A.N - Hope you enjoy this chapter! Yule Ball next time!
2 years later
Draco would never admit this to Hermione, but word about their friendship had reached Lucius the summer of their first year. The Parkinsons had come to the manor, and Pansy never had been very good at keeping things to herself, the nosy bitch. Lucius had been furious, and beat Draco to a pulp, luckily his mum had helped to heal the bruises and breaks. The beatings he could handle. He'd gotten used to it at a very early age, but Lucius was a conniving bastard, and he didn't want harm to come to Hermione from his or any of the other Slytherin's hands.
He thought about this now as he roamed the halls with Parkinson clinging to his arm with a vice like grip. He really fucking hated her. She was such a stuck up, whiney bitch.
Draco sat a the back of the potions class, occasionally noticing he was staring at Hermione's frizzy mane of hair. After his eyes had drifted back to her several times after he had consciously pulled them away, he gave up, and continued to sneakily notice the way the light caught her hair, causing it to shimmer, and how the more humid it got in the classroom, the frizzier it got.
Right before the bell rang, he quickly scrawled a note as he was packing up, and when Snape dismissed them, discreetly slipped it onto Hermione's desk and continued to walk without missing a beat.
Hermione slipped the note off the desk, opened it, then slid it into a book, letting him know that she agreed.
Later that night, Hermione borrowed Harry's cloak, and snuck down to the dungeons, the note reading "11?" Stuck in her mind.
They had developed a system over the last year, whereby one of them would slip a note to the other with a time, and Hermione would borrow the cloak, slip down to Draco's dorm and they would have a sleepover, with a silencing charm on the curtains around Draco's bed so they could talk without the other boys even knowing she was there. It was always good fun and they both looked forward to them.
Stopping at the door to the Slytherin Common Room at exactly 11, the door opened and Draco stepped out. Hermione reached out under the cloak and tapped his shoulder - a signal that she was here, and Draco turned around and walked back into the Slytherin Common Room, Hermione hot on his heels.
They walked quickly up to his dorm, and Draco cast a silencing charm over his bed. Hermione whipped the cloak off and set it down carefully under the bed.
"So," Hermione asked. "What did you want to talk about?"
"Nothing in particular, I just missed talking to you." Draco replied.
"Well, I'm glad you set this up, because I have news!" Hermione squealed. "Krum asked me to the Yule Ball!"
Draco's heart sank so far that he felt it in his toes. He had been working up the guts to ask her, but Krum had ruined it for him. At least she seemed excited. Oh, who was he kidding. He never could have asked her. His father would have absolutely ruined everything if he did.
"That's great, Hermione." He managed to choke out.
"Who are you going with?"
"Pansy, probably." He spat out, a lump in his chest.
