Originally written for the Harry Potter Threesomes Gift Exchange.

Pansy Parkinson and Hermione Granger had never got along. Not as little girls at Hogwarts, not as young women in a world gone up in flames, and not even after the war, when the whole wizarding community had collectively decided to just pretend the past few years had never happened and that they all lived in a brave new world in which old prejudices were gone and old enmities forgotten. One did not remark on people's blood status (not where one could be overhead, at any rate), one did not look down on the lower classes (or not openly, if one could help it), and one never, ever mentioned the war.

But even the new status quo — which had produced such strange visions as Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter being civil, even friendly, to one another — had not been enough to bring about anything but icy, barely-civil civility between Pansy Parkinson and Hermione Granger. It was all very well for Draco to play nice after the whole Death Mark debacle, but Pansy had not been that much of a fool and she saw no profit in sucking up to the aggravating, pretentious, know-it-all Muggle-born who fancied herself a war hero.

Had Hermione been asked for her opinion on Pansy, it was unlikely to have been any more flattering, so it was fortunate that they did not tend to run in the same circles.

When Pansy saw her in the crowded club, it was more than a little unexpected — and not just because it was a Muggle club (surely the odds of finding a Muggle-born in a Muggle club had to be higher than those of finding a pure-blood, let alone two), but also because it was not the sort of place where one would expect to find someone who until very recently had been very publicly involved with Ronald Weasley.

Pansy had pushed her way to the bar, flushed and out of breath. She tried to get the bartender's attention, grinning when Daphne pressed her body against hers and kissed the side of her neck. She turned towards her, the need for water forgotten as she kissed the other woman, letting her hands follow the curves of her body and around her back, pulling her closer against her.

The world was made of flashing lights and loud music and Daphne's warm lips and soft body and clever hands, and just then Pansy needed nothing else. A tap on her shoulder got her attention and she pulled back, turning towards the impatient bartender and yelling her request for two bottles of water, just managing to make herself heard. When the sound dimmed around her, she didn't need to see Daphne discreetly putting her wand away.

"Let's get out of here," Daphne whispered in her ear before nibbling on it, letting her hands do the job of persuading Pansy. And Pansy, who didn't need much in the way of persuasion, was about to agree when her gaze fell on the woman leaning against the bar a few feet away. Feeling her girlfriend tense up, Daphne pulled back and followed the direction of her gaze, immediately spotting Hermione.

"What is she doing here?"

Pansy chuckled. "What do you think?" The Gryffindor looked awkward and ill at ease, making stilted conversation over the loud music with a woman whose only redeeming quality seemed to be her immunity to Granger's pathetic lack of game. Pansy's smile widened as an idea crossed her mind. "Daph," she started.

"Don't even think about it."

She pouted, her hands on Daphne's hips, her fingers trailing the skin just above the waist of her jeans. "It's my turn to choose," she pointed out.

"Yes, but I have veto power."

"But why not?" She let just the hint of a whine into her voice, leaning forward and kissing Daphne's neck, feeling more than hearing her laugh. "It would be fun."

"Because you're bent on mischief."

That's why it would be fun.

She turned Daphne so they were both looking at Granger and wrapped her arms around her waist, hooking her head over her shoulder. "Just think about it," she said, her voice soft and low, almost a purr. "How many people can say they've slept with a war hero?" Far too many, really. War heroes were a dime a dozen these days.

"There's a special kind of hell for people who pick on baby lesbians."

She huffed a laugh. "Who's picking on anyone? I'm the very soul of charity. That girl is wound so tight she might just sprain something. It would be a kindness, really."

"Panse…"

"Come on. Aren't you a little tempted?" And it was tempting. Hermione had certainly filled out in all the right places, and Pansy was not so much a snob that she was blind, but that was nothing to the dark glee she felt at the thought of stripping away the carefully-kept control of that insufferable, self-important upstart, make her come apart under her, get her to moan her name…

Not the noblest of reasons to sleep with someone, perhaps, but it wasn't as if Hermione Granger would ever have suspected her of anything resembling nobility.

Daphne cocked her head back and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. "Even if you can convince me," she said, and Pansy took it as tacit agreement, "you'll never convince her."

"You give me too little credit."

A quick wave of her wand was all it took for Granger's friend to find herself with a sudden urge to depart without so much as another word or glance at her companion. Hermione looked after her with a stricken expression that suddenly turned to alarm when Pansy and Daphne got close enough for her to be in the radius of Daphne's sound-dampening spell.

The witch — who had hardly been relaxed before — visibly stiffened, and while Pansy could not see it, she had no doubt Hermione's hand was hovering just above the place where she kept her wand. What did the little fool think? That they'd attack her in a place packed with Muggles? Gryffindors were always so melodramatic.

"Small world, Granger." Pansy leaned against the bar, next to the witch, standing just a little too close.

"What are you doing here?"

Daphne's smirk spoke volumes about what she thought Pansy's chances were, which was almost insulting. Daphne should know by now that what Pansy wanted, Pansy got.

"Same thing you are, really," she said. Daphne nestled against her, and Pansy draped an arm around her shoulders. "Dancing, drinking…" She reached out to Hermione and tucked a curl behind her hair, adding, "Looking for company." The woman started slightly, turning three different shades of red. In anyone else it would have been endearing.

"You have company," she pointed out, trying to cover her embarrassment with a frown.

"The more the merrier," Daphne said, and then, because despite popular opinion she really was the evil one in their relationship, she turned Pansy's face towards her and kissed her — a languid, hot, utterly shameless kiss. When Daphne pulled back, her grin had a wicked edge to it and Hermione was looking even more flustered, something Pansy wouldn't have thought possible. She also looked ready to bolt, which meant she wouldn't. Gryffindors were nothing if not predictable.

Pansy got the attention of one of the bartenders, a short brunette with a nose ring, and ordered three shots of tequila, which made Hermione go from embarrassed to suspicious in two seconds flat.

"What in Merlin's name are you doing, Parkinson?"

"Buying you a drink."

"Why are you buying me a drink?"

"Peace offering." She did no try for contrition — it had never been a good look on her. She smiled instead, a smile that was all sharp edges and barely-disguised amusement. It was a challenge poorly-disguised as a smile, and Hermione reacted exactly as Pansy expected her to, by reaching for the shot glass closest to her without breaking eye contact and throwing it back, making a face at the taste. Daphne chuckled next to her, and Pansy smirked. Gryffindors.

Hermione was really smart. She was really smart and she knew when she was being played. She knew and it should have mattered, only clearly it didn't, because she was in the middle of the crowded dance floor, dancing with Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass, and if someone had told fifteen-year-old Hermione that that was something that was going to happen, that that was something in her future, she would have called them an idiot. Only now it seemed that she was the idiot, because she was the one dancing with Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass.

And she'd love to blame it on the three shots of tequila, or the however-many beers she'd had before that, but while she was drunk enough that she was dancing with Pansy-Pure-Bloods-Should-Rule-The-World-Parkinson and Daphne-What-Is-A-Muggle-Born-Greengrass, she was also drunk enough to be painfully honest with herself. And she honest-to-god wasn't hating this turn of events. She should be — she was painfully aware of that — but she wasn't. She didn't hate the way their bodies brushed against hers; she didn't hate the small, casual touches. When Pansy buried a hand in her hair and pulled her in for a kiss, she certainly did not hate that.

The whole world was moving just at the edge of her vision, moving bodies flashing in and out of the existence with the strobe lights, and Hermione felt light-headed and slightly adrift, grounded only by the solid pressure of the women on either side of her.

Daphne pressed against her back, a soft, stable presence, her lips warm where they followed the curve of her neck, sending shivers down her spine, and when she nibbled on the soft skin where her neck met her shoulder, Hermione practically purred into Pansy's mouth, and it was a good thing everything around them was so incredibly loud, because that certainly would have been embarrassing. And then Daphne tugged on her hair, and Hermione tilted her head back, finding her mouth with hers, and she was lost to what was or wasn't embarrassing, neither knowing nor caring to find out.

And there was a part of her who bristled at the very notion of being there, in the middle of that dance floor, making out with Pansy Parkinson and Daphne Greengrass — a part of her who remembered only too well the sneers and the scorn and the snide remarks, who did not forget the little girl who'd shed angry tears over the cutting words thrown at her by them and people like them. But a different part of her remembered too the woman who'd stood by herself earlier in the evening — unsure, uncertain and lost — and who'd been only too glad to reach out to someone familiar, even if that happened to be them.

And then, of course, there was the part of her who could barely string two coherent thoughts together anymore, whose whole world had dwarfed to the way their bodies felt against hers, to the way their lips and tongues and hands felt on her, and to the realisation that giving in was as easy as breathing.

When Pansy tugged on her arm and led the way back to the bar, Hermione looked over her shoulder and reached back to grab Daphne's hand. She was faintly aware of the noise dimming around them — the result of either Pansy's or Daphne's magic — and wondered briefly whether the Muggle bartender was also aware of it when Pansy leaned in to order three B-52s.

Letting go of Hermione's hand, Daphne looped her arms around Pansy's waist and yelled at the bartender to forget about the shots and just bring them three waters. Pansy pouted, turning to face Daphne, who laughed at her despondent expression before kissing her. The kiss started out soft and teasing before growing increasingly heated, and Hermione felt a sharp pang of something she refused to identify as jealousy, because she wasn't that much of a fool. Not yet. Not ever.

But maybe it was as good a time as any to make a hasty retreat. She'd come, she'd seen, she'd made ill-advised, alcohol-fuelled decisions. Veni, vidi… What was Latin for ill-advised?

Hermione glanced around and took an hesitant step in the general direction of what might or might not be the exit, but there was no time like the present to find out, because her presence had clearly become superfluous, and it was just as well, really. She had made plenty of bad life choices for one evening so the smart thing to do was clearly to—

A hand on her arm halted her half-hearted escape attempt, and Hermione forgot to be smart as Pansy pulled her back towards them. She sighed contently as she kissed her, all thoughts of exits and common sense and better life choices gone. And after all, it hadn't been her smarts landing her in Gryffindor House so much as her ability to make reckless, misguided decisions at the slightest provocation. Fred and George would be proud.

Just as the thought crossed her mind, she was hit by the realisation that Fred and George couldn't be anything at all. Not anymore. Not ever again. Hermione froze as the club disappeared around her, replaced by stone walls and bouncing curses, and the smell of smoke and charred flesh. Grotesque figures flashed in and out of the existence, and people were screaming and running and dying in hallways and stairwells and classrooms — broken bodies that would never be put back together again.

A warm hand cupped her face, bringing her back to the present. "You still with us, Granger?" Pansy was frowning slightly, her thumb brushing over her skin.

Hermione forced herself to smile, forced her body to relax. "Sorry, just spaced out for a second there." She was fine. It was fine. The war was over. It was all over. And she was fine. She was absolutely fine.

A mischievous smile spread across Pansy's face. "How about we move this party elsewhere?"

But Daphne was still frowning, a troubled expression on her face as she ran a hand over Hermione's hair.

"How about we call it a night instead?" she said. "We all had a lot to drink."

Part of Hermione warmed at the tone of concern, and part of her couldn't help but feel a sharp sting of rejection, something she wasn't even going to analyse, because what the hell. She made herself smile, the sort of smile that came so naturally to Pansy — easy and charming, a little cocky, a little sharp — and wrapped her free arm around Daphne's waist.

"Are you protecting my virtue, Greengrass?"

Daphne's smile was soft and friendly and a little amused. "You're extremely drunk, Granger."

Slytherins looking out for Gryffindors. It really was a brave new world.

"I'm not that drunk," she said, closing the space between them and kissing her, soft and sweet and enticing. And part of her knew she wasn't enough to tempt Daphne Greengrass, and part of her thought Daphne Greengrass should be so lucky, because she was Hermione Granger, and Muggle-born or not, she was totally a catch. And part of her recognised that she really was that drunk. Drunk enough to think this was a good idea, and sober enough to know it wasn't, and enough of a fool not to care either way.

When Daphne kissed her back, all the loud voices vying for Hermione's attention inside her head went quiet.