wallow in peace– and yes, those were your exact words."
"And why exactly was I 'wallowing'?"
Theo's face softens, his eyes turning down sympathetically.
"You don't remember?"
Draco eyes Theo pointedly.
"If I remembered, would I be asking?"
Theo sighs, rounding the coffee table and taking a seat atop the table beside Draco's feet.
"Granger showed up."
At those words, Draco's heart sinks and his attempt to drown himself in firewhiskey begins to make sense. Draco opens his mouth to pepper Theo with questions, but Theo beats him to it.
"With Weasley. It looked like they were back together," Theo explains, leaning his elbows on his knees. "I'm sorry, mate."
Draco swallows down a lump in his throat the size of a golf ball.
"You started shooting doubles as soon as she walked in. Blaise and I had to literally hold you back from interrupting her date. I dragged you through the floo right about the time that you started yelling across the pub that you were 'completely over' her and that she was 'going to have to try harder to make you jealous'."
Draco winces, dropping his head into his hands with a sigh.
"Did she– did she hear me? Or see me? I didn't ruin her night, did I?" Draco whines, slumping back against the sofa dramatically.
Theo shakes his head, tucking his legs up and sitting cross-legged on the table, as if he wasn't just reprimanding Draco for having his feet on the table just a moment ago.
"She definitely saw you and heard you. She was about to come over when I hauled you through the floo. Pansy went over and said something to her which I didn't hear, but it got her to sit back down."
Draco groans aloud, scrubbing his hands down his face in frustration.
"I miss her," Draco whispers, quietly enough that he hopes that Theo doesn't hear it.
"I know you do, mate."
Bollocks.
Draco spends more time than is probably appropriate sulking on Theo's sofa, vowing to himself that he'll never drink again if it means that he'll never make a fool of himself in front of Hermione again.
Once Draco feels as though he has sufficiently steeped in self pity, he drags himself up off of his friend's sofa.
"You don't have to leave, Drake. Maybe you shouldn't be alone today," Theo tries, his gaze meeting Draco's sympathetically.
Draco shakes his head, reaching for a handful of floo powder when he reaches the hearth.
"I'm fine, Theo. It's just a break-up."
Draco doesn't wait for a response before dropping his handful of powder and swirling away, back to his study.
With his eyes still closed from travel, Draco leans up against the hearth and rubs at his forehead, debating calling it a day already and just crawling into bed– unfortunately, alone. That plan is dashed when a quiet voice speaks up from somewhere in front of him.
"Draco?"
Draco's eyes snap open. That voice.
At first, he thinks that it's a trick– that he's somehow still drunk from last night and therefore hallucinating. He blinks his eyes thrice, hoping to clear the cruel mirage from his sight, though she doesn't disappear.
"Hermione," Draco breathes, stumbling slightly as the witch before him knocks the air from his lungs for probably the thousandth time in his short life. "W-what are you doing here?"
Draco steps out of the fireplace, though still keeping his distance, standing across the room from where Hermione is perched, leaning against the front of his desk with her hands tucked into the kangaroo pocket of her Muggle sweatshirt.
"I was worried about you… after last night."
Draco sighs.
"I'm fine, Granger," Draco huffs, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. "I'm also not your problem anymore."
Hermione scoffs, kicking off from Draco's desk and stalking up to him. She's not so close that he could reach out and touch her, but she's close enough that Draco can smell her perfume– her perfume which he would bet an obscene amount of galleons that his Amortentia would still smell like, were he to investigate that claim.
"You are unbelievable," Hermione snaps. Draco tries to feel intimidated, but he's too focused on the freckles dusting over her nose to care that he's made her mad– naturally. "You break my heart and now here I am, trying to be nice to you and–"
"I broke your heart? You're joking, right?" Draco can't help the laugh which escapes rather violently from somewhere deep in his chest.
"Well, considering you're the one who broke up with me, no, I am not joking."
Draco shakes his head, quickly tiring of this rehashing of positively old news– in particular, old news which he absolutely does not want to be reminded of.
"Go home to your boyfriend, Granger," Draco hisses, stepping to the side to open up a path toward the floo for the small, stubborn witch before him.
Hermione rolls her eyes, huffing an exasperated noise in Draco's direction.
"I don't have one of those, Draco. You made sure of that, didn't you?"
Draco tips his head to the side, now confused. According to Theo, she and Weasley are back together– or, at least, they were last night.
"Well, surely you haven't forgotten already," Draco narrows his eyes, raising one hand to hover just a bit higher than the height of his own head. "Red hair, about yay tall, chews with his mouth open? Ring any bells?"
Hermione's eyebrows furrow in a look which Draco recognizes as uncertainty.
"Ronald? Merlin, Draco, are you still drunk?" Hermione questions, her voice like acid pouring through Draco's veins. "Are you sure you haven't completely marinated your brain in firewhiskey?"
"Oh, please, Granger," Draco sneers. "I may not remember last night, but I do know that you were with him. Don't lie to me."
Hermione squeaks a frustrated little sound before immediately stepping forward once more and shoving at Draco's chest. It doesn't hurt him, of course, but it does surprise him, forcing him to stumble backward a step.
"Yes, I was with him last night. I was with him last night because he finally managed to drag me up out of my bed. It's been weeks since I've seen my friends. I've been too heartbroken to go anywhere or do anything! Merlin forbid I have dinner with a friend and eat a real meal for the first time since my absolute arse of an ex-boyfriend broke up with me!"
Draco opens his mouth to speak, but a harsh Look from Hermione makes him snap his jaw shut immediately.
"You probably don't remember because you were sloshed, but I cried last night– in the middle of the pub. I wanted to go after you to make sure that you were okay. I've never seen you that drunk. Pansy talked me out of it. She said that Theo could handle you. I disagreed, but I was outvoted."
Hermione steps up close to Draco again, her chest separated from his own only by both of their crossed arms. The skin on his forearm tingles as it brushes against her sweatshirt.
"Theo wouldn't know that you need a Sober-Up before bed or you'll get sick in the morning. Theo wouldn't know where your bottom drawer of cozy, Muggle pajamas is. You're wearing the same clothes as you were last night, so my guess is that he probably just dumped you in your bed and left," Hermione frowns, as if the thought deeply troubles her. Her voice is quieter when she speaks next. "Theo wouldn't know what a cuddly drunk you are."
"Actually, he dumped me on the settee, not in my bed– and I doubt he would've stayed for a cuddle, even if I asked. I'm not really his type."
Hermione is quiet for a moment, her amber brown eyes boring into Draco's pleadingly.
"I love you, Draco. I still do– and if your shouting and carrying on last night held any truth, you still love me too."
Draco decidedly doesn't answer.
"I want to know why you left me. Either you lied to me when you broke up with me– because you outright told me that you didn't love me anymore– or you were lying last night, and I'm sorry to say, but I believe Drunk Draco over Sober Draco. Drunk words are generally sober thoughts."
Draco takes a step back, which does absolutely nothing as Hermione takes a mirroring step forward.
"It doesn't matter how I feel, or even how you feel, Hermione. It matters what people will think."
Hermione drops her head, a short, somewhat manic laugh breaking through her lips on an exhale.
"Unbelievable. This is about the Prophet again, isn't it? How many times do I have to tell you that I don't care what that ridiculous publication has to say? Rita Skeeter doesn't have jurisdiction over my relationships," Hermione states, her voice firm, if a bit annoyed.
"I'm trying to do the right thing by you, Granger!" Draco exclaims, raising a hand and dragging it though his hair. "The last article that the Prophet published about us posed the question of whether you would tell our children that their father was a Death Eater or not. You're a war hero, Granger. I'm a war criminal. Those two monikers don't mix."
Hermione moves so quickly that Draco doesn't have even a moment to question her trajectory. He realizes, upon feeling her arms winding around his neck and her chest pressing tightly against his own, that he wouldn't have had the strength to stop her even if he had.
"Except that they clearly do. You've changed, Draco. You served your sentence. I know you. You're not who you were during the War. You've proven that– over and over and over again. Skeeter is the only person who still sees you as a Death Eater. I certainly don't."
Draco wants to argue. He wants to tell Hermione that it's definitely not just Skeeter who still sees him as a Death Eater. Sure, there's been far fewer people literally spitting at him as he walks down Diagon, but that doesn't mean that they aren't thinking it.
Draco decidedly doesn't argue, though, because in the next moment, his lips are otherwise occupied when Hermione stands on her toes and catches him in a kiss which buckles his knees.
Draco has to reach out and hold onto Hermione's waist so that he doesn't fall over, but he finds that he quite likes using her as his anchor. After all, she's been his anchor for over a year now and he doesn't anticipate that changing any time soon– break-up or no break-up. Just knowing that she lives and breathes the same air as he does gives Draco an overwhelming sense of peace. Having her in his arms, kissing her, is an entirely different sort of anchoring– like his feet could grow roots exactly where he stands and he would be happy to never move again if it meant that he could keep kissing her.
Hermione pulls back long before Draco would prefer that she does. In fact, he'd be plenty happy if she never stopped kissing him, but alas, oxygen is an unfortunate necessity.
"How about you let me decide what's right for me, hmm?" Hermione breathes, her words brushing over Draco's lips. "I think you'll like my decision, at any rate."
The corner of Draco's lips turns up into a smirk, which Hermione quickly smothers with a kiss. The witch drops back onto flat feet, tugging Draco along with her as she walks backward in the direction of his study settee.
In the next moment, Draco is spun in a circle and shoved into a seated position on the settee– quickly joined by a petite, curly-haired witch climbing into his lap. Draco's hands rise to rest on Hermione's hips, holding her in place.
"I want to be with you, Draco. I don't care what anyone else thinks or says. I want you and you want me. That's enough for me. Is it enough for you?"
Draco cranes his neck up, seeking a confirming kiss, which Hermione allows– quite happily, it seems.
"You are more than enough for me, Granger– always have been, always will be."
Hi, friends! Happy Friday! (:
So, today's Friday one-shot is based on the song "All My Friends Say" by Luke Bryan. I was listening to this song a few weeks ago and could just so vividly picture this story playing out in my head, so I knew that I had to write it, lol.
Just so you guys know, there will not be a Friday upload next week. I am feeling so burned out on writing right now and I just need a break. I'm currently working on a multi-chapter Fremione, which I may be taking a break on for the moment and of course there are still plenty of chapters of Snippets which will be going up every Tuesday, as usual, but I just feel drained and like I need a break, so there will be no Friday upload next week or for the foreseeable future. Thank you for your understanding.
As always, thank you all so much for reading this one-shot and for spending a bit of your time here with me this week. It means more to me than you know. (:
See you again soon.