The wedding invitation lay by his plate.
The coffee remained on his shirt.
Alarm bells and manic giggling were going on inside his head.
And Edmund Baddock had just curled his lip and said, “Out of my way, Mudblood.”
The only sensible action to take at this time was to slip off his chair and whimper quietly under the table.
Of course, Malfoys Didn’t Whimper, but he thought he could get away with a small manly gurgle.
So it remained a total mystery to him why he was suddenly on his feet and pinning Edmund to the nearest wall.
Through a haze of fury, he heard Seamus mutter, “Oh God, paedophilia,” and fall off his seat.
“Don’t ever call her that again.”
And he didn’t understand, he just didn’t understand what this feeling was.
“Don’t you dare use it. Because it means that she’s less than you are, and all you’re doing is repeating Death Eater cant, and you never stop and think!”
And he’d said it himself. Over and over again.
“Don’t talk to me about pure blood,” he heard himself snarl, gesturing over at Crabbe and Goyle. “Look at them! Just look at them, and then look at her, and just think—think very carefully—before you ever say mudblood again!”
And then he’d stopped shouting. And the entire Great Hall was staring at him. And he’d just made a speech indicating moral indignation, and there was coffee on his shirt, and he’d clearly made a complete idiot of himself.
What would Hermione think?
Draco began to consider euthanasia as a viable option.
“Well, that was fun,” Draco said as he and Harry made their way down the corridor. “I can just see the ickle firsties’ letters now. ‘Dear Mummy, Today at dinner Draco Malfoy gave his weekly performance of a Total Prat Mooning Over A Girl Who Doesn’t Like Him.’”
“She does like you,” Harry consoled him. “She just doesn’t want to go out with you.”
“But why doesn’t she want to go out with me?” Draco wailed. “I’m gorgeous and charming and practically perfect in every way!”
Harry blinked. “And your modesty astounds us all.”
“Well,” Draco said in a bashful manner.
“Maybe your chances with Hermione would be better if you didn’t flirt with every other female you see,” Harry suggested.
Draco looked extremely affronted. “I do no such thing! Why, hello, if it isn’t the Attractively Voluptuous Lady.”
Harry coughed as the Fat Lady giggled and opened the door for them.
“And, while I’m sure that you’re a decent person deep down—”
“Potter!”
“Really deep down—”
“Keep trying.”
“Fathoms deep.”
“Your universal goodwill and faith in the world makes me positively nauseous.”
“While I’m sure that you’re—not Voldemort in disguise—”
“How do you know?” Draco demanded. “Bwah!”
Harry sighed. “Maybe she won’t go out with you because you can’t hold a normal conversation.”
“I happen to think entirely in one-liners. I can’t help it. I was born this way. I think it’s a matter of karmic balance.”
Harry looked puzzled.
“I’m already stunning and intelligent and charismatic,” Draco explained. “Imagine if I was sweet and coherent as well. It’d be utter chaos. I’d be knee-deep in swooning women, I’d never get anything done.”
“Remind me again why we’re your friends…”
“My birthday’s coming up,” Draco said. “I figured I could use a few more presents.”
Ron looked up as Draco and Harry came into the Gryffindor common room.
“You’re going to have to give us some hints,” he said. “Remember, for most of the time we’ve liked you we planned on getting you a little collar for your birthday.”
There was a thump from across the room.
“Now you’re just tormenting Seamus!” Lavender exclaimed.
Upstairs in the girls’ dormitory, Hermione had her head in Ginny’s lap.
“I never thought… he’d do something like that,” she said in a quiet, stunned voice.
“Yeah, it’s a shame Colin didn’t get a picture of it,” Ginny replied. She frowned. “What with him being a minion of evil and stuck in juvie Azkaban.”
“Oh God. Oh crap.” Hermione put her face in her hands. “What should I do?”
“Well, you could give him a bit of a snog.”
“Ginny. What he did was—serious.”
“If you’re that grateful, you could give him a quick shag.”
“Ginny!” Hermione looked scandalised. “Vixen!”
Ginny looked proud.
“Failing that, you could be his date to the Yule Ball.”
“I, well… He hasn’t asked me.”
Ginny sat there and looked down her nose at Hermione.
“He hasn’t,” Hermione said defensively. “And I, God, it’s all so silly, and his father tried to kill you—”
Ginny waved a hand. “Stop living in the past.”
“And he’s amoral and annoying and I don’t even like blonds!”
“Nonsense!” Ginny said briskly. “Everybody likes blonds!”
Hermione stared.
“Except for me,” Ginny added quickly. “I love Harry.”
Hermione sighed and decided to ignore this.
“Look—just because someone’s attractive doesn’t mean you can have a relationship with them if you’re utterly incompatible. He’s not an acceptable character—he’s not safe. He’s hardly even likeable.”
Ginny let her hands fall into her lap.
“Tell me one thing, Hermione. Do you even care about him?”
Hermione bit her lip.
“Of course I do!” She turned away. “That’s the problem.”
Hermione suspected dastardly betrayal on Ginny’s part.
It was just that—suddenly the whole world seemed to know that she would go with Draco Malfoy to the ball if he asked her.
And the whole world was almost convincing her.
Of course, such conviction might be useless.
Hermione gazed fixedly down at her Arithmancy homework.
Draco still hadn’t asked her.
Of course, he’d been absorbed in the news of the, er, upcoming wedding in his family.
So had the rest of the Malfoys. The word by owl was that Lucius Malfoy had taken up with the strange Muggle drug Prozac after the news had been broken to him.
Though this hadn’t stopped him from sending a Howler to Draco commanding him not to take Ron or Harry to the dance.
That day Draco had drunk coffee straight from the pot.
So he was stressed, occupied. He was certainly going to ask her. He was mad about her.
Of course, she had rejected him rather frequently.
And how interesting could a bushy-haired bookworm be, really, to a platinum blond protogod in skin-tight jeans?
Still… he’d turned down all his offers. Surely he was going to…
Hermione turned up her nose.
Not that she cared. She didn’t even want to go to the ball. She wanted to use the valuable quiet time studying. She definitely didn’t want to go to the ball with Draco Malfoy.
She kept telling herself that. The day before the ball, she told herself that aloud, to the bemusement of everybody around her.
“You?” Seamus said. “Why would Malfoy go to the ball with you?”
Hermione gave him a Glare of Death and stormed off.
“After all,” Seamus muttered in her wake, “you’re a girl.”
The day before the ball, Draco got a package from home.
It contained black velvet robes, and a stern injunction from his father to wear them and instantly cease entertaining this strange Muggle-clothing obsession.
He also ordered him to cease entertaining the Gryffindor boys in his bedroom.
Draco wrinkled his nose at the lurid description in the letter. He had no doubt about where Lucius was getting his information, and he thought that Pansy was letting her imagination run away with her.
This kind of obsession with pretty gay love was frankly unhealthy.
And these robes… Draco looked at them and made a horrible face.
It was just not on. They weren’t form-fitting at all. This wasn’t any kind of selfish reason. Girls throughout Hogwarts were counting on him to provide entertainment.
It wouldn’t be fair to them.
“Who’s the letter for?” asked a sinister hooded figure standing across from him.
Draco looked over disinterestedly.
“Me.”
“What, people usually address you as DIM? Well—fair enough.”
Draco blushed. “Just because my middle name happens to be Ignatius!—who are you, anyway?”
He asked out of mild curiosity, that was all. Ominous cloaked figures were fairly run-of-the-mill in the Slytherin common room.
One of the reasons he’d pelted away from that figure drinking unicorn blood was that he’d suspected it was Pansy Parkinson.
“Blaise,” said the strangely deep voice from under the hood.
“Blaise?” Draco squinted. “Oh. Oh, I see. It’s full moon again? Bad luck. Have you told whoever’s taking you to the ball?”
“I’m taking Lavender Brown and Seamus Finnigan,” Blaise answered, pushing back his hood and giving an evil grin. “And, well—she knows. Seems quite happy about the arrangement. And he may be too doped up to notice.”
“You might kill him,” Draco suggested brightly.
“Wouldn’t be the first man I’ve killed,” Blaise smirked.
Or the first woman. Or the first household pet.
For the sake of house togetherness, Draco did not voice this thought.
Blaise sat beside him.
“I’ve told you how sorry I am about that teensy weensy deal with the Potion, haven’t I? You know I would never deliberately do something to hurt you, you gorgeous sex moppet you.”
“Er. That’s fine. Apology accepted. Could you not sit quite so close to me?”
Blaise sighed. “Colin deceived me. He didn’t even seem to mind about the full moon thing. I’m just looking for the right—few people in the world for me.” He perked up. “So, about the ball. You can come with us if you’d like.”
“That would kill Finnigan,” Draco replied absently. “Anyway, I’m going with Hermione Granger.”
Blaise pouted and removed his hand from Draco’s knee.
“I didn’t know that.”
“Nor does she.”
“You mean you haven’t asked her? How do you know she’ll go?”
Draco paused. “That’s just it. I—don’t.”
The uncertainty was novel. That was something to be said for it.
Well, if there was a chance he was going dateless, he certainly wasn’t going under-dressed.
Draco looked down at the velvet robes, and got a fiendishly brilliant idea.
He called for a house elf.
On the night of the Yule Ball, Hermione firmly kissed everyone goodbye. Both couples had offered to let her come with them, but she had refused absolutely.
“Just as well,” Ron had admitted, glancing over at Cho. “I think I might be getting lucky tonight.”
Harry had looked appalled. “Come with us, Hermione. We certainly won’t be up to anything depraved.”
“That’s what he thinks,” Ginny had murmured.
She was such a vixen.
Hermione had smiled and sent everybody off. Though she had asked someone to take a picture of Seamus’ face when he met his dates in the Hall.
She had absolutely no desire to go to this stupid ball.
She was in her nice, comfortable pyjamas and her nice, fluffy slippers and she had a nice steaming cup of coffee. And all she wanted to do was her homework.
And she was utterly indifferent to the fact everyone else was having fun.
And she certainly didn’t care who Draco Malfoy was taking to the dance. Oh, no. She didn’t care what or indeed who he was doing, and she never had, and she would be perfectly happy if only she could never see him again—
And Draco Malfoy was standing in the doorway.
He had turned up his smile all the way to Justifiable Rape and torches gleamed behind him, making his hair shine like an angel’s halo and his eyes shine like the downfall of saints.
And he was wearing—what amounted to a black velvet body glove.
Velvet that was poured into the dip of his collarbone, clung all the way down his torso and followed the line of his hips like a fascinated lover. Velvet that made the locks of his hair, brushing against it, glow like white light. Velvet that made him look slim, stunning and sinfully delicious.
He smiled again, this time the slow evil smile of someone who is perfectly aware that those before him are trying not to take unlawful liberties with his person.
“Hello, Hermione.”
Five minutes ago, outside the common room, Draco Malfoy had been having a most uncharacteristic panic attack.
He had just remembered that the Gryffindor password had been changed to celebrate the ball… and he didn’t have the new password.
“Bugger.”
Even now, Murphy plagued him!
Here he was, standing here in new clothes, having spent about three hours with his hair, about to actually take an emotional risk. (Against a very specific rule in the Malfoy Code, Number 33: Don’t care at all. Really. We mean it.)
And he was distrait, dateless and talking to himself.
“How am I going to get past the Fat Lady—oh, hang on a minute. This is the Fat Lady. Lady. This is a woman. And I am Draco Malfoy! Right then, problem solved.”
Of course, talking to yourself sometimes lent clarity to a situation.
If you happened to be dead sexy.
Draco adjusted his already pristine robes, shook back his shining hair and smiled a smile his Veela grandmother had taught him, and which made mirrors fall off walls and offer him sexual favours.
Then he leaned against the wall and fixed the Fat Lady’s portrait with a smouldering gaze.
“What’s a girl like you doing hanging over an entrance like this?”
“D—Draco!”
Of course I stammered, Hermione told herself. I was startled. Anyone would be startled. It would have been the same if Filch had showed up in black velvet.
Draco was extremely upset to see a look of pure revulsion briefly cross Hermione’s face.
Then she pulled herself together and banished the disturbing image.
“What are you doing here?”
Draco shook back his hair. “Ah. I was hoping you would do me the honour of accompanying me to the Yule Ball.”
Hermione raised her eyebrows. “And why are you asking me this late?”
Draco looked mildly panicked. “I—er.”
And the fury Hermione had been suppressing for days welled up, looked around and leaped for a jugular.
“Oh, you suddenly realised that you didn’t have a date, and you decided to settle. Is that it? Somebody turned you down and you thought it would be a safe option to ask poor dateless Hermione. Well I’m on to you—”
“Excuse me!” Draco shouted her down. “No you’re not. You’re completely off to me, and you may well be clinically insane! My God, I bloody well sang for you, woman, what will it take for you to believe me, a full-on striptease in the Great Hall?”
The idea had its appeal. But Draco was still raging.
“You turned me down so many times I was bloody dizzy, you idiot Gryffindor, and the reason I came here at this time was because I thought I could persuade you if I came totally dateless and made it clear that the only one I wanted to go with was you, no matter how embarrassing it would be if you rejected me again!”
”…Oh.”
“And how dare you insinuate that somebody else turned me down,” Draco added huffily. “Me! Don’t be absurd.”
Hermione forced down a laugh. She was not letting him get around her just because he was funny.
Resorting to humour was very cheap, anyway.
“Why exactly do you want me to go with you, Draco?” she asked primly.
He didn’t answer.
She looked at him sharply, and then followed his fascinated gaze down to her cup of coffee.
“Draco!”
He blinked. “Huh? Oh, right. Sorry, what was that?”
“Why. Do. You. Want. Me—oh, for heaven’s sake, drink the bloody coffee if you want it that badly.”
She had never seen anyone move that fast.
Draco might have said “I love you” but it was muffled under the coffee and Hermione wasn’t believing anything an addict said in the throes of addiction.
“I want to go with you because…” Draco paused. “You’re cute?”
“Try. Harder.”
“I—because—oh, look, Hermione! I’m a Malfoy. We don’t express any sort of genuine emotion, much less affection, I’m not sure we consider marriages for love legal. Can’t we just—let the fact I’m not saying anything show you that—I’m saying all those things that people say when they’re—”
“Normal?”
Hermione tipped back her chair and stood up, noticing as she did so that the firelight was glinting off the plastic eyes of her bunny slippers.
“Tell me, Draco. Why should I make exceptions for you just because you’re a Malfoy?”
She examined the empty cup on the desk when Draco’s face neared hers.
She looked, startled, into his eyes. She stared into her own image, reflected in molten silver. He looked nervous, just a little breathless and damn sexy.
“Well. Malfoys do have certain compensating qualities.”
She didn’t slap him.
She was going to slap him, any minute now, as his mouth touched hers. She was going to hit him so hard he saw stars right after she got her hands untangled from his hair, after she’d pulled away from those warm, searching, talented lips, after she had stopped making that embarrassing sound as he pushed her against the table and…
Draco pulled away. Hermione felt aggrieved.
“What do you have to say now?”
”… muh…”
Hermione pulled herself together.
“Try harder,” she ordered crisply. “With words, please.”
Draco felt extremely put out. After virtuoso Malfoy displays of skill, no maiden for centuries had been able to put together a coherent sentence.
Aside from “Ravish me now,” that was.
Sometimes he seriously wondered whether he was a disgrace to his name.
“It’s just that… you… you’re so intelligent, but you’ve got all those morals, and I don’t understand it at all but for some reason I find it bizarrely appealing…”
Hermione softened. “You mean—I make you a better person?”
Draco grimaced. “Sort of. Please don’t tell anyone.”
Obviously there was a definite limit to the amount of morals any Malfoy could acquire.
“If you say yes,” Draco said suddenly, “it will make it all worth it. The rat thing. The name of Malfoy being shamed. My father’s impending coronary. Even the—wedding. Everything. This entire adventure will make sense—if only you say yes.”
“And if I don’t?”
Draco’s lip curled. “Then I guess I’ll be forced to try and cuddle Potter in the showers after all.”
Hermione laughed.
And it would be a stupid and entirely uncharacteristic thing to do. But Draco, standing here looking absolutely beautiful and not entirely sure of himself, was not behaving in classic Slytherin manner either.
It occurred to her for the first time that he couldn’t have been planning for this either.
She held out her hand.
“I’ll go.”
Draco smiled.
“Er. But I have to get changed first.”
“Don’t do anything on my account,” Draco urged. “We can dance the night away with you in your nightclothes, if you like. But if you feel a scanty negligee would be more appropriate for the occasion—”
She smacked him with her textbook.
“Be good. I bet you’re a horrible dancer.”
“I am a charming dancer,” Draco said indignantly.
“In non-rodent form?”
Draco looked very reproachful. Then a thought seemed to strike him.
“Er. Hermione. I think I might go outside the Gryffindor rooms and wait for you. It’s just that I had to use a certain amount of persuasion to get in here and… I don’t think the Fat Lady will be terribly happy to see me with another woman…”
Hermione was torn between being thunderstruck and being very amused.
“You mean you—chatted up a… portrait? How was that even possible? Do portraits have hormones?”
Draco lifted his chin.
“When it comes to the Malfoys, everybody has hormones.”
She couldn’t help laughing then.
“Draco Malfoy… you rat.”