Everything was unpacked but Hermione couldn't find one very important thing.

Her diary was missing.

She decided to look for it later, right now she had to get ready for supper. She put a record of Frank Sinatra on her gramophone and soon The Way You Look Tonight was being crooned at her by the master crooner.

Shrugging on her red and dark brown knee length dress she danced a little as she sang along using the hairbrush which was supposed to be brushing her hair, as a microphone. She slipped on the little gold and ruby necklace that Harry had given her for her seventeenth birthday and continued dancing.

She became aware of sniggering by the door. She spun on the spot and her skirt swished a little around her. Draco stood there leaning on the doorframe in a black suit with a red shirt. He looked quite handsome.

"What are you laughing at?"

"You, Miss Granger. I've never seen anything so ridiculous."

She laughed briefly and bit her lip. "Haven't you ever done this?"

"Done what? Make myself look stupid?"

"No. Put on some of your favourite music and just let yourself go in the music."

"Sounds dorky."

Hermione laughed again. "It's not. It's fun. Anyway who cares if you're acting like a dork, you're having fun."

"What happened to the prissy bookworm who hit me three years ago?"

"She grew up. Look, I dare you to try losing yourself in music this summer."

"You dare me? Is this a game?"

"Yes, Draco. Gryffindors have their traditions too. I have spent most of the past five summers playing Dare with Harry and Ron. Ginny too when she can stop snogging a different guy every week. Then she started snogging Harry on a regular basis so she joins in a lot."

"You spend your summers playing dare?" Draco tried not to snigger at her. He was even doing his best not to smirk.

"You are allowed to smirk you know." Hermione returned his smirk.

"We better head down to dinner before mother has the house elves searching the house and grounds for us." letting himself smirk.

Hermione laughed and led the way out.

"So what started this tradition?" he asked casually helping her down a trick step. "Sorry, this house is almost as old as Hogwarts and is built in the same style."

"I'm sure your dad will fill me in. Dare started as Truth or Dare, something to get to know each other better and see how far we could push each other. After about three years we realised that we knew everything about each other and so we dropped the Truth bit and stuck with the Dares since they caused so much entertainment for all of us."

"What kind of things did you make each other do then?" Draco asked.

"Oh the old things; prank Snape, booby trap the Slytherin common room, streak through the ministry of magic without getting caught. That kind of thing."

"The three of you streaked through the ministry?" Draco asked incredulously.

"One of us did. Nudity was a running theme for quite a lot of dares."

"YOU streaked through the ministry?" Draco stopped outside the dining room door with his hand on the door handle.

"To be fair I made Harry and Ron streak through Daigon Alley a week later. That got all of us in the prophet and we had a good old giggle over the photographs."

"Draco, are you going to bring our guest in to dinner or would you prefer to eat out in the hallway?" Lucius Malfoy's voice said from the open door of the dining room. Smirking at the look of astonishment on Draco's face Hermione passed Lucius and entered the huge elegant dinning room.

Standing by her chair at one end of the long banquet table was Narcissa in a pretty red cocktail dress. Lucius helped her into her seat while Draco stood dumbly by his, having been forcibly dragged there by his father. Hermione noticed that Lucius was wearing a dark red velvet smoking jacket. She noticed a theme.

Lucius went to his seat at the head of the table and discreetly cleared his throat. Draco woke up enough to help Hermione to her seat beside him opposite Narcissa. Hermione let him without question.

"How did you find the exams this year, Miss Granger? I heard they were causing difficulties this year." Narcissa asked as a couple of house elves brought in plates of smoked salmon and blini's.

"They were an absolute doddle. I don't know why everyone makes such a fuss of them."

"I thought you might say that. From what I know of you you've been top of your year since you arrived at the school." Lucius smiled at her.

"Ron Weasley couldn't figure out how a muggle born could be so smart, but Harry reckons I might be a descendant of Rowena Ravenclaw."

"It's likely. She had a very extensive family. If you would like to investigate it this summer you are welcome to our library. We have genealogies of the four founders which update themselves every generation."

"Thank you sir. I will definitely try that."

"Good." Lucius smiled and then turned to his wife and tried to talk her out of the shopping trip the following day.

Hermione meanwhile turned to Draco, who was picking at his salmon in confusion. "What's with you?" she tried not to chuckle.

"I'm just re-evaluating my opinion of you and your friends." Hermione laughed at him and then tried to stop herself at his mock glare. "I just never would have thought you'd do that kind of thing."

"You really don't know much about me. And you never tried to find out. You have this picture of me and my friends in your head and it's hard for you to imagine us as real people. And because of this picture of us you think we'd never do anything that broke the rules. It may surprise you to learn that in the history of the school, at least in this century, the Golden Trio ranks third in the tally of rule breaking en masse."

"Who comes first and second?"

"The Weasley twins and the Marauders. Ironic, isn't it, when you consider that all of them are Gryffindors not Slytherins."

"That can't be right."

Hermione chuckled. "Nevertheless it's true. We had to break rules. You can't save the world without breaking a few rules along the way."

"Do you realise how depressed you've made me?" Draco almost snapped making Hermione laugh.

Narcissa also chuckled. "It is strange how over the years Gryffindors turn out to be more rebellious than we ever did."

"Why do you think that is?" Hermione asked curiously.

"Maybe the expectation to do the right thing all the time and to be good all the time, as is expected for Gryffindors, triggers a reverse reaction. Also I don't think hormones help much."

Hermione snorted. "I'm with you there. They always get in the way don't they?"