Pleasant.
The white light of the screen in Hermione's office was starting to strain her eyes, she'd been working far too hard for far too long. She looked away from her brand new ministry edition laptop, the ministry had finally updated its methods technologically;
this was an additional idea to close the gap between muggle and wizarding culture. Her eyes settled on a picture of her first day at ministry, with her arms comfortably draped around Ron's waist, and she started to wonder if she'd done the right thing
rejecting his proposal the previous night. Ron had done nothing wrong, they'd been together for years; it was pleasant. But that was it. Pleasant. Hermione knew there was more out there, there had to be, than something Pleasant. She still felt like
she'd made the wrong choice, but her feeling of loss was more to do with her loss of family, of the Weasleys, than losing Ron. But it still hurt.
Realising it was probably time to go home, she got up and packed her things. Hermione then heard a knock on door, and Ginny Weasley walked in. Ginny was dressed to impress, and ready for a night out. She looked at Hermione with disdain. "what happened
to 'lets go out on Friday, I'll meet you at seven'?" Hermione thought that was obvious; she dumped Ron yesterday. Ginny seemed todisagree, and gave hermione an hour to meet her at the leaky cauldron to start their night out.
Hermione put on the nicest outfit she could find and enough makeup to make her face look like she hadn't just spent the last 9 hours working. She met Ginny at the bar of the leaky cauldron and they took a table, the place filled up quickly and it turned
out there was a band playing. The music they played was good, and Ginny was really enjoying it, but all hermione could think was "Pleasant." She was sick of pleasant. She headed to the bar for another drink and caught a flash of blond hair in her
peripheral vision. She turned and saw that it belonged to none other than Malfoy, her school bully. Just as she noticed him, he noticed her and walked over. They started, awkwardly, to make conversation, it wasn't made easy by the noise so they stepped
outside. They hadn't talked since Lucius' trail, he had been imprisoned. The very briefly updated each other on their working lives, realising they were both researching some similar things they exchanged numbers with a promise of giving each other
what they had learnt so far. He asked how things were with Ron and the previously awkward conversation came to a full stop. Malfoy noticed something was up and simply said "that good, huh." Ginny appeared then, saving Hermione from an awkward situation.
"There you are! Lets go!" And Hermione was dragged round the corner to a muggle club.
She really enjoyed the club, the heavy beat pulsed through her body; and light made her feel slightly disoriented, like she existed in a dimension out with her previous one. This feeling was enhanced as she drank. So she kept drinking, and drinking. Ginny
left around 2 o'clock, but Hermione wanted to stay, to stay numb. At around 3 the club emptied the final remaining people onto the street and Hermione scrambled for her phone. She fumbled with it for a while before managing to, she thought, call Ron.
"RON, ron, RON, r-o-o-o-o-o-n, caaan yooooo pick me up?" she managed to stumble through the sentence; just.
"This is Draco" came the sleepy reply
"We-e-e-ell you can come then" she instructed.
Hermione managed to make it over to the edge of the pavement, to sit, and take of her shoes. She pulled out her wand, ready to call the night bus, or apparate herself home when she heard a voice behind her. "Granger I wouldn't do that if I were you."
She turned and almost fell off the pavement. "Let's get you some rest" chuckled Malfoy as he reached for her arm and apparated them to his flat. His touch made her feel simultaneously nervous, excited and comforted. He guided her to the couch and
lay her down, turning to go to bed himself. She stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Hermione pulled, lowering his face to her and allowed their lips to touch. She found kissing also muted her senses a little so moved farther into the kiss, fuelling
it. Malfoy was shocked at first but began to kiss her back, before realising how inappropriate this was. He pushed Hermione away, knowing the kiss would be viewed as a drunken mistake in the morning.
Morning came and Hermione woke up with the kind of headache that leads one to know there's something they should feel incredibly guilty about without having any idea what it was. She opened her eyes and took in her surroundings, memories of the night
before trickling into her conscious. Then she remembered what she should regret. Hermione had kissed Malfoy the night before. She thought about the kiss; how little it had been at first and how much it grew into; how even now thinking about it made
her smile; how when they touched it was like electricity was shocking through her very being; she thought about how Malfoy had tasted, and realised what was missing with Ron. That electricity, that power was something she never experienced in years
with Ron. Kissing Malfoy was so much more than pleasant, and she knew that she could never go back to just pleasant again.