Pansy was wailing, that, he knew.
He heard her shrieking cry cutting through him like a knife, slicing and stabbing at him cut by cut. Cold and warm with every shivering press of the blade, and his own blood that would fill its path. The icy shriek and the hot pulse of life that fought against it.
She cried, and she screamed, the slicing turning to a heaving pounding against his flesh and bones as rage slipped off her tongue and out from her mouth with every hallowed breath.
Hands found him. Grabbing and clawing. Fingers pressing and pulling. A hammering against his chest as she pleaded.
And the anger slipped. Pansy was wailing once more. And all Draco could bring himself to do was laugh.
He laughed as her please hammered down on him, as her hands dragged and hammered, and dragged again. He felt the slap of them against his wet clothes, the sodden fabric only adding to the weight and sting of every hammer against him.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he caught the orange glowing lights of the bus's schedule. Blurred orange stripes were just too far off in the distance and out of reach for him to truly make sense of them. But they glowed warmly in the corner of his eye. Just out where the world was finally meeting him. Drawing gently into focus. A little guiding light as the little fragments he'd found and focused on slowly drew together.
Draco was laughing.
And when he finally looked up from the dark concrete abys he thought he'd been drowning in, he laughed some more.
Pansy was scowling, hands landing tired falls against him as she sputtered.
"You fucker!"
She cried.
"You fucking, fucker !"
Draco laughed and she sobbed, "You fucking... Fuck."
Her hands clutched at his coat, and she surged toward him, letting her head slam against his chest as it continued to rattle out sputtering laughs. She screamed into him, croaking and angry before lurching back, releasing him quickly before planting a cracking slap across his face.
"Fucker!" Pansy was crying. "You scared me half to death!"
Draco coughed his breath finally as his laughter finally sputtered out. "I'm sorry," he said. He reached out and she lurched back, hands firmly crossed against her chest as she shrugged out of his reach. "Pans," he said. "Please," he said. "I'm sorry. I'm fine. I–"
"You scared me," she snuffled.
Pansy took a step closer, and he wrapped his arms around her frame, stepping in to meet her there as he held her.
"You scared me," she said.
"I know," he said. "I'm sorry."
She leaned into him, wet and squelching against his sodden clothes, sniffling and hiding a loud snort of snot against his dripping coat.
"If you ever do that again I'll kill you myself."
"I know you will, Pans... I know you will."
They stood there, as the water from his clothes soaked through to her own for a while, until suddenly she pushed off of him, a thick scowl etched into her face. "What the fuck happened? Why are you soaking wet?"
He shrugged, and turned his head to see Theo and Blaise departing the bus he'd not long tumbled in front of, each slipping their wands into their pockets. The doors shut on the bus, and it pulled away slowly, continuing on its route through Oxford, the passengers in the windows sitting peacefully, preoccupied with whatever may entertain them in their evening commute. The sound of the engine rattled away slowly until all that remained was the gentle buzzing hum of the orange lights, and the faintest drip, drip, drip as a puddle pooled at his feet.
He straightened himself out, felt his coat hang heavy off of his shoulders, and pulled tight across his back. He offered his hand out to her, the wet wool barely stretching under his reach. And then he said, "Do you trust me?"
He watched her eyeing him warily, her gaze flicking just barely briefly over to Theo and Blaise before refocusing back on him. She looked him up and down, glowering at the puddle that pooled by his feet, and jutting her chin upward as she finally met his eye.
And then without a word, but a silent firm nod, she grasped his hand tightly, and they were off.
~
Draco swam quickly to the surface, breaking through the water and dragging Pansy along beside him as he took in a gulping deep breath of the crisp night air.
Pansy sputtered loudly, spitting and splashing beside him as she gasped loudly, thrashing in the water as she took in their surroundings.
Her short hair slicked thick and heavy around her face, and as she spluttered, and swiped quickly at her eyes and forehead to clear the water, her short fringe matted up high on her forehead, and in the warmth of the streetlights, and the cold glow of the moon, her eyeshadow sparkled, displaced and streaking over her cheeks and brown as she whipped her head around.
Draco swam back towards her, from where they'd drifted somewhat in the waves they'd made, his feet kicking beneath him, and his arms swooping in wide sweeping motions at his sides to keep him afloat.
She continued to whip her head around furiously and bewildered, dipping spitting and spluttering in the river as she struggled to keep her chin out of the water. He reached out, and wound an arm under her own to try and help her keep afloat when she spun quickly, planted her feet against his stomach firmly as she pushed away, floating backwards as she gasped and gazed up at the night sky.
He waited as she floated away from him, tiny unintelligible mumbles escaping her lips as she continued to spit the river water from her mouth. He thought maybe she'd continue her tirade at him with some of her favourite fucking expletives, but she just mumbled quietly to herself and to the night sky, as she lay back and floated with her arms wide by her sides, the fabric of her coat swimming around her in the water, and her hair smoothing like a dark oil slick across her brow. He caught another glimmer of the glitters as they pooled across her cheeks, warm and cold in the competing lights.
She mumbled some more, and when he thought that maybe, she'd forgotten he was even there at all, he called out a tentative little, "Pans–"
"No." She spat quickly and righted herself, swimming quickly towards him, past him, and to the muddy riverbank. She trudged up it, gathering her long coat up in her hands and wringing out the water. She turned back to him, glowering, and pulled her wand from her coat pocket, before casting a drying charm over herself.
Draco swam slowly to join her on the riverbank, wading the last few steps slowly out of the water, approaching Pansy tentatively like greeting a rabid animal.
Pansy pushed her hair back firmly behind her ears, pinching the short dark strands between her fingers and firmly pulling and tucking at them until they stayed somewhat out of her face for more than a mere second at a time. They kept coming loose, wiring and waving away from her face, bouncing around her cheeks and flaring out just above her jaw.
She huffed violently out of her nose, and jutted her chin up at him as she stood there, her tongue pressed between her teeth and lip, protruding her pout like a bunny, as she glared at him through wide eyes.
"A word of warning," she said, "would have been fucking nice."
Draco stood before her, still ankle-deep in the water.
"I..." He trudged further up the riverbank, the ground squelching beneath him as he waded. "I know... I'm sorry. I just... I think a little part of me was scared to voice it... In case it didn't work again."
"Well whoop-dee-doo!" Pansy huffed. And then she laughed, a shrill sighing laugh before she sat herself down firmly in the mud, her elbows resting on her knees as she turned her face up to the sky once more. "You fucking did it," she sighed. "You fucking did it , Draco."
Draco sighed. He squelched over and joined her, sitting down in the muddy grass.
"I did it," he said. He leaned over and bumped his shoulder against her own. "I did it," he said again, a little sing-song creeping into his tone.
"You fucking Apparated."
"I fucking Apparated." He grinned so wide his whole face ached. Thought that maybe the creases that formed there would be permanently etched that way, carved into his face for all to see until the end of time. It ached so much that he thought, perhaps, he had splinched out the flesh in his face once more. Carved out a part of him in his travels. But he was there. All of him, alive and well. Thriving in the muddy banks of the river as he sat and watched the water meet the brick wall that crawled up to the pavement, the warm streetlights softening the reflection of the moon and the stars on the water, and the row of houses with emerald green doors that overlooked it all.
Pansy swung firmly into his shoulder, the damp of his clothes quickly seeping through to her dry ones, though she didn't seem to care. She stretched her legs out in front of her, letting her feet dip into the water once more as they sat quietly.
"So..." Pansy hummed. "Where the fuck are we, Merlin?"
Draco laughed quietly, planting his hands behind him in the mud as he leaned back and let his head hang forward. A few stray wet clumps of hair shielded him from Pansy's playful glare, obstructing his peripheral view of her only slightly as he sighed quietly, shaking his head lightly from side to side. He didn't quite know how to explain their destination, didn't quite know why it became their destination in the first place. Destination, determination and deliberation had perhaps escaped him in favour of dumb luck. Although he supposed, perhaps, that maybe he'd just accidentally committed the address to memory over the past few days. Read it over so many times that he'd latched onto it in desperation. Destination, desperation, dumb luck.
"It's... Just this town in Surrey." He decided that was a suitable explanation. "I came for a walk here – on the train. I liked the river."
Pansy scoffed loudly and clambered quickly up to her feet.
"Think you liked the river a bit too much," she said, attempting to dust off the caked-on mud from her clothes with her hands before banishing them clean with her wand once more. "Couldn't have parked us on the nice dry pavement?"
Draco also scoffed loudly when he clambered on up to stand beside her, wiping the mud from his hands off on the front of his trousers.
"Come on," she said, and jutted her hand out towards him, "Let's go get the boys before they resort to frantically shagging each other in a bush to cope with the trauma of losing us."
She waved her hand and beckoned him to her.
Draco made one more poor attempt to wipe the mud from his palms onto his soaked clothes before taking a step forward, taking her hand in his. Pansy just smiled up and him, the glitter on her face settled into the little creases under her eyes and around her nose, some caked into her eyebrow. She stood there, smiled, and swung their joined hands loosely from side to side.
"I'm ready," she simply said, a tight smile pulled across her lips as she grinned up at him. "Whisk us away, magic man."
Draco jutted his tongue out at her, just barely, as he forced a playful sneer.
He closed his eyes; pictured the bus stop; tightened his grasp on Pansy's hand.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out.
~
The ground beneath them was firm when they landed, the concrete a comforting change compared to the slippery squelch of the riverbank.
Theo and Blaise sat on the little grey bench of the bus stop, under the amber lights, shoulder to shoulder, faces like ghosts and gawping fish when they saw them.
Pansy stood beside him, still holding his hand in hers. He felt her grip tighten, her grasp warm against his own freezing fingers. And then she jumped beside him, hoisting his hand up in the air as she shook them both violently around by his face and gleefully declared, "You two losers, are not going to believe this!"
She whipped her head around violently between them all before releasing her grasp on his hand.
He watched as she shoved her way between him, and took one of Blaise and Theo's hands in each of her own before dragging them across the short distance to meet him once more. She grinned between them, hands still swinging as she ushered them into a circle.
"Take a deep breath boys," she said, "You're going to need it."
She stood there, eyes closed, hand in hand with Theo and Blaise standing before him in a little semi-circle.
Draco shrugged, offered his hands out to them palms up.
Blaise looked at his hand, drying mud caked between the creases, and his sleeves still soaking around his wrist and said, "Fuck it." He clamped his own hand firmly within his grasp.
Theo let a short sharp puff of air escape from between his lips. "Fuck it."
"Fuck it!" Pansy cheered loudly.
Draco muttered quietly, as he felt the weight of Theo and Blaise's hands in his own.
"Fuck it," he breathed.
The third time he surfaced, the night air felt so delicately warm against his skin.
Pansy was cheering loud and gleeful obscenities as she swam, swiping her hair from her face and laying back to float along the river with her arms spread wide and her feet kicking gentle waves around her.
Theo spluttered and laughed loudly, cackling into the night.
And Blaise thrashed around loudly, splashing up a whirlpool of violently frothing water around him as he hollered, "I can't swim!" He splashed about violently again. "I can't swim!" And even though he was making a right raucous of it, Draco thought that he did appear to be rather successfully treading water.
He slicked his hair back off of his face as he took in the sights around him once more.
"I'll save you!" Theo laughed loudly as he swam towards Blaise, reaching him in two easy strokes. The pair of them her lost in the violent thrashing and splashing of it all.
Blaise cried out something that vaguely sounded like, "You're trying to drown me!"
To which Theo barked out between laughs, "Just fucking lie back and stay still, you baby!"
The splashing and shouting continued on for a few more moments before the water began to still. Heavy waves still billowed out and away from them, but the splashing and thrashing had subsided.
Blaise was floating on his back, his arms spread out to his sides, whilst his head rested on Theo's shoulder. He was mumbling. They were both mumbling. Though, Draco could hardly hear what either was saying.
He swam just for the sake of it, indulging in the heavy drag of his wet clothes through the water, and the shivering prickle as his fingers and toes numbed in the cool water. He watched as the moon and the stars and the streetlights danced over the water's rippling surface, and watched as his breath danced before him in the night air.
He swam that way, basking in the moonlight as if it were the summer sun, as if the waters were warm and his skin was burning, as if his clothes didn't cling and weigh on him with every push and pull against the tides. He dreamt of a summer day in the ocean or a lake. The warm cry and chatter of his friends around him as he floated away. He could picture it if he just closed his eyes, the warm glow of the streetlights the faintest glimmer of the sun.
The splashing and spluttering started up on his side again, and he turned his head just in time to see Theo shove Blaise firmly under the water by his shoulders, his feet flipping up and out before kicking out violently as he resurfaced.
"You tried to drown me!" He barked out, water spitting from his mouth as he did so.
Theo cackled loudly before sinking underwater, out of sight beneath the frothing waves Blaise was creating before resurfacing up on his other side, where he spat out a heavy stream of river water from his mouth like a fountain before cackling loudly once more.
"You're not going to drown," he cackled through fits of laughter as he swam closer. "You can swim."
"I can't swim!"
Theo caught one of Blaise's thrashing legs and pulled sharply, dragging him near.
"You're not going to drown," he said low and firm, and little playful lilt just barely grazing his tone. "You can swim."
"I can't swim," Blaise protested.
Draco watched as Pansy swam up behind him, wickedly silent.
"You're swimming right now," Theo huffed, treading water far calmer than Blaise before him.
"I can't swim!" Blaise shouted.
Theo hummed, looked about for a moment before he turned back to Blaise and said, "Then drown."
Pansy shot up out of the water quickly as she pounced on Blaise's shoulders and shoved him firmly under the water in a flurry of bubbles and laughter.
He resurfaced quickly, sandwiched between Theo and Pansy as he continued to shriek, "I cannot swim!"
Theo brought his arms down firefly against the surface of the water, splashing and drowning Blaise and Pansy in one heavy wave that Pansy tried her hardest to throw back in his direction, whilst Blaise continued to thrash and splutter amidst. "I can't swim!" He cried again.
"Oh shut up, Zabini, you've not drowned yet, have you!" Pansy cackled as she bobbed about in the tides they'd made.
Draco laughed along quietly as he watched the state of the three of them, sodden and shivering as they splashed about loudly. It was only when Theo sent a thundering wave his way that he swam over and joined them, slamming his palms down against the stinging water in harsh slaps as they splashed and kicked up the water around them, cackling into the night.
Blaise gulped down a large mouthful of the river water, and started to cough and splutter loudly. "I can't swim," he called out again, and for the first time, they started to believe him.
They all swam to the muddy riverbank, Theo dragging Blaise behind him, his head propped up against his shoulder once more before they reached the point where it was shallow enough to begin wading out of the water. Blaise stood, hands pressed to his knees and he coughed and retched, spitting up the water he'd swallowed down, as well as some of the wine he'd consumed earlier by the smell of things. They dragged themselves up onto the dry bank, stamping down some of the long grass to sit on, and letting their clothes just drip dry in the night air for a few moments.
Draco sat where he had done so earlier, his knees pulled up to his chest as he looped his arms around himself, cradling his elbows in each hand as he watched the waters settle, all traces of their raucous washed away with the tides.
When Blaise finally stopped coughing, he sat himself down between Draco and Theo, wiped the water off of his brow with his hand, and flicked it out back towards the river. "Now," he said, sounding rather jovial for the first time since they'd arrived in the icy waters, "You'll just have to take my word for this right, but you're not actually the first student of mine that's tried to drown me."
Theo tutted loudly from the other side of him. "That's not that hard to believe, actually."
"You," Blaise snapped, "absolute git."
They pushed and shoved at each other, bickering amidst the weeds until Blaise pushed too hard, slipped and sent them both flying. The pair of them laughed quietly, lying there in the mud, foreheads pressed together.
Draco turned to look up at the houses, and the neat rows of dark windows and green doors, all evenly spaced out and the gold numbers that glimmered faintly where the loose light caught them. He heard the faint muffles of laughter and chatter beside him in the mud, whispered and quiet. They ignored them politely, took a moment to just look out at the world around them and focus on the sound of water gently streaming by and the echo of bugs and birds far off in the distance, and even further off in the distance the gentle thrum of car engines. And Pansy turned to him, palm outstretched as she mouthed, "Pay up."
He sunk his hands into his pockets, fished out his sopping wallet and pulled out the little blue five-pound note that was folded slick in half. He offered it out to her, pinched loosely between his fingers with a little wincing shrug.
Pansy laughed, and muttered quietly a little, "You still owe me fifteen pounds." And as she folded the five-pound note in on itself one more time, and tucked it away in her coat pocket, she slumped into his side, and let her head fall against his shoulder.
Draco looked back up to the row of houses to their crisp green doors, just as one swung gently open. The light seeped out from the house, crawling out onto the pavement before a silhouette broke through, dampening out the light. He saw her standing there in the doorway, bundled in a blanket and a jumper, a mug steaming away in her hand. She drew one hand up and pushed at the hair that grazed her brow as she stepped over the threshold and down the little steps until she stood on the pavement. She walked all the way across the pavement, past the benches and right up to the railings, letting her elbows rest on them as she leaned over, her mug still steaming away as she took a long sip. The steam glowed under the streetlights, catching its warm orange hughes in its mist.
He wondered how she hadn't seen them. Perhaps the light didn't reach them there; down in the mud. Perhaps she wasn't looking.
A not-so-muffled moan echoed out from the weeds beside him.
"Draco?"
Oh . Hermione was looking right at him then.