Disclaimer: Under no circumstances am I the owner of Harry Potter. I am not a genius.
"Merlin's pants!" an astonished voice resounded through the room. "What in Godric's name happened here?"
Harry sheepishly shuffled his feet. "We were trying to surprise you."
"By giving me work to do?" an amused Hermione responded.
"Oi, it's not as if we wanted to mess up. Things just," Ron opened his arms wide, "exploded."
"I told them not to try anything," Draco's voice called from the small kitchen in the common room.
"Did you let them in?"
"You try saying no to the boy-who-defeated-Lord-Voldemort. It is difficult," he defensively said. "We are not all war heros, you know."
"You could've tried," she pointed out.
"I was curious to see if it would work out."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Boys," she muttered.
Harry and Ron exchanged glances. "We're sorry 'Mione," they said in the same breath.
"What were you even trying to create?" She asked as she surveyed the glitter, petals, streamers, and balloons all over the place. It looked at if Ms. Umbridge tried to decorate while cats were getting in the way.
"At first we thought you know just mix the batter." Harry started.
"Mum always waved her wand around and it looked easy." Ron interjected.
"So it turns out it's not that simple. Instead of going smoothly-"
"Everything seemed to go nuts because nothing went into the bowl!" interrupted Ron.
"So you might not want to enter the kitchen."
"Yeah, if you think this is ba-"
"Anyways," Harry glared at Ron, "since the cake, cupcakes, and cookies were no good we decided to decorate the place."
"But nothing transfigured the correct way. So we thought that we should add streamers."
"And we quickly realized that neither of us knew how to place them. So they sort of went all over the place. The balloons were okay, we did it the old fashion way."
"My lips are sore for blowing so many, that it doesn't even-"
"But the banner apparently didn't have enough glitter."
"Yeah, Draco said you couldn't even see it!" Hermione glanced at Draco who responded by nonchalantly shrugging.
"So I opened the glitter boxes poured it all over."
"And it fell," ron started waving his arms around as if it were raining, " all over the place."
"After we tried to hang it." Harry said
"The paper flowers were impossible. I don't think we have a creative bone in our body!" Ron cried out.
"So we got real flowers and duplicated them."
"Then we had to many! So we separated the petals from the bud."
"Placed them in a basket but I tripped and they fell all over the place."
"That's when you came in," Ron lamely ended.
Hermione laughed out loud. "A simple card would've sufficed."
"You're our best mate. How could we simply sign a card!" Ron exclaimed.
"It could've been a big card with a gift card to a bookstore."
They looked stupefied. "Oi, Hermione," Draco called out to her as he stepped out of the kitchen.
"Yes," Hermione turned to face him.
Draco smirking stepped out holding a basket of sugar quills, a giant card, and two small flat boxes that probably contained a gift card to her favorite muggle bookstore. "Congratulations."
A smile spread across her face. Ron sputtered out. "Bu-bu-but," he paused for a moment. "You didn't even say a thing."
Harry shook himself out of his stupor. "You planned this from the beginning. Didn't you?" He accusingly said.
Draco shrugged and smile mischievously. "Slytherin's handiwork."
Hermione laughed softly. "This rivalry you boys have is amusing."
They all interchanged glances. A second passed, they burst into laughter.
Draco laughingly said, "You're faces were priceless."
"We're such idiots," Ron managed to get out.
"What in the world were we thinking," Harry barely got out.
"Nobody's going to believe me even if I told them," Hermione laughed.
As they finally calmed down, Draco set the basket down where the least amount of glitter was. Ron chuckling said, "You win this round, Draco."
"And we will get you the next," responded Harry.
Draco smiling at Hermione, "Wouldn't bet on it boys."
"Are you three planning on another way to win?" Her voice went up an octave, "Because if you are, I will personally make sure you three clean up this mess." She paused for a second. "Without magic."
Draco grinned at Hermione. "Don't worry there won't be a next time."
She scrutinized them for a long second. "I'll be the judge of that."
Simultaneously they nodded their heads, "Of course, Hermione."
She picks up her basket slowly, "I'll see you two, after I leave this upstairs. You two can handle not making a bigger mess, right?"
"Relax, we'll clean this up." Harry rolled his eyes, "It's not as if we've gotten you expelled."
"Will you ever let that go?" she sounded exasperated.
"Never," they both chorused together.
She humphed and went up the stairs to her room. "Coast is clear," Ron said jokingly.
"I'm going to ask her out." Draco blurted out.
"About time if you ask me," Harry smiled.
"No kidding." Ron rolled his eyes then leered at Harry, "I believe you owe me 20 galleons."
"Wait. You. Two. Knew." He bit out.
"It didn't take a genius to figure it out." Ron smiled as Harry gave him the winnings.
"She knows!" Draco got up and started to pace.
"No. She's still oblivious to your feelings." Harry soothingly said.
"Oh. Oh." Draco stopped pacing. "When did you two become aware of this?"
"Since third year." Ron stated. "I would've hexed any girl who punched me unless I liked her."
"It was confirmed in 4th year." Harry grinned at Draco, "You oh so carefully warned her to hide."
Draco groaned. "I can't believe you guys figured it out."
Footsteps were heard coming down. With a wave of his wand, Draco cleared the mess up up that had taken hours to make under seconds. "Hmm, you guys are so sweet to clean this up."
"Hermione we will be back in a couple of hours to give you a congratulatory present." Harry said.
"Yeah, we'll congratulate you some more later on." Ron winked at Draco.
"Oh, I thought we were going to hang out some more." She looked crestfallen.
"Don't worry in moments you won't miss us at all." Harry cryptically remarked as both Ron and he exited the room.
"What in the world?" Hermione muttered.
Draco came near Hermione until he was hair's breadth away from her. He slowly touched her cheek. "Draco what are you," she trailed off uncertainly when he caught her face in both hands. His eyes became molten silver and seemed to be gazing into her soul.
"Did I ever tell you how proud I am of you?" Draco whispered.
Hermione swallowed, "Uhm, no?"
Draco smiled so contently that it stole Hermione's breath away.
"Did I ever tell you how much I love you?"
Hermione's eyes widen to a point of disbelief. "Love?"
"Yes, love. I love you Hermione Jean Granger." He smiled at her with so much love in his expression that it seemed obvious he was going to kiss her.
That of course was before they heard a loud crashing noise. Startling them a foot away from each other. "How could you slip, Harry, they were about to kiss!" Ron said as he rubbed his elbow.
"Harry! Ron!" Hermione scolded as her face turned a bright tomato
"Oh come on!" Harry said. "I just wanted to make sure you guys got to kiss!".
"Well we were going to!" Hermione puffed.
"So do it!"
Hermione glared at her two best guy friends as she grabbed Draco and planted a kiss.
"Whoa." Draco goofily smiled. It was probably until much later that Hermione squealed like a girl.