A/N: I just got back from seeing the Mets play, and after seeing their Kiss Cam after the third inning I was struck with inspiration. I planned this on the subway, the latest in the ever-growing family of my OneShots. Voila!
Summary: On a muggle studies field trip, Malfoy learns the hard way that watching baseball with Hermione isn't that bad. And that Ron likes giant foam fingers. DHr drabble, humor/romance
Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter. Bite me.
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Hermione's Hidden Baseball Passion
"No! Second! Throw to second, you bloody moron!" Hermione yelled as she leaned over the Loge level, cupping her hands around her mouth as if she expected Mets player Chris Woodward, who was currently standing baffled on third base, to hear her. As Woodward didn't take her advice and threw the baseball home, letting the hitter from the away team to steal second base, Hermione growled in irritation and slumped back down in her seat next to Ron. Ron blinked repeatedly as he stared in wonder at his best friend, while also trying to count out the amount of American muggle money to buy a giant foam finger for his brothers. As the opposing team finally ran home, Hermione yelled in frustration, before standing up again to bellow, "Get a new pitcher!"
Shifting awkwardly in his seat, muttering murderously about muggle filth and NEWT requirements, Malfoy tried to prevent his skin from touching the plastic seats when he leaned forward to make his head level with Ron's. His voice dripping with crankiness caused by his bad experience with his ride on the Metro, he asked,
"Do you have any idea what Granger's talking about?" Ron barely glanced up at him, before shrugging and responding,
"Of course not. I only took this class as an easy O." Malfoy nodded in agreement, having previously thought the same, and sunk back into his seat, scowling as Blaise began to suck noisily on his soda through a bendy straw. Blaise was having the time of his life, much to Malfoy's displeasure, and had already gotten Hermione to teach him the lyrics to 'Take Me Out To The Ballgame' between the second and third innings. After a long guzzle of his beverage, Blaise let the straw fall back into his plastic bottle and sent a smug grin at his friend.
"Enjoying the game, Draco?" he asked casually, while Hermione leapt back up to her feet to yell at the Mets coach. Biting back a rude retort about scum and bloodlines, Malfoy settled at curling his lower lip and glaring at the back of Hermione's head. Her bushy hair had been covered up by a black Mets cap, and a few loose tendrils fell around her ears in small waves. He grudgingly admitted that she looked better that way. Not good, just better.
"Get Maine off the pitch before he lets them win!" she ordered, clenching her fists around the metal rail preventing her from plunging head first into the green grass below. Ron rolled his eyes, exchanging a look with Ernie Macmillan on Hermione's other side. His fellow pureblood chuckled at her audaciousness, before continuing to watch the play back screen across from them, with Susan Bones, having yet to realize that it was simply enlarging the action below them.
"Professor Lilmath?" Ron said to the petite woman seated with Professor Lupin the row behind Malfoy. "Professor, would fifty dollars be enough to by one of those foam hand thingies?" Lupin snickered quietly into his hand at Ron's innocent expression, as Lilmath sighed, before bending over Malfoy's blond head to tell him that he hardly needed more than five dollars for his souvenir. Hermione sat back down once again, relieved, as the final out was called and the fourth inning was ended. The play by play was replaced by some emotional sap proposing to his girlfriend, and she lost interest. She folded her knees so Ron could pass her and approach the vender walking through the crowd a few seats behind them.
Hermione twisted in her seat to say to Blaise, her newfound friend,
"They're only behind a few points, they could catch up if they let Wright hit next inning." Malfoy sneered as his tratorious friend nodded eagerly, fascinated by the sport. Annoyed that he was being left out, Malfoy stood up and stepped down a row to sit next to her in Ron's empty seat, and then put his feet up along the railing. "Honestly, they need to focus and stop wasting time though. They're underestimating the opponent."
"How exactly do you know all of this useless information, Granger, if you've never shown any interest in sports before," he drawled, flicking back his shiny hair. She slowly turned back around to face him, pointedly pretending she didn't just hear the appreciative coos of the muggle teenage girls a few seats down, before pulling the brim of her cap down lower to block out the sun and saying coolly,
"I just don't show an interest in Quidditch. This, however, is logical and played without broomsticks." He muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like 'Do you call tight pants logical?' She settled back, her posture similar to his own with her feet up on the balcony wall, before saying superiorly, "Plus my cousin Ted plays baseball and he taught me about it when I was twelve." He resisted the urge to repeat her words back to her in a nasal voice, and instead fired back,
"You're just bitter that you can't fly a broom properly." She smirked, and responded quickly,
"You're just mad that I know more about Baseball than you." Though the comment angered him, Malfoy did not get a chance to retort, as a new feature rolled across the large screen. She squealed in delight as she leaned forward again, mesmerized, as she watched the Kissing Cam, a small break when a camera found couples in the stadium and put them up on the screen until they kissed. Malfoy scoffed as an elderly couple; wearing matching Mets hats pecked each other innocently.
"Aww, that's so sweet," Susan Bones squealed from further down the row, causing Malfoy to gag. Hermione laughed in agreement, as the camera continued to spot out new groups, including two young adults in their early twenties, who blushed but finally kissed softly, emitting giggles from the girls watching. However, the tame kiss quickly escalated into a make out, and the camera crew was forced to pan away and move on. Whenever it came across a couple that refused to kiss in public, the commentator catcalled and mocked them until they did.
Malfoy zoned out, slouching forward against the rail next to Hermione, as he wondered what he had done to deserve such hell. And if Hell was real, he knew it would be here, watching muggle sports with a simpering Hermione Granger. But he quickly zoned back in when Blaise poked him in his back, right between his shoulder blades.
"Draco, check it out! We're on camera!" He looked up blankly to find that they were in fact on camera, with Hermione waving her arms happily and Ron still arguing with the vendor in the background. However, it wasn't until the commentator began to make rude smoochy noises that he realized with a jolt that the camera was actually zooming in on him and Hermione, who hadn't quite figured that out yet.
His eyes widened in absolute horror.
"Don't be afraid, kiss her!" the loud announcer voice joked, causing Hermione to turn around and wonder out loud,
"What couple is he talking about?" If Malfoy's skin tone hadn't prevented it, he would have blushed a very Weasley red. Mortified, even more so than he had been after the famous bouncing ferret incident, he covered his eyes with his hands, as Blaise sniggered and joined in the catcalls behind him. Professors Lupin and Lilmath were laughing good-naturedly at his predicament, as Ernie yelled,
"Oh, just do it, Malfoy! 40 thousand people are watching you get stage fright!" Hermione gasped as she put two and two together, and she gaped at the big screen, which now had little pink hearts floating around her and Malfoy. Malfoy gulped, thought out a quick apology to his father in hell below them, before leaning over and grabbing the collar of her Mets jersey. She fell against him with a quiet 'oof!' before he kissed her quickly on her lips and thrust her away. Satisfied, the camera switched to someone else, as Hermione stared in shock at him. Malfoy wiped his mouth off on his sleeve, before climbing back to his seat behind him, sending a death glare at the cackling Blaise.
"What I miss?" Ron asked as he sat back down next to Hermione. She blinked, before responding tightly,
"Fourth inning's over."
Everyone learned something knew on their trip to America that year. Blaise learned how to sing 'Take Me Out To The Ballgame', as well as the fact that muggleborns really weren't all that bad. Ernie and Hannah were taught how to dance the Cha Cha Slide, by Hermione, and found they both had quite a passion for the muggle creation of the bike. Ron learned that foam could in fact be set on fire after an unexplained incident involving a Weber grill and a plastic Spork. Terry Boot learned that he enjoyed shopping with Susan in Greenwich Village. Hermione learned to never put a Metro card in the slot of the Subway entrance backwards, or to think of Malfoy as a coward.
Malfoy learned that not holding onto something on a Metro ride would only end in falling on your arse on the floor, and that kissing Hermione Granger really wasn't that bad. And that he quite liked baseball, once he actually watched the game proceed.
A few years later, Malfoy became one of the emotional saps that proposed to their girlfriends on the big screen at a baseball game. After she said yes, he joined Hermione as she yelled at the first baseman to throw the damn ball home.
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A/N: Wow, that was some meaningless drabble! Likey? Reviewy! Pleasey? Laters!
Final Word Count: 1698