"In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different."
— Coco Chanel
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“Bloody hell.”
“What now?”
“Granger, you can’t make hangover potions for shit.”
“I’ve told you. You had a lot to drink last night and if you consume anything stronger than what you’ve already had it’ll –”
“Do I look like I give a flying Hippogriff’s arse? I’m in agony here!”
She shot him a withering glare. “Maybe you wouldn’t be if you kept your voice down.”
“I’ve only raised my voice because you have!”
“Actually, I haven’t. You only think everything’s louder than it really is because –”
“Shut up, Granger.”
Hermione scowled at him; a little affronted he obviously doubted her potions ability. Honestly, if the potion didn’t work at all, why didn’t he just go and make himself one? Lazy toadlike man. He’d been in a foul mood ever since he came down the stairs that morning and was unable to stop from constantly glaring over his shoulder at her, as though everything was her fault.
“Why did you drink anyway?” Hermione asked curiously, playing with the edge of the tablecloth as she watched him prepare coffee.
“You really believe I’d tell you, of all people?” said Malfoy snidely, stirring his mug so profusely it was a wonder it didn’t splash up and hit him in the face.
Hermione looked away and stared at the dried up flowers in front of her, considering going out and doing some shopping for a while to get away from him and his moods.
“Why don’t you throw those damn things out?” he asked after a moment, inclining his head towards the flowers. “They’ve been dead ever since I moved in.”
“They were from Ron,” she answered in a monotone.
“Oh.” Malfoy sensed the awkward territory he’d wondered into and quickly changed the subject. “It’s a miracle I accepted your silly potion, you know. After last night and you trying to poison me and everything.”
Hermione glanced away from the flowers and instead watched him sip casually from the mug, leaning with his back to her against the counter, completely oblivious to his slip up. She’d briefly mentioned while making her ‘silly potion’ if he remembered anything from last night. He’d told her no almost instantly and momentarily she’d believed him – that is until he mumbled about finding Crookshanks’ fur throughout his hair and grumbled about allowing such creatures to sleep on his head.
Regardless of how many times he denied it, she was positive he remembered. Although he had appeared genuinely confused about waking up in his own bed, so Hermione concluded he could only remember snippets of last night before passing out at the laundry door, and for this she was thankful. It’d been uncomfortable enough when he’d first entered the kitchen, her brain switching back inadvertently to the things he had said, speaking with a passion she’d never seen before, and then the words ‘stay with me’ repeating in her head. If she was still squirmy about it, imagine Malfoy’s reaction if he knew everything he’d told her.
She wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t. And there was no reason to remind him. The best thing for her to do was forget about it. File last night away and throw out the key.
“I need you to go to dinner with me.”
She had been too preoccupied with her thoughts for his words to coax an immediate response, and when she registered them, she stiffened. “I’m sorry?”
“I…” He groaned and turned to face her, a battle playing out behind his eyes. “I need you to come with me for a dinner.”
“Uh, what for?”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t get so excited, Granger. It’s not a date. Calm down. I know you want me, but really, control your urges around your cat.” He looked down pointedly at Crookshanks, who apparently had developed some sort of like towards Malfoy ever since sleeping on his head. He meowed and rubbed himself against his legs.
Hermione glared at the ginger feline, irrationally annoyed that her own cat had gone over to the dark side. “I only date men with morals and courtesy, thank you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He straightened his posture to look more dignified and robust.
“Nothing,” Hermione said innocently, letting her hand hover over the apples in the fruit bowl. She tried not to smile when she saw the defensiveness in his eyes, watching very stilly should she decide to take one of his precious apples. When she grabbed an orange, his body visibly relaxed.
“Is that a challenge, Granger? You don’t think I have morals or courtesy?”
“Oh, I don’t think. I know.”
“Please, I’m brilliant.”
“Uh huh.”
“I am,” he insisted.
“And I think it’s great that you think you are.”
“I hate you.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. Now, what’s this dinner about?” Hermione asked, turning serious again.
Again, Malfoy groaned. “It’s not because I want you to, so lets just get that straight. It’s with my mother and… and a friend. She’d like to meet you and ask about your work.”
Hermione laughed, but there was no amusement in it. “You want me to have tea, with your mother and her friend along with you?”
“Yes.”
Pause.
“No.”
“What? Oh, come on!”
“It could be a trap to kill me or something,” she said, folding her arms and leaning back into the chair, biting into piece of orange carefully so juice wouldn’t squirt everywhere.
“You die, I die,” Malfoy sang, repeating words she seemed to be hearing a lot lately. “Besides, Natalie Hopkins likes your sort.”
“Natalie Hopkins? I’ve met her before.”
“Brilliant, you’re already acquainted! So how about it, Granger?”
Now it was Hermione who groaned. “Fine.”
***
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Why won’t it stop crying?”
Hermione wanted to scream and tell everybody in her office to get the hell out. But she wasn’t that kind of person and felt maybe they should stick around, should she need any help.
It was Wednesday, 4:19pm. Ten minutes ago, a house elf had arrived in the building in hysterics, and because Hermione was head of the Promotion for Elfish Welfare, it’d been brought straight into her office, disturbing every single one of her workers so now the room was at its full capacity; the other employees ogling through the little windows beside her door nosily to see what was going on.
Being claustrophobic did not help matters, and accompanied with the sobbing elf and yelling people squished up around her, Hermione was about to go into panic mode. Not to mention she also had to leave and get back to the flat soon to get ready for dinner with bloody Malfoy’s mother and Natalie.
“What the hell is going on?”
Her head snapped up. Looking past the fifteen different coloured heads, she saw said person in her doorway. Great.
“Malfoy, get out of here. I’m busy.”
“Yeah, I can see that. What are you doing?” And then, noticing the sobbing elf in the centre of the room: “Holy shit.”
“I know,” moaned Hermione, shuffling past everyone so they wouldn’t have to yell over the noise. “I’ve got to sort this all out, so I don’t know how late I’m going to be. Could you possibly tell Natalie I’m very –?”
His face hardened. “No Granger, you’re still coming and you won’t be late.”
“Are we in the same room right now?” she asked, fixing him with a disbelieving look. “There’s no way I can –”
“You will,” Malfoy said confidently, and then louder he spoke to the rest of the room, “Everybody, get out. Now.”
He didn’t yell, or even use threats, but for some reason everyone listened and stumbled out of the office. Some threw curious glances as they passed, but most had their heads down. It wasn’t long until it was just Hermione, Malfoy and the elf, who was still sobbing horribly, tears completely drenching the front of her worn out dress and dripping from her long nose.
“So that’s what all the commotion is about,” said Malfoy matter-of-factly.
“Yes. I can’t get a coherent word out of her.”
Malfoy studied the elf a moment longer, drinking in her appearance, until he apparently saw something that caught his attention. He strode over to her, crying so hard now that she didn’t even seem to notice Malfoy’s presence until he, very hesitantly it was almost painful to watch, bent down and picked up a very blue and fluffy slipper at the elf’s feet, examining it closely.
“I know who this is,” he murmured a second later, turning it over.
“Who?”
“This is Tully, Theodore Nott’s house elf.” His gaze met Hermione’s. “Blaise told me she has a thing for slippers.”
At the sound of her name, Tully looked up and sniffled loudly, wiping her eyes on her dress and said, “Master is missing.”
Whatever Malfoy was thinking about Theodore, he kept his face blank, and she wondered if the only way to ever truly know what a Malfoy was feeling was to get them inebriated.
After a very long argument about what to do with Tully – Hermione insisting that they stay with her and Malfoy angrily saying that Tully was just an elf and she’d be fine if they left her, to which Hermione replied with a few choice words of her own – both eventually agreed she’d be better off staying with Shannon, the Official House Elf Caretaker. Though Malfoy still mumbled and grumbled to himself about how elves were getting fairer treatment than wizards these days.
But even Malfoy’s complains didn’t last as long as Hermione’s concerns about Tully. In fact, once they’d Apparated back to the flat, so much of her attention was focused on the house elf that she was hardly taking notice how she was dressing herself for dinner.
Therefore, it was understandable when Hermione met up with Malfoy in the kitchen half an hour later that the expression on his face went from impatience to amusement. It had taken her about three minutes longer than it should have to realise what was wrong, but then he gave her a pointed look, his eyes going down to her dress and back again.
The buttons were done up very crooked, so crooked that the right side was about five inches longer than the other, the holes of missing buttons poking out.
“Wow, Granger,” he drawled. “Spending too much time with Weasley, don’t you think? I’d have expected something like this from him, but never from you. How disappointing.”
“Oh, shush you,” Hermione huffed, turning her back to him to fix herself.
Malfoy cleared his throat behind her. “Either turn around and show us what’s under there, or go up and do that in your room.”
Hermione, flustered, almost slipped and ripped one of the buttons right off. “I, uh, what?”
“It was a joke. Just hurry, would you?”
Of course it had been a joke, but since when did Malfoy joke with her, let alone suggestive jokes? Hermione didn’t care, not really, but since last night it was harder being around him. She felt so embarrassed and had no idea why because there wasn’t even a proper reason to be embarrassed. If anybody should be feeing uncomfortable, it should’ve been Malfoy. But of course, he was lucky enough to not remember.
When she finished, they Apparated to a part of London Hermione wasn’t entirely familiar with, but if the outside of the restaurant and the shops that surrounded it were anything to go by, it was an expensive part. The kind of places Hermione remembered always looking through the windows and wondering if one day she’d ever have enough money for a night of dining there.
Malfoy, for his part, couldn’t have looked more bored if he tried. Didn’t he realise how beautiful this place was? The front windows had water flowing down in steams, and everything Hermione could make out inside was lined in gold, the very interior seeming to glow, fresh flowers on every table. And the food, Merlin, it smelled spectacular.
“Draco, darling!” a voice called.
Hermione looked where the sound of clicking heels was coming from and saw three women approaching them. The first was obviously Malfoy’s mother, beautiful and lips coated in red as always, wearing robes of the finest silk. The second was Natalie, who looked just as elegant and reeked of power and wealth, her nose partially inclined into the air. She smiled when her eyes connected with Hermione’s, but it lacked genuineness. And the last woman was nothing short of shocking.
Pansy Parkinson.
But she didn’t look like Parkinson. She hadn’t changed much in looks, by no means – it was the same when Hermione had first, literally, ran into Malfoy. The only difference in him had been his height, the definition of his face, and his hair; no longer slicked tightly back but combed through carelessly yet neatly. And it was the same with Parkinson.
She was taller than Hermione remembered (likely the shoes?), her hair was longer and darker, and she’d grown into her rather unflattering nose and had learned how to properly apply makeup without layering it on. Small alterations and definitely not the reasons why Hermione couldn’t help but stare.
It was Parkinson’s expression, her body language, appearance. The unkempt condition of her hair and how she wasn’t looking the least bit thrilled to see Malfoy, but rather looked right past him as though he wasn’t there. They were under the same streetlight now and Hermione could see the redness and purple bags under her eyes, the downward turn of her mouth, the bleak expression. The life seemed to have been literally drained out of her.
“Hope neither of you mind,” Narcissa’s voice broke through Hermione’s thoughts. “I brought Pansy along with us.”
Malfoy was looking at Parkinson with what could only be described as astonishment. He blinked, visibly swallowed to sturdy himself, and gave a stiff nod that she did not return.
Narcissa and Natalie ushered the three former Hogwarts students into the restaurant, and were then led by a waiter to an isolated back corner. There were no menus on their table, to nobody’s confusion but Hermione’s, and she watched, stunned, as everyone ordered exactly what they wanted, down from how much pepper they wanted to how much salad.
When it was Hermione’s turn, she was thankful that no one at the table was paying any attention to her; Parkinson and Malfoy were looking down in their laps, while Natalie and Narcissa stared blankly at the patterns in the tablecloth – only the waiter witnessed her awkwardly shift in her seat.
“Madam?” the waiter inquired, a quill and paper floating mid air beside his head.
She thought quickly, thinking of a dish that was commonly served, but then a light bulb suddenly went off, and she found herself saying, “Make something, anything, for me.” In a place so orderly and exact, it needed some stirring.
The waiter looked torn between laughing or throwing the quill at her. “Pardon?”
“I said, make something completely new for me. Something you’ve never made before. I’m not allergic to anything so it’s okay.”
Everyone was now definitely looking at her and Hermione was kind of relieved to see Parkinson act like her old self when her upper lip curled in dislike.
There was stifled laughter over the restaurant’s quiet chatting. At first she thought it was the waiter, but he had left, so her gaze shifted to the person sitting directly across from her.
Malfoy had his elbow on the table (Narcissa wrinkling up her nose at it), his palm pressed up against his mouth, though Hermione could still see his cheeks turned up in what could only be an attempt to hide a smile.
Their eyes met across from the table. It was so quick, she might have imagined it, but briefly she thought there was no hate when their gazes met, instead rather some sort of agreement or understanding, or something she didn’t quite understand.
Parkinson didn’t miss this either. She opened her mouth, no doubt to say exactly what was on her mind, but then Narcissa said, “Well now, let’s get this dinner started, shall we?” And like that, appetisers abruptly appeared before them, complete with mints beside their plates. Everything looked so tasty, Pansy easily forgot whatever it was she had to say.
And so dinner began.
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Next chapter; is a dramatic one. Pansy bursts into tears, so does Hermione, and there's another surprise visitor, this time in the flat.