It's All An Act, a harry potter fanfic

Hogwarts Assignment 2 – Performing Arts;

Task Two – Write an Actor/Actress AU

AN: Thanks to Emy and Amy for betaing :3

It's All An Act

"I just…" Hermione took a deep breath. "I just can't keep doing this. I can't keep acting like everything is fine when it's not. I don't want to be your second choice; I want to be your only choice."

Tears started to fall down Hermione's cheeks as she stared up into Draco's pale grey eyes.

"You are my only choice," he whispered.

Seconds later, their lips crashed together, a passionate embrace that made Hermione's cheeks flush and her heart race. Draco tasted of cigarettes—he'd forgotten to have a mint after smoking again.

"Are you sure?" Hermione asked when they broke apart. "How do I know you're not going to— line!"

"How do I know you're not lying? How do I know you're not just going to go back to her the minute you get bored?"

"Every time," Hermione muttered to herself. She didn't know what it was about that line, but somehow it just didn't stay in her head.

"If you fuck up one more time, Granger..." Draco spat at her.

"What?" she snapped back. "What's it going to be this week? You'll hit me? You'll quit?" She laughed. "We both know you won't do either."

Draco sighed, annoyance flashing across his pointed features. "I'm just fed up of having to kiss you. I hate it."

"It's no walk in the park for me, either. Do you honestly think I enjoy kissing you? Especially when you always taste of bloody cigarettes."

"Speaking of," Draco said, his voice light as he turned to the director. "Mind if I go for a cigarette break?"

"Go ahead," Horace said with a sigh. "Just don't be too long, Draco."

Hermione watched as Malfoy fetched a packet of cigarettes from his bag and left.

"I do wish we'd have been able to get Harry for the role," Horace said as soon as Draco had left. "Or even Blaise Zabini."

"So do I," Hermione agreed. "But you have to admit, Draco is a much better actor than either of them."

Horace glanced at his watch. "Oh, is that the time? We'll only be able to manage one last run when Draco returns. If only we had an extra week before the show."

Hermione fetched her phone from her bag. It was almost half past six; she was going to be late home. "I'm just going to make a phone call," she said to Horace.

Slipping out of the stage door, making sure she wasn't stood too close to Draco, Hermione made a quick phone call to Ginny to let her know she'd be late.

"Shit!" Hermione heard a voice shout from behind her. Turning back to the seating, she saw Draco rummaging through his bag.

"Shit, shit, shit."

"What's up?" she asked, wishing she hadn't as soon as the words left her mouth.

"What do you care?" Draco sneered.

"I'm allowed to show concern when somebody's swearing, aren't I?"

"I left my wallet at home and the bus has stopped running."

Hermione sighed. Words began to fall from her lips without conscious thought. "My taxi's already here and you live close to me. I'll get him to drop you off on the way."

"You want to share a cab with me?" he asked, not masking his surprise.

"No, I don't want to, but it makes sense."

Draco swung his bag over his shoulder and grabbed his coat. "Sure. Thanks," he grunted.

The pair didn't speak for the entire journey home, apart from when Hermione asked Draco's address. The only noise came from the radio station the driver was listening to.

Surprisingly, it wasn't awkward in the back of the taxi. Hermione was able to relax and run over her lines in her head as the car sped down the country lanes, interrupted only by Draco's occasional humming when a song he knew came on the radio.

"Thanks," he grunted again as they reached his house, and when Draco got out, Hermione could only wonder if the Draco she saw in rehearsals each day was just another act.

"And then," Hermione told Ginny and Luna, "he had the nerve to have a go at me for getting a line wrong after we had to restart scene one seven times because of him."

Ginny smirked, her eyes twinkling as Hermione finished speaking.

"What?" Hermione asked, noticing the look in her eyes.

Ginny glanced across at Luna, her smirk growing wider before saying, "Do you think you might have a bit of a thing for him?"

"For Malfoy?" Hermione laughed. "Why on earth would you think that?"

"Well," Luna said, "you've already been home for forty-five minutes and you've spoken of nothing but Draco."

"I've been speaking about my day," Hermione said, slightly puzzled. Had she really been speaking about Malfoy that much?

"Yes," Ginny said. "You've been speaking about your day, and your entire day consists of Malfoy—you're the lead roles, so of course it does—but there are scenes he isn't in, and you've neglected to mention even one of those."

"I…" Hermione flushed red, unable to think of a response.

"There's take-out in the fridge," Ginny said, walking to the kettle to make herself a cup of tea. "Eat something and go to bed. You have an early start tomorrow."

Hermione looked at her flatmates. "Do I really talk about him that much?" she asked.

"Yes," Luna said, her head tilted to the side as if trying to recall an obscure fact. "But that's only to be expected when you're in love."

Luna left the room, and Hermione stared at Ginny. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to laugh or cry, but when the redhead started laughing, Hermione couldn't help but join in.

"How do I know you're not lying?" Hermione asked. "How do I know you're not just going to go back to her the minute you get bored?"

"Because you've stolen my heart, Elizabeth!" Draco said, his voice strained. Pain flashed across his face. "You've stolen my heart, locked it away, and hidden the key someplace I can't find. I need you in my life, and I'd be a fool to give you up so easily again."

There was the sound of applause from the audience and Hermione looked up to see Horace stand up, a grin spreading across his face.

"Excellent!" he told the pair. "Truly excellent. It's the best you've done that scene. We'll have a ten-minute break and then run the final two scenes a couple of times before lunch."

"Getting it right the first time, Granger? Didn't think I'd see that happen," Draco said, appearing next to her as he fished around in his bag for his cigarettes.

Hermione laughed, watching him as he found his packet and walked out the stage door. There was something about the way Draco was behaving that made Hermione think the mean act was just that—an act. And, she couldn't help but notice how attractive he was—the way his eyes sparkled when he made a joke, the perfectly straight lines of his angular face, the cheekbones so sharp they could cut diamond.

Ginny's words replayed themselves in her head, 'Do you think you might have a bit of a thing for him?'

She shook her head to rid herself of the thought. She couldn't like Draco Malfoy. They had nothing in common, other than their job, of course.

The rest of the rehearsal passed in a blur. It ran two hours longer than it was supposed to, but Hermione found herself enjoying the rehearsal far more than she had in any of the previous weeks. She even made jokes with Draco backstage when other members of the cast made particularly hilarious mistakes—Hermione's favourite was when Colin spent twenty minutes trying to pronounce 'Billericay' correctly, and when he couldn't, Horace had to change it to 'Essex'.

Hermione climbed into the taxi she had ordered and was just shutting the door when a hand pushed it back open again.

"Mind if I share again?" Draco asked, already climbing in. "I'll pay, of course."

"I thought you had a car," Hermione said, sliding along the back seat to make room for him. She found she didn't mind sharing with Draco again, especially since he had offered to pay and Hermione didn't get paid until the following week, but she couldn't help but wonder why he wanted to.

Draco sat down and Hermione gave her address to the driver.

"I had to take it into the garage," Draco explained. "Only aesthetic damage, nothing serious, but they had a more important job come in about an hour after I left my car there." He shrugged. "I figured I could live without it for a week or so."

Hermione nodded and settled back, gazing out of the window.

"Do you mind running lines?" Draco asked about five minutes later, breaking the silence. "I'm worried about my monologue."

"Sure," Hermione said, happy to have something to do to pass the time.

"Did I just see you sharing a cab with Malfoy?" Ginny asked as soon as Hermione entered their flat.

"He wanted to pay me back for yesterday," Hermione said nonchalantly.

"Yesterday?" Ginny repeated. "You mean you shared a cab with him two days in a row?"

Hermione shrugged. "Draco didn't have any money yesterday so I said he could share—his house is practically on the way, after all."

Ginny's eyebrows raised and a smirk fell across her face. She didn't say anything, though. Instead, she just turned back to the toaster, waiting for her late-night snack to be ready.

"I'm going to bed," Hermione said, walking through the flat to her room. "See you tomorrow."

Lying down on her bed, Hermione thought back over the day. More specifically, she thought back over the time she had spent with Draco, and how much fun it had been.

When did I start thinking about him as 'Draco'? she thought to herself, then shook it out of her head. It didn't matter, all that did matter was that their newfound friendship—was it a friendship?—seemed to be helping their performance in the show.

As she fell asleep, a smile settled onto her face and her mind was flooded with images of Draco smiling at her jokes.

"Plotting," Horace said as soon as the entire cast had assembled, "as I'm sure you're all aware, is possibly the most important part of tech week. If we don't plot, there's no lighting or sound in the show, and what would be the point in that?"

Draco leaned across the empty seat next to him so he was closer to Hermione. "He's speaking like we're twelve, not like we're adults who do this for a living," he grumbled.

"Well, some of the cast are twelve," Hermione said, but she was sure her tone gave away the fact she was slightly irritated by Horace's explanation too.

"So!" Hermione snapped her head back to the front as Horace continued talking. "Let's make sure we're all in top form, or this could take all day. Nobody is leaving until the plotting is done."

Hermione groaned. It was going to be a long day and probably a very late night.

She was right. By lunchtime, they hadn't even got to the interval yet. The technicians hadn't set the lights in all the right places so they had to stop plotting several times while lights were moved around to fulfil Horace's needs.

"It's going to take a miracle if this is done before the theatre shuts," Hermione said to Draco as she pulled her lunch out of her bag.

Draco groaned loudly.

"I know. I was hopi—"

"Not that," he cut her off, holding up his packet of cigarettes. "I only have three left."

"Oh no," she deadpanned. "How will I cope having to kiss you when you no longer taste of cigarettes?"

There was a brief moment of silence where the two made eye contact, and then they both broke down into fits of laughter.

"Scene twelve," Horace called some hours later. Hermione and Draco made their way onto the stage for the big redemption scene. "Okay, so we want a white wash," Horace told the lighting technician through his headset. "That lasts until Hermione and Draco kiss." He turned to the pair on stage. "What's the cue line for the kiss?"

"I say 'you are my only choice'," Draco told him.

"That's right. Draco says 'you are my only choice' and then they kiss. I want everything to happen at that moment—coloured lighting, fireworks… the whole shebang." There was a pause while they waited for the technician to make a note before Horace turned back to the stage. "Let's run a couple of lines before the change."

Hermione and Draco took their places on the stage.

"Elizabeth!" Draco called as Hermione started walking away from him. "Elizabeth, wait." He grabbed her wrist. "What's wrong?"

Hermione was supposed to start crying at this point, but as it was only plotting, she decided not to—it took a lot of effort to make herself cry on demand.

"You are my only choice," Draco whispered.

Draco took Hermione's head in his hands and pulled her head toward him until their lips met. Hermione immediately noticed he tasted of mint instead of the usual taste of cigarettes.

"Okay, freeze right there," Horace said.

Hermione's eyebrows shot up, and she suspected Draco's had done the same, although she couldn't see to check. Surely he didn't mean they had to freeze while kissing.

"Good, good," Horace said. "Right there. I want them backlit as much a possible to create a silhouette." The lights faded. "Perfect. And what colours do we have?" There was a pause. "Excellent, we'll have green, red, blue, and pink flashing and the sound of fireworks."

The technician input the sequence into the computer and a second later, Hermione heard the sounds of fireworks.

"No, no, no," Horace said. Hermione inwardly groaned—she could feel herself trembling from standing in the same place for so long. "The lights need to flash in front of them as if there's a firework display going off… Yes, I know that will cover the silhouette… Well, do it slower then! Leave a moment of dark between each flash."

Hermione heard the fireworks once more, followed Horace shouting, "Excellent!"

She had just started to wonder if that meant she could move when Horace said, "Goodness, I didn't realise you'd actually been kissing this whole time! You can stop."

For a brief moment, before they broke apart, Hermione thought she felt Draco press his lips to hers a little hard, but it was so fleeting, she couldn't be certain. As they pulled away from each other, their eyes met. Hermione could feel her cheeks flush red and looked away quickly, so quickly she didn't notice Draco's cheeks taking on a similar hue.

"Right, can we run that quickly to check it works?" Horace asked.

The pair nodded their response and went to take their places on stage.

"I don't want to be your second choice; I want to be your only choice."

"You are my only choice."

As they kissed once more, Hermione wasn't sure that the fireworks created by the technicians were the only ones she could feel. However, that, she decided, was something she could deal with another day. First, she had to make sure the show was a success.

Word Count: 2,599.

AN: There is actually more of this story in my head that I wont to tell, so I'm going to turn it into a two-shot. I would have written it all in one, but I had to stick to the word limit.