Chapter Eight

Maybe It's Jealousy

------------PARENTS AT SEVENTEEN------------

I grabbed a floating glass of champagne and started walking, trying to appear as if I was looking for someone, when in actuality I was looking for a place to hide. But in my browsing I found Henrietta Montage, a Ravenclaw in my year. I quickly made my way over to her.

"Henrietta, it's good to see you!" I said as I gave her a small hug.

"Hey Hermione. I should have known Draco would invite you; you two seem to be getting along better with this project."

"Yeah. Although I think you are the only one I know here."

"I know. Mr. Malfoy must have invited the entire prominent adult wizarding world and their families and just forgot about all of the younger people."

"So what do you usually do at these things?" I asked, having never been to a wizard ball, except school. But this was completely different from school.

"Just stand around and talk about nothing I suppose. These things were made for men to get together and talk business and women to gather around and gossip."

"And the kids are left to do whatever they want?"

"Basically."

"What do you usually do?"

"In years past we would go outside and play games, or stay in and play pranks. But we're older now, and we've been through war, so we mostly just do what the adults do."

"How is this different from any other time in our lives?"

"It gives everyone a chance to show their wealth by outdressing each other, and it gives us a chance to dance."

"Oh."

Just then a Hufflepuff boy came up to us. "Henrietta, would you like to dance?"

"Sure Henry." She then turned to me. "Sorry Hermione, will you be okay."

"Oh, no, no, I'll be fine" I was quick to assure her. She gave me a smile and walked off. "I'll just sit here and look like a loner," I mumbled after she was out of earshot.

Great, here I am at some stupid ball looking like an idiot when I could be at home sleeping with my baby. Just great.

"Hermione?" I turned around to look at the person speaking.

"Lavender?" I breathed a sigh of relief as she came and hugged me.

"Thank Merlin, I thought I was going to be a loner" she said to me.

"I was just thinking the same thing. Why are you here?"

"My dad does business with Lucius Malfoy" she said with a wave of her hand, as if brushing away the question. "Did Draco invite you?"

"Yeah, I don't know why though. It's not as if he's going to be spending time with me."

"Is that Christina he's dancing with?"

I looked to the dancefloor to see what she was talking about, and sure enough, there he was dancing with Christina, both of them having smiles on their faces. Why did I suddenly have this little pang in my chest?

"So how was your Christmas?" I asked Lavender.

"It was pretty good. My parents gave me some money for stuff with Kelly you know. They think it's a little weird having a grandchild around. But they said the weirdest thing is that she's going to disappear at the end of the year."

"Yeah, I suppose that would get confusing."

"You're so lucky that your baby is real Hermione."

I laughed. "Lucky that every night I get to hear him cry when he can't sleep the whole night through?"

"Lucky that he'll be around forever. I'm going to miss Kelly when she's gone is all I'm saying."

I sighed. "I guess that would be hard too."

"Hermione, is it just me, or is Draco Malfoy coming over here?"

I looked up to see that she was right, and that Draco was coming our way.

"Hello Hermione, Lavender" he said, nodding to each of us in turn."

"Hello Draco."

"Are you both enjoying yourselves?"

"Yes."

"Good. I was just wanting to know if you would like to dance with me Hermione?" he asked looking straight at me.

I paused for a second, not comprehending what he was saying to me. "Sure" I said when it finally clicked.

He smiled and extended his hand.

I was a fairly good dancer, if I do say so myself. But Draco? He was an excellent dancer. We twirled around a little in silence, until he finally spoke.

"I'm sorry you don't have anyone but Lavender here."

"It's fine. We're okay with standing around together."

"But still, you don't have your best friends here. I didn't think of this until it was too late and I'm sorry."

I smiled to him. "It's fine Draco, really. Lavender and I are friends. We're hanging in there."

"I'm glad."

It was kind of nice that Draco was worried about me. It felt good. As we danced and smiled at each other, I knew I was happy. But then the moment just had to be ruined as someone tapped Draco on the shoulder.

He turned around and my smile faded as I saw that the person standing there was Christina.

"Hi" Draco said smiling to her.

"Hi" she said giving a huge smile back. "I was just wanting to know if I could cut in. If that's alright with you?" she asked turning to me.

I painted a small smile on my face and said, "no, that's fine. He's all yours." My heart sank saying those words, but I knew they were true. I had no control over Draco Malfoy's emotions.

I stepped aside and gave her all the room as they both smiled at each other and started dancing as I made my way off of the dance floor and back to Lavender.

"How rude. You two looked like you were having fun and then she just had to come around and ruin it."

This statement by Lavender set off a small spark of anger in my chest. It was kind of rude of her wasn't it?

As we watched them finish MY dance with Draco, I decided maybe it was better if I went home.

"Lavender, I'm sorry to do this, but I think I'm going to call it a night. I'm beat."

"Are you sure Hermione?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry to leave you though."

"Oh it's fine. Actually there was this hot guy across the room who keeps smiling at me. I may take my chance."

I smiled to her. "Bye Lavender. I'll see you back at school."

"Bye Hermione."

The moment I came through the fireplace I sat down on the couch and leaned my head back. Was I honestly jealous of Christina Vuliaire? Maybe I had just gotten too locked in to the whole house routine with Draco, that I just wanted it to stay that way.

Boy am I going to have some problems.

Just then the fireplace started back up, and out came Draco Malfoy. He looked around for a moment as I sat up, looking at his surroundings.

"Draco" he turned to look at me. "What are you doing here?"

"And why are you sitting in a dark room still in your dress robes?" he countered.

I raised one eyebrow as if to say "and that's stranger than you, my once mortal enemy, standing in my living room?"

He stretched his hand out to me to show my purse. "You left this."

I started at it for a moment. "You do know you could have just given it to me when we went back to school?"

He looked at me with his eyebrows lowered, showing his honesty when he said, "to tell the truth, I hadn't thought of that."

I grabbed it from him. "Well thank you for returning it anyway."

"You're welcome."

Just then my window was lit up by the headlights of a passing car. Draco looked to the disturbance.

"You know, I've never ridden in a car, though I've always wanted to."

I don't know what made me say it, I just did. "Well, would you like to?"

He turned to look at me. "You could arrange for it?"

I laughed a little. "They keys are in the kitchen. I could go get them and take you for a drive."

"You can drive?" He looked amazed.

"Draco, I'm seventeen. You can get a license at that age in the muggle world. Yes, I can drive it."

He thought for a second before saying, "sure, let's go."