femexchange_mod (femexchange_mod) wrote in fem_exchange, @ 2009-01-13 12:41:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | hermione/pansy, pg-13 |
Happy holidays, harpsi_fizz! (Hermione/Pansy)
Title: Party of Four
Author/Artist: ?
Recipient: harpsi_fizz
Rating: PG-13
Length/Medium: 2,170
Pairing(s): Hermione/Pansy, Ron/Draco
Summary:
Warning(s): None
Note: This wonderful prompt from harpsi_fizz asked for Hermione/Pansy, domestic fic, live-in partners, Ron/Draco side coupling, fluff, happy ending, Hermione slightly butcher than Pansy, housework, kitchen disasters and a freezing cold morning. Those last three I kind of worked in (although it’s night, not morning), and I hope it will do.
“Fuck it all to hell, Granger, it’s bloody freezing out here! Will you just let us in?” Draco growled in mild annoyance, clutching himself tightly—a position that Ron, beside him, was mirroring—as Hermione fumbled with the wreath Ron had managed to almost knock off the front of the door in his haste to bang on it and gain them admittance.
“There!” Hermione declared triumphantly, cheerfully ignoring Draco’s grousing as she put the final Sticking Charm back in place. “Ron, I’ll never know how your clumsiness always manages to defeat magic. Anyway, now you can come in, the both of you!”
“Finally!” Draco muttered to himself as Hermione stepped aside and he felt the gentle, unobtrusive pressure of his lover’s hand on his back as Ron guided him into the house first. “Love what you’ve done with the place,” he added a little dryly as he surveyed the waist-high bookcases that lined the entrance hall, on which numerous cardboard boxes were precariously piled.
“We’re getting there,” Hermione replied, the tone of pride sounding warmly in her voice and giving both men cause to smile a little. Hermione as house-proud as Molly Weasley; who’d have thought?
“Slowly!” Pansy mock-groaned from the doorway at the end of the hall, which ran the length of the house until it reached the kitchen. “Hermione had to carry all those in herself. That’s why they’re all there. I don’t suppose either of you two could help take at least a few of them upstairs, could you?”
“Pansy, we’re gay,” Draco retorted mock-sniffily. Ron and Hermione both grinned at the shared attitude of the Slytherins; hard work was just instinctively avoided, eschewed for attempts at wit instead.
“I’ll give you a hand if those two can promise wine and pizza will be ready by the time we get down!” Ron declared to Hermione, drawing himself up to his full height (just a shade taller than Draco), and peering down at his lover and Pansy as best he could.
“Deal. It’ll be a relief to get them out of the way,” Hermione declared with a sigh that showed just how much restraint she’d had to exercise in not nagging Pansy to death about trying to move them.
“You two do know that you have wands, right?” Draco muttered to himself, but nonetheless he made no move to seriously suggest an alternative method of transportation as Ron stepped up to the first box nearest the staircase and braced himself, clearly expecting it to be heavy. Draco was prepared to watch half-lasciviously—so his lover was fully dressed? He could imagine the look of straining muscles, couldn’t he?—but Pansy punched him lightly on the arm and drew him into the kitchen.
“Trust me. Those boxes are heavy. We should actually have this food ready before they’re done!” she told him as she moved over to the work surface where, shockingly, two loaves of bread lay cooling, almost as if Pansy had actually cooked them herself. Draco cast her a suspicious look
“You baked? Pansy Parkinson? Baking?”
“Hey! Like you don’t!” Pansy retorted. “Anyway, it’s only two loaves of ciabatta bread. It’s hardly cordon bleu.”
Draco looked as if he was doubtful of this, as if he were perhaps expecting her to have something much more fancy stashed in the oven, but Pansy caught his eye and sneered.
“They’re frozen Muggle pizzas Hermione buys, okay? Don’t be such a cat, Draco. I know you cook, that’s your ‘thing’. I just made some bread!”
Draco, looking slightly appeased, nodded, and had opened his mouth to say something when a loud wooden bang of something heavy hitting the bare floor above startled him. “Sounds like they will definitely be expecting some sort of foodie remuneration after all that… exertion.” He said the final word a little disdainfully, curling his lip in that pretty way that had attracted Pansy to him before she had begun to realise she was attracted to him because he was ‘pretty’. “What are we serving with the bread?”
“Some oil concoction of your own divine making, my dear. And the frozen Muggle pizzas. And vino. Lots and lots of vino!” Pansy added exultantly, swivelling around to perform her best ‘ta-da’ gesture in the direction of the well-stocked wine rack.
“Good enough for me,” Draco muttered to himself with a nod. “Warm plate?” he added half absent-mindedly as he began to move towards the spice rack.
Pansy quickly produced one from the bottom of the oven and handed it over to him before she began to ease the pizzas from the oven.
“So… move-in has gone well, then?” Draco asked casually, his back to his old friend as he quickly poured out some oil and ruminated over the spice rack.
“Fairly,” Pansy replied neutrally.
“Fairly? That’s hardly an answer!” he retorted.
A half a minute later, coupled with the bang of the oven door shutting, she snapped, “Yes! Fine. It’s going perfectly!”
“Then why do you sound so piqued about it?” Draco remarked with a raise of his eyebrow, half turning to her, the oregano jar now idle in his hand.
“Well, it’s not supposed to, is it? Moving in together is supposed to be full of grumbling and arguing and then, after, make-up sex,” Pansy confessed, sliding the second pizza onto a larger plate and then twisting the tea towel uncomfortably in her hands.
Draco, normally able to maintain more decorum, couldn’t help but snigger loudly. “Pansy, I think that things can go smoothly without risking the house-christening sex.”
“It’s not about the sex,” Pansy retorted with a pout. “It’s just… well, I’d like things to stay… normal.”
Draco raised his eyebrow at her. “Pansy, stop being an imbecile. You and Granger couldn’t be normal if you tried. Nor could you be anything other than perfect together. Which is more than I can say for these condiments. Did you simply pick them at random?” he griped, as if he couldn’t possibly say something nice without trying to hide it under more Draco-like whining.
“Who uses the word ‘condiments’, Draco?” Pansy replied with a small smile. Despite the fact that he was quite possibly a bitch, Draco always managed quite well at reassuring her. “Hermione chose things she likes.”
“Well, Hermione has rotten taste!” Draco snarked, poking out his tongue a little at his old friend. “There!” he declared with a celebratory flourish of the rosemary jar. “I think I’ve done the best that I possibly can with my ingredients!”
As always, Draco’s timing was impeccable (although Pansy was still rolling the cutter over the second pizza); Ron swept in through the door, much pinker than usual, and with a bead or two of moisture clinging his hair to his forehead.
“Food? There’d better be food!” the redhead growled only half playfully.
***
Hermione slammed the front door rather more forcefully (and with rather more drunken ‘flair’) than she had intended and made her way to the kitchen, running her hands along the tops of the bookshelves as she went—not to help her balance, just because she was glad they were clean, of course!
“Can you honestly believe we used to go out with those two?” she demanded of her lover—Live-in lover, now, she reminded herself.
Pansy looked up from trying to slip the cork back into the bottle of wine they hadn’t quite completely drained. “I don’t know about you and Weasley, but Draco and I only ever pretended to go out.” She began to giggle at this, and her hand slipped, sending the cork and the wine bottle across the floor.
Hermione, too, began to giggle despite herself, sniggering, “We did too!” as she raised her wand to Vanish the shattered remains of the bottle and the puddle of honey-coloured liquid. (Little did she know that the next morning she would find them both inconveniently located on the living room coffee table.)
“Come on, you. It is definitely time for bed.”
On LJ