Chapter Text
Chapter Sixteen - Yoga and other struggles
(Draco)
A couple of days later, Pansy looks at Draco from her upside-down position (she’s somehow convinced him to do yoga with her) and muses, “I’m glad you found your balls and talked to the lioness. I like her. She’s fun; and she’ll be even more fun once she loosens up. It’s getting boring sometimes with just you and old T.”
Draco decides to skip the ass-in-the-air dog—or whatever the position is called—and agrees, “Yeah, me too. Told you it was meant to be.” He pokes his tongue out at her, earning an eyeroll in return. “And about ‘boring’,” he continues, shifting into an admittedly boring stretch, “we’re not eighteen anymore. It’s exhausting to be fun all the time. Moreover, being ‘fun’ isn’t interesting or attractive anyway. I prefer to present myself mysterious, brooding, with a troublesome past… Speaking of all that—what’s going on with Theo?”
“What do you mean?” Pansy inquires, her face slightly reddened as she turns upright again.
“Pans, you know what I mean,” he sighs in response, abandoning the pretence of taking their yoga session seriously. “He’s been acting weird. Out of character. It’s… probably still bothering him, you know?" He pauses for a moment before clarifying, "The accident.”
Pansy gives him a questioning look and gestures for him to continue as she moves into the warrior pose one—or two?
Draco hesitates, then speaks deliberately. “It was bad when I found him that day at Nott Manor. Really bad. He… he told me he had to go to a meeting.”
“Yes, I know,” Pansy states without changing her position. “He told me, too. But he also told me he’s got it under control. I trust him, and so should you.” She pokes him teasingly with her outstretched left fingertip. Definitely the second warrior.
He swats at her intrusive hand and sighs again. “Yeah, you’re probably right. As more often than not," he adds after catching her challenging look. "But I’m worried. I’ll always worry about that wanker!" Draco exclaims, followed by a quieter, "I think… seeing Gin again set something off.”
The witch tilts her head in slow circles, her eyes closed. After a moment, she responds calmly, “But he stayed. The other night, I mean. You know how Theo is—he doesn’t like change. And that particular Gryffindor might be the opposite of stability. He’ll come around.”
After another slow circle, her spine cracking audibly, she adds, “And even if not, you can be friends with someone Theo isn’t. And the other way around. Oh, don’t look at me like I stole your last pumpkin cake. I’m not saying it has to be that way. Just give it time.”
She drops onto the yoga mat and stretches out on her back in the meditation position, a clear signal that the conversation is over.
(Ginny)
The last few days had been lighter. Apparently, making it through the week gets easier if one has a weekend to look forward to.
It wasn’t that Ginny no longer dreaded her work. Nah, it was still more often horrible than acceptable, but talking with Draco about it, and sometimes even with Pansy, made it more bearable. When she laughed with them at Draco’s place, she nearly felt like a normal, functional human. Nearly. Close—but not quite there. Because when she was alone, she still kept flipping between angry frustration and sadness—shouting at a broken teacup or a dying plant one moment and crying without even knowing the reason the next.
At the beginning, she hid that side of herself from her new friends. But Draco always seemed to see through her carefully placed neutral facade, which had always worked on everyone else. Well, maybe not on Harry, but he didn’t crush her in a hug every time he noticed something was off. Now that she thought about it, it seemed as if Harry never knew what to do with her—but Draco did. And the one evening Ginny stumbled through Draco’s floo with tear-blurred eyes after a particularly awful workday and a frozen pizza burned to ashes, Pansy—after a quick glance—just nodded, ordered takeaway, placed her in front of the telly, and distracted her with updates about her new spring collection until Draco came home (to give her a crushing hug of course).
It had steadily become a routine—Ginny dropping by for most weekends and some days after work. She tried not to feel like an adopted stray dog, starved of attention and love, but she couldn’t silence the nagging voices in the back of her mind completely. Sensing her insecurities, Draco seemed determined to keep her doubts as small as possible, and Pansy wouldn’t have any of it with her constant no-nonsense manner. While Ginny struggled with those thoughts in the loneliness of her flat, she managed to shove them aside in the increasingly familiar company of her small circle of friends most of the time.
Then there was the other former Slytherin.
Although she knew Theo turned up at Draco’s place regularly, she had only caught fleeting glimpses of the tall man. Ginny had the growing sense that he was avoiding her. On the rare occasions they crossed paths, she’d watch his open and sometimes mirthful expression freeze over, shifting into a blank, neutral mask the moment he noticed her. This was usually followed by his prompt departure. The guy just didn’t like her. And she tried not to worry about it.
But she did.