"Malfoy, I can't do this"
"And yet, you're going to." he said, placing his hand on the small of her back and pushing her forward into the banquet hall.
Conversations stuttered and turned to whispers at her entry. Former member of the golden trio, back again after her mysterious disappearance. Such delicious feed for gossip. A few cameras flashed and she fixed her eyes on her shoes, which were the most fancy pair she owned but still far too casual for this event.
Thankfully, Narcissa rushed the odd pair and bombarded them with inane chatter. She ushered them over to the minister, and demonstrated her amazing skills at social games. She complimented Hermione passionately, while simultaneously stroking the minister's ego. She acted completely innocent, as if she had no motives whatsoever and was just chatting among friends. Her jokes perfectly toed the border between professional and just inappropriate enough to make it seem casual and intimate. Draco played along with his mother's charade like a magicians assistant, practiced and smooth. Hermione attempted to steer the conversation towards work, she didn't have the patience or care for networking. It would be best not to mislead him about what sort of worker she was anyway. She was not the sort to be friends with her boss, or tell inappropriate jokes, or go to parties. Eventually, he excused himself, insisting that parties were not the place to talk about work. Hermione felt like asking him why then did he agree to meet with her at a party, but she felt it would be pointless.
"Do you even want a job?" Draco chastised her as he pointedly led her towards the refreshments table, and away from Narcissa.
Suddenly Draco stiffened, and Hermione followed his gaze to a beautiful woman who had a presence so strong it was as if this was her banquet. She walked up to them with a confident smile, and her gaze never once left Draco.
"Hello Draco, dear".
"Hello Astoria".
"You're looking... typical".
What the fuck did that mean, Hermione wondered, but the woman was pointedly ignoring her existence, as if she were merely a piece of furniture and it was making Hermione mad. Harry and Ron had a reason to treat her like she was nothing, but that didn't mean it wasn't wearing down her spirit. She really didn't feel like feeling even worse about herself because of some snooty elitist.
Hermione stepped up right in front of Astoria, demanding her attention. She held her hand out and smiled sweetly, "Astoria! Lovely to meet you." when Astoria did not shake Hermione's hand, the witch just smiled even sweeter and continued, "your father was - right? So unfortunate. I'm glad you don't share his feelings about muggle-borns. It's certainly no good in todays political climate to be suspected of anti-muggle-born biases."
Astoria reluctantly took Hermione's hand. Hermione dropped the other witches hand almost immediately, and turned to Draco, putting a hand on his arm.
"Draco, dear, isn't that Blaise? Let's say hello, shall we?" and then she led Draco away, treating Astoria as though she had suddenly disappeared from existence.
Once they were out of hearing distance Draco released a breath he had been holding. His eyebrows had jumped up practically into his hair and stayed there. "Wow, you could've been a Slytherin."
"I definitely could not have. Can you imagine?"
"Well you handled that situation with quite a bit of tact and venom"
"Yes, something I never would have done back at Hogwarts. Honestly, back then I couldn't imitate a Slytherin if my life depended on it. Which it did once," Hermione said, thinking back to when she had impersonated Bellatrix Lestrange in Gringotts, "and the way you froze back there, you could have been a Hufflepuffs"
"You take that back".
Draco and Hermione arrived at the table where Blaise Zabini and Pansy Parkinson sat. Blaise looked skeptically from Hermione to Draco and back.
"What's going on here?" he asked.
"We were just discussing how Malfoy was mis-sorted. He'd look more natural in yellow and black, don't you think?"
Pansy nearly snorted. Draco would look dreadful in yellow.
"So you're taking his place in Slytherin then?" Blaise asked.
"I don't think I fit in any house anymore. If ever ever did. Things have changed a lot since we were eleven"
"True," Pansy said. Hermione rose her eyebrows. She had always assumed Pansy was a perfect personification of Slytherin. "That's what you get for letting a hat decide who you're going to be for the next seven years".
"We really aren't who we were back then," Blaise said, but then his gaze shifted to something behind Hermione, "well, at least some of us".
"What the bleeding fuck is Gryffindor's princess doing with you twats?" Theodore Nott exclaimed with a broad smile, swaggering up to their table, and seemingly loving the stares he was getting from the otherwise formal and quiet hall.
"Theo, please" pansy sighed, but Hermione could see her biting her cheek to keep from smiling.
Theo snatched a chair from a neighboring table and pulled it up uncomfortably close to Hermione.
"So princess, your Italian lover ditch you for someone who doesn't correct his grammar in bed? And now you're rebounding with a taste of the dark side?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows.
Pansy opened her mouth to scold Theo, but Hermione interjected, "yep, that's exactly what happened. How'd you guess?"
"Oh, I have excellent people skills," Theo bragged. Then he leaned in as if he was telling Hermione a secret, though she doubted he was capable of whispering, "you know, if you really want a taste of the dark side princess, you should take a bite out of me. I killed my own father you know".
He was clearly trying to provoke a reaction out of her, but she wasn't the same innocent girl she used to be.
"Killing a death eater isn't really what id call evil," Hermione smirked. She may not have been as innocent as she had been back at Hogwarts, but she was still as arrogant. People can only change so much.
Theo didn't lose the mischievous glint in his eye, "yeah, but I didn't kill him because I had a hard-on for muggles or anything. I just wanted to, and the war gave me an excuse"
"Jeez Theo" pansy shook her head. Draco and Blaise were watching Hermione curiously to see how she'd react. She was careful not to let her face reveal anything. In truth, she was somewhere between uncomfortable and amused.
"Theo, you're the one person here I truly don't believe could possibly have belonged to any other house," she said with a slight smile and shake of her head.
Theo grinned and slammed his hand on the table, "shit!," he yelled, once again attracting stares from the banquet's attendants, "you've come a long way from the little Gryffindor princess we used to prank with toads in her soup! You remember that Draco?"
"Please Theo, that was hardly our best".
"What was your best then Malfoy?" Hermione asked with a hint of mischief in her eye that reminded Draco too much of Theo
"Yeah Malfoy," Theo purred, batting his eyelashes in an absurd imitation of Hermione, "what was our best?"
"Hexing your textbooks"
The former Slytherins erupted in nostalgic laughter, and Hermione cocked her head at them, confused.
Pansy blushed, ashamed, but Draco and Theo looked proud as Blaise explained, "we hexed your textbooks to switch the names of witches and wizards to goofy names we made up"
"You tossers! I lost two points on the owls because of that!" Hermione exclaimed. The others burst into laughter again at her distress, and she couldn't help but join them.
"Smoochy Applebaum!" Hermione gasped, suddenly remembering one of them. Their laughter roared louder.
Just then Hermione felt something hit the back of her head rather hard. She turned to see Ron glaring at her across the hall, his wand glowing and Ginny scoldingl. Her merriment quickly evaporated, and Draco could swear she literally shrunk. She turned back and looked down at her hands, her face hot.
Pansy stood up, ready to confront Ron to defend her unlikely new friend, but Hermione grabbed her hand.
"Pansy, please, don't"
"Yeah Pansy," Draco said calmly, "we're Slytherins. We can do better."
Pansy, Blaise, and Theo grinned. Pansy flicked her wand and Hermione watched in horror as dozens of red hairs disappeared from the back of Ron's head, leaving a subtle unappealing bald spot. Theo muttered a spell and Ron's glass suddenly slipped from his hand, spilling butterbeer over his button-down and jeans (much too informal for the banquet, and butterbeer? really?).
"Amateurs" Draco said, he whispered something in Blaise's ear, and then stood up and chimed his knife against his champagne glass, calling the attention of the hall. When it was silent he announced in a smooth, cocky voice "a toast. First, of course, to miss Chang. A beautiful banquet, Cho, I'd expect nothing less from you," he smiled at cho and she blushed like she was still a schoolgirl, though she would likely never have been charmed by Draco back then, "and," Draco continued, "to our own quidditch celebrity! Ron Weasley." Ron's head snapped up, "if someone had told me ten years ago that you would be playing opposite victor krumm himself id have called them a rotten liar. A short run, sure, but its not like anyone else here can say they played in the quidditch world cup! Give us a speech wont you Weasley?" Draco said, his posture and voice perfectly formal, but his eyes mocking. Everyone, even Hermione, knew that Ron had been kicked off of London's team after their crushing loss against -. Even worse, Krumm, Ron's childhood idol, had slammed a quaffle right into Ron and sent him flying through the hoop thing.
Ron's face was red as his hair from rage and embarrassment, but he had no other choice than to stand and give a speech. Or, try to. Blaise, so subtly that Hermione almost missed it, flicked his wand in Ron's direction just before he spoke. Ron stuttered out gibberish.
"Stop" Hermione said, so low that only Draco, seated right next to her, could hear.
"Are you kidding? He's been a right twat to you all night"
"I deserve it."
"Somehow I don't believe you," Draco said, but he motioned to Blaise and in a moment Ron was speaking coherently.
Pansy invited Hermione to accompany her to the ladies room, and when Hermione refused Pansy sighed and amended her invitation to the refreshment bar.
"I thought you should know, Draco asked Blaise to look into your files in the ministry," Pansy whispered.
Hermione nodded, she wasn't surprised, and her ministry records revealed nothing of her secrets.
"He thinks he's a bloody detective or something. You want my advice?"
"Does it matter what I say?"
Pansy grinned, "now you're getting it sweetie. Look, he's obsessed with other people's secrets, the only way to get him out of your business is to let him think he's got you figured out. I'd suggest you tell him you cheated on Ron," Hermione recoiled at the suggestion, "Simple, believable. I mean honestly it's understandable. You had your shared trauma, you bonded,"
"We already-" Hermione tried to interrupt, to defend herself, but Pansy carried on, ignoring the other witch.
"It didn't even feel like you were rushing into things because you had been friends for so long, but honey you can't marry the first man you date. And jumping right into an engagement? Dear, I thought you were smart. It's totally to be expected that you would need a taste of something different."
"I didn't actually cheat on him pansy! I would never!"
"Well, it's in your best interest to make Draco think you would."
Hermione glanced back at the table where Draco was sitting, and her heart jumped as she met his eyes. Neither of them looked away. She felt that he could see her secrets through her eyes, and for some reason didn't think she could look into those grey, piercing eyes, and lie.
While Pansy had been talking with Hermione, Oliver Wood approached Draco. He had become an Auror, and had repeatedly opposed Draco in court. Though Draco almost always was able to get his client off, Wood certainly made it hard.
"Malfoy, did I just see you with Hermione Granger?"
Draco saw an opportunity, "Yes, she's my date for the evening,"
"I had no idea you two were... close"
Oliver had a clear bias against Draco, certainly not helped by his friendship with Harry potter and the fact that they worked together. But an auror was a good friend to have on your side, and Granger might just be his way in. Draco looked over at Hermione and a plan began to form in his mind. When her eyes met his, he suddenly had the thought that he might actually enjoy this.
Later, after Hermione had yawned three times in five minutes, they finally left after thanking Cho.
Draco led Hermione back to the car, past the paparazzi.
"I'll just apparate home," she said, stifling another yawn.
"Please, what sort of gentleman would I be if I didn't escort you home?" Draco asked.
Hermione snorted, "You've never really struck me as any sort of gentleman Malfoy. Besides, it's not like this is even a real date, you don't-"
Suddenly Hermione tripped, seemingly on nothing. Before she could recreate the photo from the newspaper of her on her arse, Draco smoothly caught her in his arms. Draco held Hermione in his arms, and smiled down at her, a smile that to anyone else might seem charming but Hermione found more mocking. He held her there a bit longer than necessary as cameras flashed, and Hermione felt increasingly uncomfortable as she clutched onto him for support, wishing she wasn't noticing how muscular his arms were underneath his suit jacket. Finally, he lifted her back to her feet, removing his hand from her side but keeping his other hand on the small of her back as he escorted her to the car.
"What are you playing at Malfoy?"
"I can't win with you Granger, even when I'm trying my best to be polite you doubt my motivation. I'm hurt," he said innocently as he opened her door
"Cut the bull-
He closed the passenger door, cutting her off. When he had walked around to the other side of the car and gotten in she immediately resumed talking.
"Does it count as polite if you continue to act like a complete git?"
"Welcome to high society".
