Yes, my lovely readers-it's another update! Hope you enjoy! :-)
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The morning sun pulsed red on the back of her eyelids as consciousness overtook her. She lay there several moments, lightly stretching her tight muscles and turning her neck from side to side before suddenly recalling the events from the prior evening. Ever so carefully, her eyes cracked open, and ventured over to the space next to her. She fully expected to see Malfoy lying there in some varying stage of lethargy, but to her surprise, the bed was cold and empty.
She tried and failed to shake off the scant ember of disappointment kindling in her stomach since that particular sentiment would be, strictly speaking, counterintuitive to the current state of their relationship. Clearly, the vexing sensation was a symptom of the stress that occupied so much of her mind as of late.
Giving herself a modicum of grace for even having sprung that particular emotion in the first place, she resigned to the fact that his absence was for the better. After all, it would eliminate the need for any awkward exchanges between the two of them- at least for the time being.
She paused momentarily, rapidly reorienting her thoughts to suit the busy day ahead. Malfoy had likely risen early to address the dilemma that was Pansy Parkinson. Which would mean the others would be hard-pressed to begin the final preparations for their mission. With her hopes high for a morning uncomplicated by any further upheavals, she donned her silk bathrobe and made for the shower.
When she finally emerged not twenty minutes later, she stiffened at the multiplying volley of voices coming from the kitchen.
Much to her chagrin, it seemed the others had started breakfast without her.
As she strode down the hallway toward the sitting room, the unmistakable sound of Pansy's ear-splitting laughter ricocheted off the walls causing a sudden swell of anger to clot in her throat.
What was she still doing there?
When the realization hit that Malfoy had completely disregarded their agreement to send her packing, the searing outrage morphed into something much more diabolical.
Disguising her fury long since abandoned as an option, she allowed herself to be carried away by the flaming footfalls that guided her straight toward the commotion without even so much as a backward glance.
Ron, with his remarkable inability to not read the terrifying look on her face, saw her approaching first. "Hi, 'Mione! Guys, look who's finally awak-"
"Malfoy," she ground out through the feral storm of her tightened lips. The strained calmness of her voice contravened the metaphorical steam coming from her ears when he craned his neck around to see her, his expression the epitome of a wizard chattering with his best mates and without a care in the world. "May I have a word with you outside, please?"
The din of the kitchen extinguished like the dousing of a crackling flame.
"Can it wait? I'm currently in the middle of-"
"It's fine, Draco. It's me she has the problem with." With the uncanny ability to recognize a fellow female in the throes of a fit of rage, Pansy tossed her napkin onto her plate and rose to stand. "C'mon, Granger. Let's go outside and settle this like two grown witches."
Four pairs of terror-stricken eyes trained on Hermione like the world was poised to fall off its axis, guardedly awaiting her response.
The tight skin along Hermione's jawline twitched once, then twice before she exhaled through her rankled nostrils. "Fine."
But before a visibly relieved Malfoy had the chance to turn back around, she shot him a deathly glare, then flashed the others her deepest look of displeasure before marching toward the front door several paces behind Pansy.
When Pansy landed outside the cabin, Harry mustered up the grit no one knew he possessed when he called out to Hermione. "At least hear her out- she actually brings up a good point."
A growl fought to crawl up her neck, but she swallowed it down with a muffled huff before stepping out into the courtyard, fortifying her resolve to put an end to whatever burgeoning camaraderie was birthed in her absence between her friends and the unwanted guest.
Pansy chose the least ideal place to stage her intercession- bordering a mammoth sand dune on the easternmost side of the shack, where a steely breeze tossed muddled clouds of dust in their general direction. Hermione swatted away a particularly harsh fog of desert fragments as she came to a halt across from her markedly bold adversary.
For the length of several gusts, the pair stood stock still, silently appraising one another.
Pansy was the first to speak.
"Look, Granger- I know we're hardly what you'd call friends so I really don't expect you to give two shits about what I'm about to say- but for the sake of the case, I hope you at least hear me out."
It took all the self-control Hermione scarcely possessed to not allow the biting retort that was dangling precariously off her tongue to dislodge itself from her mouth.
Namely, how Pansy had the audacity to barge in on a DMLE-sanctioned mission and then thought she could not only opine about the case, but also commandeered herself into the task force's good graces with just a bat of her eyelashes and a swish of her hips.
She owed her former tormentor absolutely nothing, least of all a fragment of her time, but for some reason, Harry's parting words more than piqued her curiosity about what Pansy might have to say.
So instead of contesting her assertion, she braced herself for the pointless drivel that was fixing to accost her ears.
Pansy swiped a flurry of ebony locks away from her face. "I know the MacNair case is high-security and classified and all that other tripe- but I think I can be of assistance to your mission."
Hermione's eyebrows crawled up her forehead. "You can assist our mission? What knowledge pray tell do you possess about our mission?"
Pansy's shoulders dipped a fraction of an inch, succumbing to the ugly truth that she owed Granger at least this much transparency. "Look, it's not Theo's fault. Or Draco's for that matter. I just have an unnaturally acute sense of hearing- and also I'm highly resourceful as it pertains to acquiring useful information- you know, when the opportunity presents itself. And, well- men aren't exactly winning any awards for being observant, strictly speaking-"
"So, what? You eavesdropped on them?"
"Eavesdropping sounds so- unrefined. I rather like to think of it as intercepting. And what I intercepted sounded very much like a solid apprehension plan- despite Draco's remarks to the contrary- with only one glaring snag that sets the entire mission up for failure before it even gets off the ground."
Hermione coughed away her irritation as another burst of crude desert air swept unbidden against her face. "And what snag exactly did you uncover as you were not eavesdropping?"
She felt the unyielding constriction of fury enveloping her ribcage once again with the knowledge that neither Theo nor Draco could manage a discreet conversation about that which was indisputably classified information.
"Well- I know you're about to crawl into a cargo sack and pray no one notices Theo loading you onto a transport vessel." She studied what looked to be her day-old manicure, affecting indifference for what she knew was a blatant breach of DMLE protocol. When she glanced back up, she was unsurprised to find Hermione standing there fighting to tame her mounting outrage. "It's pretty obvious Draco doesn't want you involved- at least from what I heard-"
For reasons unknown, she flashed Hermione a look of remorse for the unscrupulous means by which she'd acquired that little tidbit of information, but neither witch considered the token genuine.
Something about the topic of Malfoy and his continued opposition to her efforts struck a particularly raw nerve that was still festering from the previous evening. "I'm well aware that Malfoy does not support our mission. He's made that perfectly clear to me. So, I'd rather not waste another breath chattering about his opposition to- well, anything really. Was there a point to your telling me all of this? Because if not, I'm leav-"
"All I was saying is that as ironclad as this whole scheme of self-destruction sounds-"
"Wait, I thought you just said it was a solid plan. You know what, nevermind-I'm going-"
"My point is, you missed one glaringly obvious detail."
Curiosity halted Hermione's impetuous flight as she swiveled back to face her. "And that is?"
"That is- that Harry is a completely illogical choice for the role of honeypot."
Hermione's eyebrows inched up her forehead. "Honeypot? Do I even want to know what that is?"
Pansy scoffed out a flustered groan at having to explain something so elemental. Her condescending eyes raked over Hermione, slowly covering every inch from the very peak of her still-damp frazzled mass of hair down to the tips of her kitten-embroidered threadbare slippers. "Why am I not surprised you have absolutely no understanding of the most basic of principles in attracting the attention of the opposite sex?" She suddenly seemed to realize how expressly rude that statement sounded as it escaped her pliant lips and how very at a disadvantage she was in authority over her current situation, so she quickly amended, "You know, no offense."
Hermione swallowed down the mortification her former tormentor's words had a way of invoking. "I'd have to actually value your opinion before I'd ever be susceptible to offense by you."
Despite the jab, Pansy remained unflappable as ever. She feigned a look of guilt for the unwarranted barb, but the act of contrition fell flat when she discovered Hermione was again on the brink of walking away from their conversation before it even had the chance to begin.
"Look, I wasn't trying to insult you-it's just-"
Seeming to realize it would be far more impactful to her cause to show rather than tell, she garishly stiffened the planes of her upper arms against each side of her breasts which resulted in them teeming over the top of her low-cut blouse, causing her already oversized bosom to swell to new heights.
Then, she shimmied.
"What in Merlin's name are you doing?" Hermione choked out, completely aghast at the new degree of indecency Pansy deigned to exhibit.
Was there no level to which she wouldn't stoop?
She scrunched up her face in revulsion while trying unsuccessfully to look anywhere but at the overflowing flesh that continued to jiggle in her direction.
Unsurprisingly, Pansy didn't even have the decency to look ashamed for the tasteless display of vulgarity.
Instead, she stared down at her chest with pride before her eyes crawled back up to Hermione's. "It's just, I think you will agree that I possess a certain invaluable attribute that no one else here can claim to have, least of all Harry. Which is why I think that instead of expelling me from the Ministry's safe house, you'd be far better suited to include me in your mission-as the honeypot."
When the pained grimace seemed to be stuck in perpetuity across Hermione's face, Pansy reluctantly dropped her arms to cross them in front of her chest causing her inflated globes to collapse back into place. "Look Granger-while I'm sure Harry is more than capable of stirring up a diversion, there is no assurance it will generate enough time for you and Theo to pull off the transfer. I know from experience that there is no better way to grab a wizard's attention than by the art of seduction. Men are so two-dimensional- if they like what they see, they will follow it to the ends of the Earth. And let's face it, no amount of Glamour charms in the world is going to create the fanfare for Harry that these girls would deliver. So, it only makes sense that you invite me to be a part of the task force."
By the time she had finished, her breath was harried either from the sheer force of her frenetic attempt to persuade or rather from the arid gusts that continued to swirl untethered between them.
Hermione finally managed to break her voice loose from its stilted state of bewilderment, but only enough to manage a constrained reply. "Pansy, what is all this about? This can't have anything to do with my allowing you to stay at the safe house seeing as you're more than able to spare a few Galleons for someplace far more accommodating."
Pansy looked affronted for being called out on this glaringly obvious detail.
"Look, I didn't Portkey all this way to sun myself on the Mediterranean, ok?" she said vaguely.
Hermione's expectant glare never faltered at the weak reply.
Pansy sighed in resignation, seeming to wage an internal war about how much of herself to lay bare. Recognizing this may be her last hope for winning Hermione's favor, she finally conceded to the collapse of her will.
"I can't be without him, all right?" she finally confessed. "I know I can't be the only one who understands what it's like to feel the magnetic pull of another human being. Theo tethers me to him with an intensity like nothing I've ever known before." She paused, thinking she ought to stop there, but once she began to speak she could no longer contain the amorous tsunami of words. "His voice is like the oxygen I need to breathe- his kiss leaves me with this- this- unquenched thirst. And it seems like the higher I build the walls around my heart, the harder I fall. Merlin, this was certainly never my plan- I was engaged to wed another wizard not even a fortnight ago for Circe's sake! But falling for Theo didn't exactly come with any warning signs, you know? It's probably the stupidest mistake I'll ever make, but now that we've found each other, I don't ever want to be without him again." By the time she was done, she was out of breath and her eyes cast down almost in shame that she had allowed her impenetrable façade to finally break.
Hermione stood there trying to absorb how a hurricane like Pansy Parkinson had turned into a puddle right before her very eyes, while also trying unsuccessfully to ignore how the witch's painstakingly raw words so closely mirrored those which she had lamentably felt for a particular wizard she was keen not to mention. Despite the undeniable differences between her and the raven-haired witch, perhaps they had one thing in common- completely abandoning common sense in favor of drowning in the inconvenient truth of falling for a glaringly unsuitable Slytherin. But, unlike Hermione, at least Pansy seemed to have chosen someone who fell right along with her.
She tried not let her own personal feelings regarding Pansy's predicament seep through, knowing her job at the DMLE required the implicit decorum of a rule-abiding professional- and what Pansy was asking broke about a dozen Ministry laws and regulations. Kingsley had already warned her she was skating on razor-thin ice after the Strout debacle. And what did she owe Pansy Parkinson after all? But something about the way she spoke ignited something profoundly empathetic within her that prohibited her from turning her back on her cause.
If she really took the time to consider it, having Pansy distract the shipping dock workers with her undeniable sex appeal seemed to be a far more reliable plan than a bumbling Harry aiming to start a row. It may have been three or four rungs beneath what was squarely ethical, but then again, nothing about the MacNair case warranted taking the moral high road.
With that in mind, she did what needed to be done. "Fine," she finally managed.
Pansy's eyes snapped up to hers in such a frenetic manner, it was almost as if they were seeking out the source of a fever-induced hallucination.
"Wait, what?" she croaked. "You're actually not going to throw me out of here?"
"Before we get ahead of ourselves, there are some ground rules," Hermione clarified. "First of all, you will make an unbreakable vow of secrecy. I can't have you running around blathering about the classified work we do while away on official DMLE business. And, second,-"
"I would have thought it'd be obvious that I'm on your side here," Pansy cut in. "Whatever happened before, you know, when Vold-"
"I know. Neither Malfoy nor Theo would permit you to be in their company if you weren't, but regardless-"
Her voice dipped to a more somber tone. "I just thought you should know- you know, in case you still thought I held any of those idiotic prejudices, because-"
"It's fine-" Hermione clipped, growing impatient with spending more time than she had to give dredging up the past when there was still so much to do to prepare for the subsequent day's mission. "I just need you to know that your presence here is conditional on you following the rules I lay forth. Which strictly speaking are very few given the grave circumstances. I'll have you know, I'm putting my entire career on the line here-"
"I realize that," Pansy said, looking ever the part of a witch swallowing her contrition. "Before you say anything else, thank you- you know, for affording me the opportunity to remain here- and maybe helping you all out while I'm at it." Suddenly feeling her skin crawl with the discomfort of acting like a Hufflepuff for longer than was necessary, she added with the beginnings of a wry smile, "And look on the bright side- with the sitting room at full occupancy, you and Draco can have your privacy in the bedroom-"
"Pansy," she interrupted with a firmness that said she most definitely was not going to allow the conversation to go there, "Malfoy and I are not together." Believing the admission would save her from any further insinuations, she added, "The article in the Prophet was a gross fabrication as a result of a foolish plan gone horribly wrong. So, whatever assumptions you've made about the two of us based on that erroneous notion-"
"Oh, I already know that," she said smugly, her dark eyes suddenly turning probing. "Draco told me everything."
Hermione felt like she'd swallowed a cornish pixie. "He told you everything?" she finally choked out, quickly trying to mask her uneasiness, her thoughts swirling with dread as she waited for her breathing to settle. Hopefully, that didn't mean everything everything. She waited for Pansy's reply as the air in her chest constricted painfully.
Pansy chuckled ruefully. "If the look on your face is anything to go by, I'd say there's plenty he's kept hidden."
Hermione unsuccessfully tried to fight the blush that threatened to crawl up her neck while also grounding herself in unflappable confidence.
"It doesn't take an alchemist to recognize the inferno of attraction that blazes between the two of you." When she caught Hermione about to protest, she cut in, "I just hope you know that the longer you stall, the higher the stakes will be. I would have thought by now one of you would have cracked, but seeing as you both are about as stubborn as a centaur's arse, I feel it's worth mentioning that Draco's wedding will be here before you know it, and-"
"I appreciate what you're trying to do," Hermione finally managed, her arms folded and for the first time appearing uncharacteristically uneasy. "And I know you mean well, it's just- well, I think you are mistakenly projecting what you have with Theo onto what you think you see with Malfoy and me. And while I appreciate your advice, our relationship simply isn't the way you're depicting it to be." She recoiled slightly, fighting hard to banish her own lingering doubts. Unfortunately, the past fortnight had stripped her of her ability to deny the attraction that now wrapped around her like an incarcerous spell, pushing her ever more firmly out of her comfort zone.
Pansy shrugged in resignation as Hermione closed her eyes for a moment and inhaled. "Well, you know where to find me if ever you'd like to talk." Before she sidestepped Hermione to return to the house, she drew her cardigan tighter around herself and placed a hand on the other witch's shoulder. "I was hesitant at first too because I was not ready for things to change. But believe me when I say that being both stubborn and blind can only lead to one thing- and that's heartbreak." Her eyes were suddenly uncharacteristically earnest. "If you ever need anything- you know- I'm here."
Long after Pansy left, Hermione stood there steeping in her former tormentor's words, watching the gusts of wind ladle sand into the air- until eventually, it stopped.