She was fairly sure this is what it felt like to be drunk. She couldn't seem to take her eyes off of Draco Malfoy- who was admittedly a little blurry around the edges at the moment- and thinking about how pretty he was. Handsome too, gorgeous really, but also pretty in a way that most men couldn't claim.

Neither Harry nor Ron deserved the adjective, though they had both become good looking wizards in their own ways. But Draco's features were just so refined, his face lovely, his stature elegant, and she was sure there were many witches who would be jealous of his hair, herself included; her mane was as unmanageable as ever. She was still certain he hadn't been a particularly attractive child, his features too pointy, his face constantly set into a scowl, and that's not even taking his atrocious attitude into consideration, which had made him ugly in a completely different way. But he'd grown up without her seeming to notice.

She was noticing now, now that everything was different, now that she'd been to hell and back and she was noticing a lot of things she'd never noticed before. Apparently a war and a couple of glasses of firewhiskey were all it took for her to see that Draco Malfoy, the bully who had once been the bane of her existence, Death Eater, and pureblood snob, was also mouth wateringly, knicker wettingly, attractive. Of course, the fact that she was sitting in his rooms sharing a bottle of firewhiskey with him was proof that the world had turned upside down, so maybe the alcohol wasn't to blame.

"Granger!" He said sharply, she startled.

When she focused back on him his features had morphed into a sly smirk. Once upon a time she'd have have been tempted to slap the expression off of his face. Now she just found it, Merlin help her, sexy. She also had a terrible feeling that hadn't been the first time he'd tried to get her attention, which meant he'd caught her staring.

"What?" She asked warily.

"Do I have something on my face or are you just enjoying the view."

She sighed, was there any point in denying it? She suspected she normally would have been more bothered to be called out, but at the moment she just felt so nice and floaty.

"It's a good view," she said, propping her elbow on the back of the sofa they were sharing and then resting her head on her hand nonchalantly.

His smirk turned into a playful smile. "I did not think you were going to admit that."

"I'm a Gryffindor," she shrugged, keeping up her nonchalant act, "and come on, it's not like you don't already know you're bloody breathtaking."

Oops, that was more than she'd intended to admit. She was definitely drunk. Though, it was almost worth it to watch his composure slip. His mouth dropped open and he blinked rapidly at her, though after just a few seconds the sexy smirk was back.

"Right back atcha, Granger," he said, locking eyes with her.

She snorted and leaned forward to whack him on the arm, the firewhiskey sloshing around dangerously in the glass in her other hand.

"I know it's approaching midnight but don't turn back into a prat, we've been getting along so well."

He frowned and opened his mouth.

"That probably didn't make any sense to you did it?" She asked before he could actually say anything and then plowed on before he could answer, "It's a reference to a muggle children's story called Cinderella. Which Ronald thought was a disease, by the way." She scoffed.

"Weasley, be mistaken about something? I'm shocked," he drawled.

She rolled her eyes and ignored him. "You see there was this ball, and Cinderella wanted to go to the ball but she didn't have a dress or a way to get there. Well, she had a dress, but her stepmother and stepsisters destroyed it because they didn't want Cinderella to go to the ball," she babbled, "but then her Fairy Godmother showed up and made her a dress and a carriage out of a pumpkin, but she had to be gone by midnight because that's when her dress would turn back to rags and her carriage back into a pumpkin. Actually, come to think of it, Fairy Godmother wasn't a very powerful witch..." she was contemplating this new understanding of a childhood favorite and was about to start telling him about the glass slipper when he interrupted her.

"Granger, honestly I didn't catch any of that. I just want to know why you called me a prat. In my experience, witches like to be told they're beautiful. Now, I know you're far from a typical witch- and I mean that in all the best ways- but surely even you don't object to a compliment."

She rolled her eyes. "Not if you meant it, but nobody would ever describe me as breathtaking and you've made your opinion about my looks clear on several occasions anyway. I don't especially like being made fun of," she said a bit prissily, as she always did when she was feeling defensive.

She thought she saw something flash briefly across his face but she didn't know him well enough to read it.

"I'd feel insulted but I guess you really don't have any reason to trust my word. Not yet, at least, I do hope to change that."

"What?" she asked, feeling like her muddled brain wasn't properly following the conversation.

"I used to be an idiot, I mean I think that's true of a lot of 14 year old boys, but I realize I was a particularly large idiot."

She snorted, this time in amusement.

"My beliefs about your blood status kept me from seeing you clearly, that's no longer a problem. I caught you staring at me because you're drunk, and because you're a Gryffindor with no subtlety, you didn't catch me staring for the same reasons."

"You've been staring at me?" She asked him disbelievingly.

"All night," he confirmed with a sly smile.

"Thank you," she said in a small voice.

"Looking at a beautiful woman isn't a chore," he said with a wry chuckle.

She felt her face flame and averted her eyes.

"How is it possible that you are so insecure about this? You almost just single handedly won a war. You've been splashed all over the pages of the Daily Prophet for months, everybody loves you."

"None of that is real Malfoy, you know better than almost anybody. People can turn on you so quickly. Adulation becomes derision at the drop of a hat. I don't take any of it seriously."

"Okay, fine," he conceded, "how about we test it then?"

"Test it?"

"Well if I understood your little story, if I'm really being a prat at midnight I'll turn into a pumpkin." He sat up a little straighter, obviously proud of his reasoning.

She just stared at him, and then burst out laughing.

But when he was still human at midnight she rewarded him with a kiss.