Chapter 9
~Hermione~
Hermione woke with a start. She was laying on one of the loveseats in the head dormitory, wrapped in blankets. Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, she arched her back in a stretch and looked around the room. The light coming in from the ceiling windows suggested it was late morning.
"Shit, I have to get to class!" she jumped from her spot and started toward her room before a voice stopped her.
"Honestly, Granger, it's Saturday. I know you're a teacher's pet and all but that's a bit much don't you think?" She turned around to see one smirking Draco Malfoy at the portrait hole with various papers and other items in his arms.
"Whatever, Malfoy." She bit out, crossing her arms over her chest. She noticed an amused look appear on his face at this. "What?"
"I was only kidding, I didn't realize you could be so touchy." He laughed out.
"I'm not touchy!" She insisted. He continued staring with his amused expression. "What's all that in your hands?" She said in attempt to direct the attention away from herself.
"Oh, this? Well I recall McGonagall mentioning something about us having to organize a ball. I thought we might get started on it today as we are quite behind." Hermione looked away sheepishly. Draco noticed her reaction, "Oh, no Granger, I didn't mean to-"
"It's okay, Malfoy. Uhm, let me just go freshen up a bit." She rushed up to her room.
"I'll order some food for us to eat while we work!" she heard him call behind her.
She entered her room and walked first to her wardrobe to pick an outfit before making her way to the bathroom to clean up. She spent more time on her hair than usual. After taming it into soft waves, she inspected herself in the mirror to make sure she was satisfied with her looks. The thought that she might subconsciously be trying to impress a certain handsome blond boy struck her. I am NOT trying to impress him. She shook her head and decided to put her waves into a nice ponytail instead to make herself look less done up. Sighing, she went down to the common room.
Draco was sitting at the table, which had a very large amount of food occupying it.
"Wow, do we need that much?" She slipped out. He turned to look at her with an amused grin.
"You know how house elves can be." He shrugged. She thought she saw his expression change a bit as he looked at her, but decided she imagined it. He was stacking some waffles onto a plate as she took a seat across from him.
"So what theme should we go with for the ball?" Hermione asked as she poured herself coffee.
"Well," he tapped his chin in thought, "perhaps a simple color scheme? Black and white would be nice, and simple." Hermione considered this.
"Maybe we should add one accent color though. Red is nice." She suggested. He smiled and nodded at this, then proceeded to write it down.
"Great. Now, we just need to decide on party details. I know a great caterer, my mother hires them all the time for her events." he said to himself, "and I know a good event planner who could organize the decor and such." Hermione was glad that Draco seemed to know what he was doing. Her mind hadn't been quite right all year, and she wasn't sure she'd be useful right now. "What about music?" He looked up at her and asked.
"Oh, erm. I'm not sure what do you think?"
"Well," He tapped his chin again in thought, "We could hire a waltz ensemble, but that might get boring if that's the only kind.."
"Well, we could also get a DJ?" She suggested.
"Like a muggle DJ?"
"Well, um, yeah. I mean, they could take requests and they'd play more upbeat stuff." Draco considered this.
"Hmm, not a bad idea. How could we get a muggle DJ into Hogwarts, though?"
"Are there possibly any wizards or witches who became muggle DJs?" She offered.
"It's possible. We should definitely look into that. Great idea, Granger." He scribbled more notes down. "I think we've made great progress. We can continue later." He rolled up the parchment he had been writing on and, with a sweep of his wand, all the supplies vanished.
They sat in silence, Hermione focused on her plate to relieve some of the awkwardness she was feeling. She wasn't really sure what to say now.
"Hermione." She looked up at him, he looked concerned. "Um, I wanted to ask you what your plan is to deal with Weasley." She was shocked.
"Oh! Well, I mean I haven't really-" she was blushing furiously now. "I don't really have
a plan, persay." She felt him staring at her.
"I could help you, Hermione. I could go with you to talk to someone-"
"NO!" she snapped. He looked shocked by her outburst. "I mean, no. I don't want to tell anyone."
"Hermione-"
"Please, Draco. I can't." she begged. He looked unconvinced, but agreed.
"Alright, so what? I still want to help you and-"
"Why?"
"Pardon?"
"Why do you want to help me? I mean I know you told me how you never hated me but that doesn't really change our relationship. Why would you want to help me? We've never really been friends." She bit her lip, waiting for a response.
"Alright. I think we need to have a, for lack of a better term, heart-to-heart discussion." Her head snapped up at this.
"W-what?" He sighed and brushed his hand through his hair before looking her in the eye.
"I have some stuff to say that might make some things clear, and then you can say some stuff as well if you feel compelled to do so." She eyed him suspiciously, but then nodded in agreement. "Alright, firstly, as I have said I have never hated you. I confess that, the very first time we met, I actually admired you." her eyes widened.
"What? Me? Why?"
"You seemed so strong and intelligent. I thought we could be, well, friends."
"What?" She was confused. He had wanted to be her friend? Then why had he tormented her all these years?
"Well, yeah. I thought you could be a valuable friend." Draco seemed very uncomfortable now.
"So, why were you mean to me? That's not how you make friends, Draco.." she joked. He gave her a small smile before continuing.
"Well, This is going to sound terrible. I found out you were a muggleborn." Hermione couldn't believe it. The pureblood prejudice strikes again.
"Oh." she whispered.
"No, please understand. I didn't dislike you for it. I've never really been prejudiced, to be honest. I just wanted to please my father. I couldn't befriend a muggleborn witch, he'd have been disappointed. Blood might not have mattered to me, but my father's approval was very important."
"You didn't have to torment me, though. Did you do that for you father as well?" He flinched at her words.
"No."
"Well then, why? I'm missing something here, Draco." she looked at him expectantly.
"Ugh, how do I put this? Okay, I didn't want anyone to know I wanted to be your friend. I was mean to you so that there would be no way anyone could accuse Draco Malfoy of having ever admired a muggleborn witch. I thought that if I pushed you away, I could hide that fact, even though looking back that was a ridiculous way of thinking because nobody was accusing me anyway. And I stopped caring about my father's approval last year when he threw me to the wolves anyway."
"So you were mean to me because you thought people would accuse you of wanting to be my friend?" he nodded miserably. Hermione thought for a moment. It made sense. "You said you stopped caring last year, why were you still mean to me?"
"We had settled into these enemy roles. It was just more natural to be mean than to start being friendly."
"Why are you being friendly now then?" she couldn't help the suspicion that laced her voice.
"Well, I think you could use a friend." he suggested.
"Is that it?"
"Well, no."
"Why else?" he hesitated.
"It just makes me so angry." he finally admitted. "I couldn't be your friend, but those two idiots could. 'At least they are good friends to her.' I always thought, but now that's not true. Weasley isn't a good friend at all, and you can't really lean on Potter either."
"Well, it's not Harry's fault-" she mumbled, but he didn't seem to hear.
"It's just, they were the lucky ones. They got you as a friend, and they didn't realize how lucky they were. You were always such a loyal and valuable friend to them, and now, Weasley especially betrayed you. It's not fair to you, you deserve better than that." She was shocked.
"I…." she began, but nothing else came out. What should she say?
"Please let me help you, Hermione. I wont make you tell, but I still want to help." He gave her a pleading stare.
"Um, okay." she said quietly. "Er, thanks, Draco." she gave him a smile to show her appreciation. He seemed elated that she was trusting him to help her, Hermione felt a warmth inside her. Draco Malfoy is now my friend. She smiled brightly.
A/N: I feel like this chapter was a bit weak, but I needed this interaction to happen.
