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Credit to JK Rowling for the wonderful universe that is Harry Potter
It was a weird sight, frankly; Draco Malfoy was standing in the kitchen, dressed in only pajama pants with messy hair. He was humming to 'All Star'. He had heard it in a store once and he really liked it. He was almost dancing around, cooking breakfast.
Blaise was shocked when he entered the room. Draco never cooks breakfast, usually.
"Something special going on?" He asked, amused, and sat down on the bar stool across from Draco's dancing area, aka the kitchen floor.
What was even weirder was the fact Draco acted like that the whole day, well until Blaise asked him in the afternoon:
"Don't you got a date with Adeline in an hour?"
That got Draco back to earth.
Shit. Maybe call it off?
"Um, yeah I do..." He said, as casual as he could manage. Did Hermione know I was seeing Adeline? Of course, she did, right? Or? Shit. Maybe she hasn't realized and it would give me time to fix this..?
"So maybe you should get dressed?" Blaise lifted a brow.
"What do you mean?"
Blaise almost couldn't keep a straight face.
"I mean you've been dancing around in pajamas the whole day" Draco looked down and realized, to his big dismay, that Blaise was right. He was wearing a pair of blue pajama pants and a grey t-shirt.
He hurried into his room to find some clothes, and all thoughts about the Hermione-problem was gone like the wind.
Draco was just about to leave when Blaise entered the room again.
"So you managed to get dressed" He chuckled.
"Yeah. Bye" Draco said shortly.
"I won't wait up" Blaise had to lean against the kitchen counter to stand up straight.
It wasn't funny. He didn't say that out loud though. He didn't want a lecture about humour from Blaise again.
The door opened inwards, luckily, otherwise, it would have hit the girl standing outside of it.
"Hi" Draco was honestly quite shocked to see Hermione there, and all the thoughts from before came rushing back.
Her face wasn't the usual one. Now she was serious. It was like school all over again.
"Are you still dating Adeline?" Her voice was steady, almost as steady as her eyes. They didn't look away.
"I don't like her,"Draco said simply. He didn't know what else to say. This was all so confusing and...
"That wasn't my question" Her eyes searched deep into his soul, and maybe she saw something she didn't like there because she turned around and left.
Shit. Shit. Shit. What were you thinking Draco?
He punched the wall, as hard as he could manage. When a small hole was starting to form in the wall he sat down, leaning his head against the wall behind him, with aching fists shaking in his lap.
There was really no reason for him to pity himself. This was all his own fault, and after a while of thinking, he realized the only one who could fix this was himself. This time he couldn't sit around and wait for someone else to fix the problem. And in the blink of an eye, his head was as clear as glass. He knew exactly what he wanted and how to get it. He wanted Hermione, and he had to break up with Adeline to get her. But with that thought, he started to panic a little. What if she didn't want to go out with him after this? Just because he would break up with Adeline didn't mean she would go out with him again, he realized.
I don't want to be an old man regretting things I never did
Wow Draco, that's almost a cliché...
FOCUS! Let's go.
Draco got up, and hoped, ney, prayed it would work.
Draco had never been the religious type. He had never been to a church, synagogue or mosque, or any other place that practiced religion like that.
He didn't know what god to pray to. He didn't even know if it was gods you prayed to, or if you prayed to someone or something else.
He apparated away outside the building, and to the café, and after a few minutes of waiting, Adeline showed up too.
"'Ello," She said. Her blonde hair was curled and braided in some complicated way Draco couldn't quite understand, and her lips were shining bright with pink lipstick, shocking pink, to be more exact. Her blue eyes were blinking at him and she was dressed in some kind of, what according to Draco was wrapping paper. It made her look extremely thin.
"Hi" He held out his hand for her to shake, which she didn't really seem to like, but she reluctantly shook the hand.
"Should we go eenside?"
They together walked inside and got a little table. After ordering a coffee for himself and a sugarfree ice tea for Adeline they started talking, well Adeline started talking. She really liked to talk and didn't seem to enjoy listening to anything Draco had to say.
After an unbearably long story with excruciatingly many details about shoe shopping, Draco realized he'd had enough. He didn't mind shoe shopping, not at all actually. He enjoyed shoe shopping. But who tells this many details in a story?!
"And after I did zat I buy ze peenk shoes with ze whize bows too because zey were-"
"You know what, Adeline" Draco watched as Adeline's eyes widened and as her pedicured nails tapped eagerly on the wooden table, and to Draco's great horror left marks- claw marks there, "I can't do this. I think we should break up"
"What?" She took a deep breath to regain her calm but put her hand over Draco's, digging her nai- claws into his skin
Ow. Ow ow. That woman has claws like a tiger!
"I just think that we don't work very well together and that we shou- should break up" Draco winced as she pressed her claws deeper into his skin.
Adeline just stared at him, eyes blanc and free from any trace of emotion. They scanned him and seconds seemed to turn into minutes.
"Fine"
"You're okay with this, right?" Draco asked, not caring at all what the answer was going to be, he just wanted to get out of here, so he could see Hermione.
"I don need you" Her eyes were much smaller than usual and her stare gave Draco the creeps.
"I never said you did" Another round of chills crept down Draco's back.
"I 'ope I never have zo see you again" She took her purse and left, "I don need you!" She didn't turn around to say it, she just shouted it. The whole café looked at her, and when the door closed behind her their eyes turned to Draco, who tried to take himself to the door unnoticed, without any luck since the whole café was assuming that he was breaking up with her, which technically was true, they just didn't know the reason.
Outside the café the air was chilly and the darkness was dropping its dark cloak over London. Since he didn't have a watch with him he didn't know the exact time, but he guessed around 7.30-8? Maybe it was the wrong time to go to Hermione's... He guessed that she wasn't sitting at home a Sunday night, since she was free on Mondays. He acknowledged the option that she was out on a date, and even though he hated the thought about her on a date with someone else, and all he wanted to do was to rush over there and punch the date in the face, and kiss Hermione but... Maybe it wasn't the right time? Maybe tomorrow?
He walked through the door, only to find Blaise sitting on a bar stool in the kitchen, looking at him with a grin.
"So you did wait up..." Draco muttered and tried to get his shoes off.
Blaise laughed. He laughed so hard he slammed his fist on the table a few times. Seven times to be exact.
"I'm going to bed..." Draco silently slipped into his room and changed into pajamas. He sat down on the bed.
"Accio Chocolatefrog" He silently whipped his wand and a box came flying at him.
He had always liked chocolatefrogs; they made him feel better when he was sad. Maybe needless to say, but he has had a lot of them during sixth year.
He flipped the card and found Bertie Bott staring back at him. He shrugged and put the card on the nightstand on his right side.
"Good night" Blaise shouted through the door.
"Night" He settled in between the white and grey sheets and looked around the room while taking a bite of the frog. To his left were the door, the closet, and the bookshelf. Some of the books were so new he had never had the chance to read them, while some of the books were so old they had been in his family for hundreds of years. His favorite wasn't there. He had lost it, to Hermione. She had borrowed it, and as a pledge, he had gotten her copy of 'Little Women' to read in the meantime. He had read a few chapters but still liked his 'Robinson Crusoe' that Hermione had taken, better. He had originally gotten the book on his 15th birthday and had read it several times since.
He turned out the light and turned in the bed. He wouldn't be able to sleep for hours., he knew it.
He tried to figure out what to say to Hermione. It wasn't an easy task.
When Blaise got home from work the following night Draco was sitting on a bar stool with his head in his hands.
"You okay, mate?"
Draco slowly shook his head.
"What's up?"
"I screwed up"
"How?"
"With a girl"
"How bad?"
"As in asking her out while still dating Adeline..."
"And now..?"
"I can't seem to get out of this chair and go to her place"
"It will be okay" Blaise patted Draco's back and went to make some dinner.
Draco buried his head in his arms and sighed. Was it going to be okay?
The whole night Draco sat on that chair. With his head in his arms. In his head going over every single way his visit to Hermione could end. It turned out quite weird in some versions. Like Draco being eaten by a squid once, but he quickly realized that Hermione probably wasn't keeping a giant squid in her bathroom.
The following day Draco went to work, only to face the fact that Hermione had called in sick. He was bummed he couldn't talk to her now, and that he had to take over her work for the day too. She really had a lot going on there. And what the hell was S.P.E.W?
The day couldn't end soon enough. He even missed lunch he had so much work to do. Turned out S.P.E.W was started by Hermione in 1994 and stood for Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare. He didn't really understand the point of it. The houseelfs liked to work, didn't they? He had also worked on like 14 different cases, 7 other societies and a few suspect objects.
When the day finally ended, around 2 hours later than usual, he decided to hurry over to Hermione's place.
He had always kind of liked the feeling of apparating. He knew that a lot of people felt nauseous, but he didn't, for some reason.
He knocked on the dark wooden door. No answer.
He knocked again. Still no answer.
"Alohomora" He whispered. The hallway was dark and he felt a bit like a burglar. He lightly pushed the door and it slid open. He stepped into her combined living room and kitchen. "Hermione?" He spoke.
A screech and a crash sounded from his left, and he turned to see Hermione standing by the window between a couch and the kitchen counter.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" She bent down to pick up the broken pot on the ground. He carefully walked by the couch and bookshelves left from the door and over to Hermione.
"Sorry" He whispered. His lowered his hands to the floor and tried to collect some of the dirt, "And I'm sorry about your plant too"
"What are you doing here?" She took the pieces of the pot over to the kitchen counter, "Reparo" She flicked her wand and the pot quickly put itself back together. She turned around and quickly used a cleaning charm on the floor.
"I came here to talk to you actually" Draco slowly approached.
"You don't say..."
Draco chuckled. "I'm sorry" He positioned himself across the table from her.
"About what, this time?" She raised a brow.
"About asking you out while I was going out with Adeline..."
She stilled and her eyes met his. Brown met grey.
"And I broke up with her during Sunday night" He continued, not quite sure of what to say, "and I'm sorry that I didn't break up with her before asking you, and I know about your morals and I'm really sorry. It all happened so fast, I didn't really have the time to think this all through..."
"Aaaand..?" Draco was unable to read her face. Was it happy? Was it angry?
"And... I'm sorry," Draco took a pause to breath, "And I was wondering, if maybe, if you're not too disliking of me, you would like to go out with me?"
She smiled a soft smile and lightly shook her head while laughing lightly.
"I can't belive I'm saying this but, yeah. I would like that"
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Inside Draco was screaming and cheering, but outside-Draco was a lot cooler.
"Thanks," He said, though he realized he was smiling like a fool. He tried to fix it, but it proved to be a lot harder than expected.
Hermione tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled back at him.
"Are you going to do something, or are you going to stand there smiling the whole night?" She said after a few minutes. Draco quickly shook his head to regain control over his thoughts.
"What do you say about Friday night?" He said, now afraid to meet her eyes, and therefore staring intensely at the floor.
"Friday night sounds nice," She said, he could almost hear her smile.
"Then I'll be going" He turned around and aimed for the door.
"Good night, Draco," The girl said, leaning against the door when he was just about to walk down the stairs.
"Good night, Hermione" He turned around and met her eyes once more before she shut the door.
He wished Friday night was now.