AN: Sorry for the major delay (: But I'm back! And here's the update. As usual, don't own Harry Potter.
After re-doing her hair for the third time, Hermione had a moment of epiphany - that she was actually nervous about the entire affair. She had, in the past one and a half hours, changed in and out of twenty different dresses and tried to tame her hair (to no avail). Then it hit her - she was actually dressing up for Draco. Shuddering at the realisation, Hermione sighed and picked the black halter she had worn for Harry and Ginny's wedding off the bed whilst clearing all the hair products off her dresser. After all, she considered, it was just Draco, and they were just going for a simple dinner...
It was a minute more to eight, which was when the portkey Draco had given her was due to depart. Checking her appearance once more in the mirror, she locked up the Loft and clutched the ornate key in her hand, watching as it glowed bright blue, taking her to what she hoped would be a good place to be.
---
Hermione landed unceremoniously on a sofa in an ornately-decorated room, in which she appeared to be alone. A little disorientated and nauseous from travel, she attempted to adjust to her surroundings.
"Mademoiselle Granger?" The door creaked open and a timid-looking girl poked her head in. "I was told to expect you at this time, Monsieur Malfoy is waiting in the private room."
"Oh." Monsieur? Mademoiselle? Hermione got to her feet unsteadily and followed the girl down the corridor. The girl stopped abruptly and whispered into the lion-shaped door knocker, which growled as the door clicked open.
"Good evening."
Hermione looked around and spotted Draco reclining in a ridiculously large armchair at the end of a rectangular rosewood table that spanned half the room. The girl ushered her into the armchair at the opposite end of the table and left in a hurry.
"You frighten her. And this is frightening me." Hermione gestured to their plush surroundings as she noticed the glittering chandelier that dangled above the table, illuminating the room.
"Well, seeing this is the most expensive restaurant in Paris, I would have thought you would be pleasantly surprised. Oh, and I forgot to mention - you look simply..amazing." Draco replied with a warm, disarming smile. Hermione felt herself smiling too as she observed him -- he was dressed in a black suit with buttons undone at the collar, his bleached-blonde hair hanging carelessly over his eyes.
Well, he sure looked amazing too.
"I apologise for taking liberties with your choice of wine, I just thought you would appreciate the 1943 Chateau."
"Oh. No problem," Hermione said, feigning indifference as she sipped from the glass before her that was filling itself. Meanwhile, she continued to glance around the room and concluded that it was indeed sinful - sacrilegous, even, to indulge so extravagantly on dinner in Paris, no less. Hermione surmised that the food alone was the price of the Loft. Besides, they weren't really friends anyway, were they?
"Hermione, is everything alright?" Draco asked concernedly, jolting her out of her reverie.
"Ah, yes. Actually, no. Draco, this is too much. I must say, I am suitably impressed but this is just so...Malfoy." Hermione gushed. "I know you're used to this, but we aren't really that close to begin with, you didn't have to-"
"Hermione."
She stopped short as he gazed right into her eyes, and she remembered just why she had trouble holding his gaze.
"Listen. Just for tonight, why don't you just forget who I am? Dismiss the fact that I am Draco Malfoy, and while you're at it, pretend you're not Hermione Granger. And by the end of tonight, see if you've changed your mind."
Hermione nodded mutely at him and looked away quickly, raising her glass before gulping the wine down, avoiding his gaze as he raised his in return.
It was the most fun she had had in eight years.
Hermione laughed along with Draco as they chatted over dinner, chuckling at his witty jokes whilst ignoring the snide comments he made along the way about Ron's dress sense and Harry's perpetual paranoia. While he was with her, the ghosts seemed to fade away - and for once, she felt warm and loved; for once, the darkness left her alone.
They had finished, and Draco rose gracefully from his seat and offered a hand to her. Bemused, she rose and slid her hand into his, and the next moment, he had apparated them somewhere else.
Hermione gasped as she found herself in what seemed to be an empty amusement park. It was lit up by multicoloured lights - lights that swirled and burned bright, blinking playfully as they changed from yellow to red, then green, and back again.
She let Draco walk her down a glass pathway framed by a silver archway. Then she saw it - a golden ferris wheel that seemed to glow in the night sky.
"Come with me."
Draco ushered her into the next car that went by and sat next to her as the door slid shut. The compartment continued on its ascent, and they sat in total silence as Hermione pressed her hands against the windows as they rose further and further up, watching as the lights of the Parisian skyline came into view.
"Hermione?"
"Yeah?" She tore her gaze away from the breathtaking view before her eyes, turning her attention to Draco, who seemed to be scrutinising her every move.
"My mother once brought me here, and she told me that there was this strange belief that if you reached the top of a ferris wheel and made a wish, it would come true."
Hermione looked out of the window again and became conscious of the fact that they were seconds away from the highest point.
"So I wish that you would give us a chance."
There was an icy silence in the compartment as Hermione avoided Draco's line of sight and focused on a distant object outside the window. It was just hard to believe that Draco Malfoy, sole heir of the one of the wizarding world's most prominent pureblood families was asking her, a Muggle-born witch, to give a shot at a relationship with him. It was so strange that it felt just like a twisted fairytale, a freaky one at that - but it was definitely real.
They reached the ground and exited the compartment in the same uncomfortable silence that disturbed Hermione very much. She walked away from him quickly to sit on the park bench facing the carousel. Lost for words, Draco wandered forlornly to the carousel, and with that atheletic effortlessness that Hermione had always admired, he leapt onto the white horse that went by and sat there, staring vacantly at the lights that continued to sparkle in technicolor shades.
"Draco?" Hermione called, as she rose and walked toward the carousel, as he drifted past slowly on the horse.
He turned and gave her a faint smile. "I respect your decision. I won't force the issue-"
"Draco, don't make me change my mind. Look, this whole thing is freaky and rather sudden for me, but I guess maybe we could try, and with time..."
He laughed, and the light danced in his silvery eyes as he smiled and reached for her hand, pulling her onto the carousel, enfolding her in his soft embrace. Hermione looked up into those eyes - those cloudy, cold eyes that now seemed to shine in the darkness - and in them she saw warmth, and the happiness she had strived so hard to find.
Then he held her close and his tender lips met hers as he kissed her ever so softly, as the lights twinkled like the stars in the sky above.
His kiss was like velvet.
The darkness was gone.
---
The cloaked figure on the opposite roof watched carefully as Hermione made her way around her tiny apartment, singing to herself as she tidied up the room. She was happy, he observed. He took the last cigarette from the box beside him and lit it with a flame conjured from his wand. Taking a long drag from it, he exhaled with a long, tired sigh as Hermione pulled the curtains shut and switched off the lights. All was dark in the apartment, and he knew that she would rest, still overjoyed as she dreamed of beautiful things that would make her smile in her sleep. But he would sit there on the roof of the opposite shophouse for another hour or so, just staring across the street at the little, curtain-covered window. He had done so for five years, tonight was no different.
Just that those damned cigarettes were finished.
He extinguished the cigarette stub and sat in the pitch black of his surroundings. And there he sat, waiting, watching, till the first streaks of light blue painted their way across the sky, heralding the break of dawn. Then he disappeared, as silently as he came - as he always did.
AN: Hope this chapter doesn't let you down...isn't as dark as the previous chapter, but there'll be much more to come, as you can see. (: Let me know what you think!