Disclaimer- obviously not mine or it wouldn't be here. :)
A/N: Yes I'm finally back. My computer decided to cut me off, but here's the long awaited chapter 4. :D
Chapter Four- Butterflies and makeovers
All the third year Slytherin and Gryffindors walked down from the tower once class was over. Ginny started to walk to the Gryffindor tower, but then someone yanked her down and dragged her away, covering her mouth so she wouldn't be able to scream.
"Shut up," a girl whispered harshly. The girl had her face covered with a hood so Ginny couldn't see who she was. She tried to tug away from her when she saw they were going towards the Slytherin dungeons.
"Ginny, you've got to calm down," she heard another girl say and recognized Autumn's voice. She relaxed a little, but was still prepared to run just in case she got in a bad situation. They soon arrived into an old room that no one used anymore and the girl let go of Ginny and moved towards a dark corner.
"So, you want to know Hermione and Draco's story, right?" Autumn asked.
Ginny nodded.
"Well, first of all, Hermione isn't an only child, she has an older brother. Her mum didn't let her stay with her dad when they separated and then she went off and married a muggle so it would seem like Hermione was simply normal and not a witch. But, Hermione is in fact Cassiopia Amelia Pucey."
Ginny stared, her jaw hanging open in surprise.
"And I am her cousin, Raven Zabini," the other girl finally revealed herself. "Don't think that you're the only one who knows about Hermione's past. Neville, Luna, Lisa, your twin brothers and the Patils also know."
"Anyways," Autumn drawled "Draco has been through a lot with Hermione. At age eight, her mum started abusing her, so Draco convinced our parents to let Hermione come and visit and stay whenever she wanted to."
"Is that why he's so important to her?" Ginny asked. Autumn nodded and smiled sadly.
"I've never seen anyone more crushed than he was last year. During the summer," she shuddered, "that was awful. When they had ended their friendship, I don't even remember how long he had spent in his room, just throwing things. But anyways, whatever happens between the Golden Trio, Draco's going to make sure that Hermione gets over their reactions."
"So why exactly are you telling me all of this?" Ginny asked.
"Because I thought that, you know, maybe you could help Hermione also. If she sees that someone who doesn't 'know' about her past, accepts who she really is, she'll think that she has a chance yet to retain her friendships," Autumn confessed. "But this means that you can't let her know that you know."
"So if you're telling me this now, then that means that you guys have a date set," Ginny said.
"Yeah, we do," Raven said. "During the New Years Eve party. At 12.01, the Headmaster is going to announce it. We're so excited. Draco just can't wait," she grinned, "that way we can finally be as we once were. Now, we should get going back to our houses. Remember, don't tell anyone you know and let her think that you're looking over prejudices."
"Oh, and one more thing," Ginny looked over at Autumn, "Our families are in his inner circle under the orders of the Ministry of Magic. They're in a division of Unspeakables. The whole office had to join. That way, we can bring the Death Eaters down from the inside, but still, be careful when you talk to us. Wouldn't want to see you get hurt. Bye," she smiled and waved at her. Raven got up and they left Ginny there.
What the hell, Ginny thought to herself. Poor Hermione. I can't believe she's never said anything about it. She then got up and headed back to the Gryffindor tower with the only intention to sleep.
The week went by fairly quick. Hermione had made a quick recovery and soon rejoined the classes. Autumn kept a close eye on Ginny to make sure that she wouldn't act any differently towards Hermione. She did notice though, that Cedric had quickly become friends with Hermione and she could see him checking her out now at this moment.
Oh come on, now he's falling for her? she thought angrily. Draco, who was eating his toast, quickly spit it out. Autumn flinched a bit, hoping that the pieces wouldn't fall on her robes.
Don't even say that, she heard his angry voice in her head. Damn it, why did it have to be this year that Hermione has guys drooling over her left and right?
Why big brother, are you jealous or something? Autumn asked.
Of course not, he snapped, I just want time to hang out with my best friend.
All at once, he retreated from the conversation and Autumn guessed that he was probably talking to Hermione. One of the pros to them having those freaky powers of theirs was that Hermione and Draco could talk to each other whenever they wanted to.
Wish I had those, Autumn sighed.
Hermione stood up from the table and Ron looked up at her.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"To the library Ronald, where else would I go," Hermione muttered, still angry at him.
"Come on Mione, it's Friday, take the day off. Please?" he pleaded. She shook her head and left them there. As she passed by the Slytherins she sent Draco a thought.
You ready?
Draco smiled and looked at Blaise.
"Well, I see you lot later," he said and got up.
A few minutes later, Hermione heard footsteps behind her. She stopped walking and then somebody's arms went around her waist.
"Hey," Draco's voice was at her ear and Hermione shivered unintentionally as he softly nuzzled her neck.
"Let's go," she said, her stomach in knots. What was going on right now?
Draco let her go and they started walking to the room of requirement. When they arrived, they stood there until a door appeared. Draco held out his hand and Hermione took it. They looked at each other and Draco smiled warmly at her. She squeezed his hand and they both stepped through the door.
"Blaise told me what you said," he said and looked down at her. Her eyes were downcast and she looked hurt. Draco pulled her to him and he hugged her tightly. "It'll be okay. Don't worry about them. You have three months to try and change their opinions," he steered them to the bed and they sat down, backs on the wall. "They're dolts if they decide not to be friends with you after everything you've done for them."
She curled up at his side and silently begin to cry.
"I'm so sorry Draco," she choked out. "I just hope they get over the news quickly." She hiccupped and Draco kissed the top of her head. He started singing a song by an American band called the Plain White T's. Hermione fell asleep to the sound of him singing Hey There Delilah.
When Hermione's breathing evened out and Draco was sure that she was asleep, he smiled sadly, closed his eyes and let sleep wash over him.
Ron, Harry and Ginny sat around the fire.
"I hate it when she does this," Ron said. "She says she'll be in the library, but when we go there, she's not bloody there."
Both Harry and Ginny sighed. Ron had been ranting for what seemed like hours now, and they were both getting quite annoyed by him. As he opened his mouth again, Ginny whipped out her wand and pointed it at him.
"Silencio," she muttered. Ron's face went red and he started yelling. Well, he would've if it hadn't been for the spell on him. Harry couldn't help but laugh and Ginny grinned sheepishly.
Around four in the morning, Harry suddenly woke up. He heard something, but couldn't quite place it. He finally saw what it was. Hermione was silently walking around the common room, trying to wake Ginny so that they could go to the girls dormitory.
"So, where have you been?" Harry asked her, trying hard not to sound as if he were accusing her of anything.
Hermione jumped slightly and turned to look at him.
"Oh, hey Harry," she whispered. "I was, um, around," she said, smiling softly. Harry looked closer at her and noticed that her eyes were a bit red.
"Hermione, were you crying?" he asked her, worried. A look of fear and shock flit through her face, but it was gone before Harry could realize it was there.
"No," she said, pretending to be shocked. "Of course not. I was just sleeping and I just barely woke up. Can you help me Harry? I can't seem to get Ginny up."
"Yeah, sure," he said and got up. He never realized that Hermione had quietly avoided getting asked anymore questions as to where she had been. He picked Ginny up and Hermione led him to the stairs.
"Thanks Harry, I'll take it from here," she said and levitated Ginny up the stairs. She was careful to keep her face straight so Harry wouldn't see the effort she was using to take her up. When she put Ginny down on her bed, she headed to the bathroom to take a shower. The hot water unknotted her arm and back muscles, yet stung the wounds her mum had given her. She winced and got out, wrapping a towel around her and dried her hair. She then slipped into her pajamas and headed off to sleep.
Later that morning, she woke up a little later than usual.
"Oh man," she moaned and sat up. She quickly slipped on some pants and a shirt and ran down to the Great Hall.
"Morning Mione," Harry said, not even looking up.
"Hi," she said and grabbed some bread. "How are you guys?"
"Pretty good," Ginny said, sitting next to Hermione. "So, I was wondering, since it's a weekend and we have like, nothing to do, I was wondering if you wanted to hang out." She looked at Hermione, smiling.
"Um, yeah, sure," she said reluctantly. Why do I have a bad feeling about this? she thought to herself. "All right, cool then. Meet me in the hall before lunch," Ginny said and left happily.
"Who else thought that was really weird?" Hermione said. Harry raised his hand but kept on eating.
"Well," Harry said, "Ron and I are going to go practice a little Quidditch, since apparently, there's no Quidditch this year. You want to come?"
"No, thanks for the offer though," Hermione smiled and the two boys left to go play. She sighed and looked down at her plate. What was she supposed to do now that none of her friends were there with her?
"Hello Hermione," she heard Raven's cool voice next to her. She looked over and sure enough, the younger Zabini was sitting next to her. "Don't worry about reputations and whatever else it is you all worry about, there's almost no one in here."
Hermione looked around and realized that Raven was right.
"Wow, I must have slept in later than I thought," Hermione said nervously.
"Yeah," Raven smiled. She grabbed one of the goblets and it filled itself with pumpkin juice. "So Mione," she said after drinking the juice, "how's life been? Has Draco invited you over to his villa in Spain over the summer?" she looked up at the elder witch as she ate some toast.
"Oh yes," Hermione smiled.
"Are you blushing?" Raven asked, amused.
"What?" Hermione looked at her, startled. "Why- why would you ask that?" she asked her nervously.
"Oh no reason really," Raven smiled and dropped it. She loved how her cousin and her brother's best friend were completely oblivious to the fact that they were totally smitten by each other. "So, um, did you hear that Astoria is trying to take Draco from Pansy?"
"What?" Hermione choked on her pumpkin juice and Raven hit her back. She coughed and massaged her throat. "That's ridiculous, she would never. Right?" Raven smirked inwardly as she saw Hermione's confused and somewhat nervous look.
She just shrugged and Hermione looked around worriedly. Sure enough, Astoria was sitting next to Draco and they seemed to be discussing something very intently.
"Raven-" Hermione looked back and just as she was about to say anything, someone sat down next to her.
"Hey Hermione," the person said. She turned around and saw Nathaniel sitting next to her, a huge smile on his face.
"Oh, hello, Nathaniel. To what do I owe this pleasure?" she asked nicely. Raven rolled her eyes and looked at Nathaniel Turpin.
This kid was the bane of Draco's existence. Even if Hermione was no longer interested in Nathaniel anymore, Draco could never forgive the boy from stealing her away from him.
'Stealing precious moments of our childhood friendship,' was what Draco had accused Nathaniel of doing.
"So, I was wondering if you wanted to come hang out with my sister and me on the next Hogsmeade trip," he said.
"Oh," Hermione looked surprised. Raven rolled her eyes at the naivety from her cousin. How she didn't know that guys were smitten with her, she still didn't understand. "Well, I don't know if I'll be busy, but I'll check to see if maybe I can go with you," she said weakly.
"Well, excellent," Nathaniel said, smiling. "I guess I'll just wait for your answer." He got up and walked back to the Ravenclaw table.
"That was weird," Hermione said. "I've only talked to Nathaniel twice in these past four years." She looked at Raven and smiled. "So, how's your life?"
"It's life," she said nonchalantly. "Not much is happening. You're the most exciting thing that's happening to us right now," she laughed. Hermione blushed and bit her orange.
"Liar," she mumbled. Raven laughed at her obvious discomfort and started twirling her hair.
"So," Raven said, "is there anyone you know that I could start hanging out with? You know, who's worth getting to know?"
"Oh definitely," Hermione laughed. "If you're looking for the laugh of your life, hang out with the Weasley twins. Even though, I don't quite agree with what they do half the time, but they're still a lot of fun to hang out with. If you want someone who will talk to you about the more eccentric things in life, or you just want a new fresh point of view to the world, I totally recommend hanging out with Luna Lovegood. She's incredibly-" she struggled to find a word to describe Luna.
"Weird, individualistic, just simply fabulous, out of this world?" Raven offered.
"Sure," Hermione laughed. "Whatever works for you." Raven smiled and looked back. She sighed and stood up.
"Well, I have to go now. Autumn," she sneered slightly, "wants to explore around the castle." Hermione watched Raven walk away and wondered what was going on with the two younger girls. Usually they were inseparable and Raven loved hanging out with Autumn.
She sighed and saw that Raven had left a piece of paper on the table. She picked it up and read it. A smile graced her features and she quickly got up and quickly walked away.
"Did you leave it behind?" Blaise asked as soon as Raven got out of the Great Hall.
"No, you dumb ass," she said, "I just got out because I so want to hang out with Autumn." Raven rolled her eyes and kept on walking. Blaise shook his head and walked down to the dungeons.
Draco sat on one of the couches and waited for Hermione to come. A procession of knocks was at the door and soon it opened. Hermione waltzed in and sat down next to him.
"You got my note then?" he asked her. She nodded and Draco put his arm around her shoulder. "So, you ready for the end of the year? I can't wait until we can hang out in public again and we won't have to worry about putting you or our families in danger."
Hermione laughed and nudged him lightly.
"You keep mentioning that. Now more than ever since we have a date set," Hermione told him. Draco grinned and laughed a little, simply shrugging his shoulders.
"Can you blame me?" he said. "I have the smartest witch as my friend and then we don't have to sneak behind your friends' backs just to catch a few minutes together." Then he looked at her strangely. "Don't tell me you actually like sneaking around."
"Well, I have to admit," she smiled sheepishly at him, "I kind of enjoy the whole forbidden friendship inside the castle walls."
Draco burst out laughing and couldn't help it. Especially since she was blushing lightly. He hugged her tightly and held her to him.
"I can't believe good girl Granger just said that," he finally said. Hermione shrieked in mock rage and grabbed a pillow next to her. She hit him fully face and Draco looked at her, shocked. Her grin caught his attention and he finally decided that she looked way too pleased with herself. His shock had caused him to let her go, so she was standing away from him now. He stood up and quickly tackled her to the other couch before she could realize what was about to happen.
"Draco!" she shrieked in laughter as he mercilessly tickled her. He laughed as her desperate attempts to get away from him failed.
"Say uncle," he said. She shook her head and closed her mouth tightly. Draco resumed tickling her until finally she squealed uncle. He let her go and they sat up and Hermione fixed her clothes and her hair quickly.
"I have to go to the library now," she said. "I've been neglecting all my studies just so I could hang out with you. Let's meet later. Ginny intends to use this room to do atrocities to me, so don't come around here today after lunch."
They stood up and Hermione hugged him tightly before leaving.
That afternoon, Hermione stood outside the Great Hall nervously and saw that Ginny was flanked by Lavender and Parvarti.
"Oh hell," she muttered to herself.
"Hey Hermione," Ginny said cheerfully. "Come on, we're going to have so much fun." She beamed at her, along with Lavender and Parvarti.
I highly doubt it, she thought glumly. She reluctantly followed behind the cheerful girls and soon they arrived at the Room of Requirement just as Hermione had assumed.
"Close your eyes," Lavender said. Hermione sighed and did as told. Someone grabbed her elbow and steered her into the room. "Now, I'm going to magically cover your eyes so you can't see anything, but it won't mess us up. Here are some headphones so you can listen to this intriguing little doohickey."
Hermione held out her hand and Lavender put it in her hand. From what she could discern, this "doohickey" was most likely an mp3 of some sort. She sighed and put on the earphones. Whatever was going to happen, she would prefer to cut it out for as long as she could.
Lavender sat Hermione down and nodded at Ginny. The younger witch opened the curtains and behind stood a full vanity mirror with hair products, make-up and other assortments there.
"About time I got my hands on this girl," Lavender laughed. "I remember when I first saw her, I thought to myself, 'She is a makeover just waiting to happen.'" Parvarti laughed and agreed. "Well girls, lets get to work."
For the next two hours, the three witches worked on giving Hermione a new look. They gave her eyebrows more shape, going for the sexy, intellectual look, and had light green eye shadow with purple eyeliner on top and bottom. Ginny focused mainly on her hair, giving it more layers and putting products on her hair as she washed it. Parvarti filed her nails and painted them a light shade of magenta. All three girls had decided to put on the minimum amount of cover-up since Hermione had one of the best complexions ever. Lavender put on mascara on her eyes and lip gloss that made her lips look a little fuller.
"She's going to hate me for this," Ginny giggled when they saw her hair. It was a little darker with highlights and lowlights and it definitely had more volume and it was thinned out so it wouldn't get frizzy anymore.
"Wow," Lavender breathed. Hermione looked as if she capture a guy's heart with one shy smile. Her lack of not realizing how pretty she could be, had made Hermione much more of an authentic beauty than anyone else that Lavender had known. Now, they had played up her features and she looked breathtaking.
"Absolutely heartbreaking," Parvarti said. The other two witches nodded and Lavender lifted the spell off of Hermione so she could see again.
"You guys done?" she asked them, taking out her earphones.
"Yup," Ginny smiled. "Turn around."
Hermione did and she almost fainted at the sight before her. Luckily for her, the others had been expecting it and steadied her back up.
"Bloody hell," she murmured. "You guys put an enchantment on the mirror didn't you?"
"No, Hermione," Parvarti said. "I swear to you we didn't."
Then Hermione shrieked.
"My hair! What did you do to my hair?" she turned around and looked at them.
"Well," Ginny laughed nervously, "you see, it was kind of an impulse move. I just thought you would look better with darker hair. It's not even that much of a change."
"Well, it's enough that I can see it!" she yelled.
"Oh Hermione, shut up. Your going to break guys' hearts," Ginny told her. "So let's go to the lake and let everyone see the new you."
"Can't I just go hide instead?" Hermione begged.
"Nope," Ginny shook her head and linked arms with her, Lavender on the other side. The girls walked out and dragged Hermione down to the tree next to the Black Lake. Hermione sat down and tried to make herself shrink between the girls.
"Uhp uhp," Parvarti said, "you have to sit straight." Hermione scowled at them and sat their. "Would this make you feel better?" Parvarti suddenly asked and pulled out a book.
"Oh thank you, thank you, a million times thank you," Hermione said and delved into it quickly. With her distracted, the other witches quickly ran off before Hermione noticed.
"Bloody brilliant move there Parvarti," Ginny laughed.
"I know. Make her think that she's going to be okay and comfortable and then bam, just leave her there," Parvarti said.
They laughed and took one last look at the witch under the tree. She was a sight for sore eyes, and they just knew that good things were going to happen. After all, Lavender felt as if Hermione was finally going to get the guy who was obviously in love with her, Parvarti believed that Hermione was going to finally see the heads and hearts she turned and Ginny just wanted to giver her best friend something to be glad for. Something to appreciate and not need to fear at all. They smiled at each other and then headed off in opposite directions.