A/N: I AM BACK! With a new chapter! I feel bad that there hasn't been MUCH Dramione (like hints of affection and such) besides the crying scene. So I hope for all of you who want more romantic tension, that you love this chapter!
The title comes from the song, "Illuminated" by Hurts.
Hermione bent over and retied her pointe shoe ribbons. This was going to be the last dance she choreographed for the morning before Monday classes started, and she was anxious to relax for a few hours before her first class, Haley's. Her knee, like she predicted, hurt a great deal. She attempted several Muggle pain healers and tried a few magical solutions and bubble baths but nothing seemed to work. The pain didn't want to leave which had resulted in quite a few restless nights. Last night Hermione took a Dreamless Sleeping Draught that seemed to do the trick. If the pain didn't cease, she planned on repeating that cure.
The slow, melodic instrumental song began to play and thoughts of sleep and knees drifted away like the waltz at the beginning of the dance. Throughout the dance held multiple chassés into en dedan double pirouettes, glissades, and por de bras en pointe in sous sous. The dance was extremely complicated and was intended for the senior dancers at the studio to perform at the winter recital. The dance finished with seven exact and perfect fouetté turns, landing in a pliéd fourth position.
Hermione grunted as she struggled with the seven fouettés. They were on the right side which meant her left leg was working the hardest. By the fourth one her knee gave out and she fell with a giant thud onto the floor. "Damn it..." she muttered and picked herself up, brushing the dirt and sparkles off her tights around her thighs.
In a final attempt, Hermione pliéd a deep fourth position and had the ability to produce the final three fouettés before she fell. A pang of pain shot through her leg like a bullet and she pulled her leg close to her body, breathing in and out slowly as tears welled in her eyes. She had experienced dance related injuries before and overcame them, but there was something strange about her knee. Perhaps the fact that he kneecap actually popped out was the case. Whatever it was created frustration for Hermione, as well as pain.
"Lacey!" she called out, her friend's name however, sounded like jumbles through her strained breath and unravelling tears. When her best friend did not hurry, Hermione called even louder. "Lacey Ann Marie Morgan Eponine Lisa Lammell!" By 'Morgan' Lacey had sped into the studio, hardly making it past the doorway when she spotted Hermione and sighed.
"You know I don't like you using my entire name," she huffed. "What do you need?" she asked like a good servant girl. Her attitude changed though when she noticed the silver tears falling.
Hermione felt a bit guilty for disrupting whatever Lacey had been in the middle of, but she couldn't muster the energy to stand. "Would you hate it so much to get me some ice?"
"I still cannot believe that was you," Lacey marvelled at a moving picture in Hermione's office. Picture Hermione was busy performing an abundance of fouetté turns on an American stage. "You picked ballet up so quickly."
In the corner of the room, Hermione was currently soaking her knee up to the brim with icy water. It stung the floor burn but at the same time it felt immensely good on her bone. She purred with pleasure for a moment, but stopped, her face turning a deep tomato red. "Um, yeah, well I had done ballet prior to then. The small Company I found was glad to take me in. It was quite an adventure. Plus everyone in America fanned over my accent."
Lacey raised her eyebrows and gave a smirk. "Were they like me when I first arrived in London?" she asked curiously. Lacey had been a bumble of excitement and had the classical tourist look when the natives spoke. That was, of course, once she had gotten to know Hermione and learned they had a similar knack in, well, magic. Then Lacey let her true self shine and became an accent magnet. Once she even tried duplicating Hermione's posh London accent, which ended up sounding like, "Oh, pip pip, cheerio! I'd fancy a spot of tea and a crumpet please! God save the Queen!" Let's just saying Hermione forbid any more impersonations after that.
Hermione gave a long nod, her eyes practically bulging. "Very much. It was quite overwhelming. There was one other Brit, but she was from Yorkshire, and captivated everyone once she actually spoke." She remembered the girl well. She would compare her to young Evangeline, quiet and timid at first, like a scared field mouse, but after a short period of time became a talking and sporadic hyena on high. It was nice to have someone to relate to there, especially when Americans began speaking in their lingo she didn't understand.
"I probably would've loved to meet her," Lacey smiled with a glint in her eye. Her eyes drifted to other locomotive photographs, biting her lip slightly. It was hard to see photos of her best friend dancing so fluently and seamlessly in comparison to her crumbling body now. Dance was breaking her and tearing her apart limb by limb, yet she continued, determined. Brave, determined, sweet to Haley, and a complete genius, she fit into every Hogwarts House easily.
Hermione leaned over and rubbed her knee slightly. It swelled subtly in the time between falling and the present. It stung like a million needles piercing slightly through her epidermis. She breathed in slowly and breathed out in jagged exhales.
"What is your plan for class?" Lacey asked curiously. "Your first one starts in only a half hour." She reminded, turning to face the top of her friend's head. Before she could observe the tight, short curls on the top of Hermione's noggin, her face shot up in horror.
With a hurried look, she attempted to stand, failed, and fell back on her bottom. "Merlin, Haley!" Sucking it up, Hermione pulled herself up and onto her hurt leg before rushing out of her office. After a good five strides a wave of pain shot up her leg once more and she tumbled to the ground, barely brazing her knee against the black harlequin flooring. "Bloody hell!" she echoed her old friend's catchphrase. Lacey hurried to her side.
"Why don't you try the Floo?" she suggested, pointing in the direction of the hidden Floo in the gymnasium. Hermione shook her head, it was too far of a walk, and it lived on the second floor.
Pulling herself up onto her elbows, Hermione pointed to her office. "Fetch the old ribbon on the filing cabinet, please." She commanded politely. As assistant, secretary and best friend, Lacey obeyed as usual. When she returned with the slightly burned ribbon, Hermione snatched it from her clutches. "Portus." She whispered, pointing her wand at it's centre. It gleamed a light blue for a moment and Hermione reached for the ribbon. "I'll return soon," she promised Lacey before a familiar feeling hooked itself in her naval, and she was gone.
Being one of many members of the Light side in the help to defeat Voldemort, gave Hermione many advantages, like being allowed to create unauthorised Portkeys. It helped it situations as such, when Hermione didn't have time to go to the Ministry.
"Umph!" She grunted, landing at Draco's door. It didn't help her current problem as she was still facing the ground, lying on her stomach. "Malfoy!"she called, attempting to capture his attention to open the door. "Malfoy!" From the ground she could see into the window slightly. Peering her eyes, she could make out the tips of Malfoy's snowy blonde hair. It contrasted against the house's dark blue exterior.
Still, he didn't come to the door. Ever so often his hair would disappear and then returned, and Hermione could see Haley's bopping head. Draco's arms would swing up, gripping Haley beneath her underarms, and then down again, and up and down once more. Haley's face gave the look of a giggle, and Hermione found herself transfixed. It took a good three minutes to recall why she was even laying in front of Malfoy's cottage door.
However when Hermione did, she reached out with her right hand, and gave four quick, pounding knocks.
As if waiting for her the entire time, Malfoy swung open the door. He had a small scowl on his face, as if he were going to throw some disgusting remark on how she was later than usual, and what had happened to her 'Gryffindor punctuality' until his eyes took in her state.
"What are you doing in the ground?" he asked, quickly opening the screen bug door. "Come in." Hermione groaned on the ground, and embarrassingly mumbled something in her hands. "Can't you get up?" he asked, crouching down to her eye level.
Hermione gave a quick shake of her head and shamefully tried to meet Draco's gaze. "My knee is acting up, I sort of fell on it today. I can't move it."
Malfoy rolled his eyes and whipped out his wand. "Wingardium Leviosa." He muttered and twisted his wand to rotate Hermione into an upright position. "Really Granger, I would've expected you thought of this. It was the first spell we learned."
Completely mortified of her over-look, Hermione drifted her eyes away from Draco as he manoeuvred her to sit in one of the kitchen chairs. A single flick of his wand and gravity affected her again, slamming down into the chair rather forcefully due to science. "I seemed to have forgotten. I've been rather busy."
Draco gave a curt nod towards her inflamed knee. "I see," he said thoughtfully. His face gave a pensive look as he started rummaging through his drawers. "Never thought I'd see the day when the Gryffindor Princess forgot something she learned in school." Although it was a rather rude comment, his tone wasn't. It was almost as if Draco wasn't thinking what he was saying, simply forming sentences with his brain and letting them out of his mouth, while his eyes and mind kept focussed on something entirely different.
"What are you doing?" Hermione observed, scrunching her eyebrows together. "What goodness are you doing raiding your own kitchen?" she asked.
Draco desperately wanted to shoot some type of insult back at her but a stronger part of him urged himself to keep searching until...aha!
"Let me help you," he said suddenly. "Your knee, of course."
"My knee?" Hermione asked in amazement, looking down at herself. The swelling wasn't going down, and the Portkey seemed to have agitated it more. Her knees had always been a sensitive region for her, and partially it was due to falling often as a young child. She once fell from a window, which contributed to her fear of heights.
Malfoy was paging through a book entitled, "Bones and Muscles Vol 3: Legs." He gave a nod and crouched down once again to view her knee. "I am a Healer after all. I'm paying you to teach my daughter how to dance and you can't quite do that if you're injured, correct?" Hermione couldn't breath, she just took a deep, shaky breath and nodded her, 'yes.'
"It's going to hurt, isn't it?" She asked, cringing her face in advance.
"Like a ton of bricks are squeezing your kneecap together." Draco said, blatantly honest and with a smidgen of humour. "Where's that Gryffindor bravery?" he questioned curiously, standing up to retrieve a packet of frozen veggies from the icebox.
Hermione gave an exasperated groan. "It fled after the war; along with my sanity." The last part was barely a whisper, hardly audible, but Draco caught the words like a hooked fish by the shell of his ear.
The cool package froze the tips of his fingers like icicle points. Draco removed his wand and cast a simple Sticking charm on the bottom. Removing the knee brace and rolling up one leg of her tights, he replaced it with the frozen vegetables. Hermione felt instant relief mixed with a shiver that raced up and down her spine. "Why are you doing this?" She asked, wringing the brace between her hands.
"I told you, if you're going to teach Haley, you-"
"That's a pseudo-reason!" She exclaimed, throwing down the brace. At Haley's name, Hermione immediately noticed her absence. Where was the small Malfoy child? She had been there almost a moment ago, but once she sat down, Haley had disappeared.
Draco dropped his hand and it clattered against the laminate floor. "You can hardly walk, is that a good enough reason for you? I could be rude, and not help you and force the Gryffindor Princess go to St. Mungo's, where this old remedy isn't used. If I don't help you, your knee could have permanent damage."
"But why me?" Hermione urged. She bit her lip and continued a bit more. "Why the Mudblood?"
Draco just about had a cow. He threw his hands into the air and it looked as if he were about to smack them down onto Hermione's face. Instead they fell to the ground and his right hand gripped his wand. "Don't call yourself that, it's a horrible name!" he exclaimed angrily, not even looking Hermione in the eyes. Instead he was relocating his page which was lost in the jumble of falling hands. "I will not be having this conversation again. I want to help you, okay? Is that too hard of a concept to wrap around your head? This is part one of services I'm doing to repay you, understand?" Draco spoke to her softly, memorising a small incantation.
"Don't speak to me like I'm a child," Hermione grumbled, folding her arms. She faced away from Draco, but took glimpses of his hands. Large, rough, and intricate, yet showing tenderness on the back, with wide veins popping slightly from concentration. They were actually quite beautiful, for man's hands, or hands in general. The rough tips gently wavered atop Hermione's porcelain skin. It created tiny goose-pimples along her thigh. Silently Hermione thanked her past self for remembering to shave her legs the night before. Nothing would have been more humiliating than to have Draco be tending to her knee while it was coated in black hairs.
Draco was taken aback by her offence, and raised his eyebrows kindly in a sense of apology. "Guess I'm used to talking to a four year old..." He thought aloud.
"Guess so." Hermione whispered, looking into the direction of the sitting room. A familiar wave of air wrapped around her knee as Draco swished his wand, and she readied herself for the pain.
But it didn't come.
"You lied to me," She realised, turning her attention back to Malfoy. He was now standing up, and Hermione's knee was close to perfect once more.
"So I did." Draco said, smirking a little bit at his clever conniving. Pure Slytherin. "But it feels better, doesn't it?"
Hermione nodded blankly, and rolled her tights back down to around her ankle. She reached for the knee brace and waited for Draco to stop her. He didn't, and she sighed, fastened the Velcro. "Where's Haley, we really must be on our way." She inquired, standing up. Draco had turned around to replace the book in the shelf, and had rotated again to face back to Hermione at the same instant.
The air became uncomfortably tight and Draco glanced down at Hermione the exact moment she looked at him. Their lips, quite a ways apart, although it felt like centimetres, were both parted a small percentage and their warm breaths liquefied each other's faces. For a moment, Draco's stomach felt like it were about to jump out our his abdomen, while Hermione's rapidly beating heart felt lodged in her throat.
For a moment, the world wasn't spinning. For a moment, time had stopped. For a moment, a moment wasn't long enough.
"She went to get her clothes – Haley!" Draco called, his eyes still locked on Hermione's. With one swift movement, her leaned over a bit and grazed his lips on her cheek, hardly meeting her skin. "Thank you."
Why he said thank you, Draco didn't know. Neither did Hermione.
The longest staring contest was eventually broken by Haley's rattling footfalls. Draco shook his head and Hermione's cheeks burned bright red.
Once fully dressed and hand gripped protectively by Hermione, Haley waved goodbye to her father before heading to the door.
"Don't forget," Draco called to Hermione. She whipped her head towards his voice while holding one hand on the door handle. "I'll be there late to pick Haley up."
Hermione flashed a smile as if the past 10 minutes hadn't happened. "Don't worry, I remembered."
"I just don't get it!" Haley sighed, trying to figure out the combination for the last five minutes. "It's too much!"
Hermione tried to give a supportive smile but on the inside she was frustrated. The dance, to her, was made of the utmost simplicity. Plié, plié, soutenu, first arabesque to the right and then to the left, and one more soutenu and plié. The end.
"What part are you getting confused on, honey?" Hermione asked, holding Haley by her petite shoulders. "The soutenu?"
Haley shook her head and put her arms out in a v-position and pointed her foot to the back. "The arabesque?" Hermione guessed. Haley gave a small, sheepish nod. "Oh honey," Hermione smiled, her shrunken teeth in a wide grin. "You got it right there!" she said, happily clapping.
The young girl's eyes brightened. "I did?" she asked. Hermione nodded and stood back up.
"Again everyone, let's try that combination again, shall we?" She reached over and began the music. Evangeline and Haley, standing by each other, mirrored the other's movements like two dancing dolls that were wound up together. The slow, two eight-count combination made Hermione giddy in the process she had gotten through so far with the young dancers.
Maybe she was meant to be a dance teacher after all. All that had happened with Voldemort was enough Auror-ness for her. Normality was more relaxing than she thought. A nice change of pace, and maybe her seven years were up.
Draco clocked out, and bid fellow Healers goodbye. "You'll be back at four, won't you Draco?" asked a young woman by the name of Healer Heisler.
"What's at four?" he asked her while attempting to slide on his jumper. This was the first time he had heard of anything about four, and while he was a committed Healer, unexpected shifts weren't really his thing.
"Healer Patrick's last shift ever. We're having a going away party. I expected you'd be there, wasn't he sort of your mentor?" Healer Heisler (whose first name was Rachael) asked, crossing her arms in wonder.
Draco gave a nod and an exhausted sigh. "I'll be there. I just need to have my mum watch Haley for me."
Rachael gave a small nod and bit her lip gently. "Listen, Draco," she started, and Malfoy raised his eyebrows and gave his attention to her. "I was thinking, if you weren't busy sometime, we could go out for dinner? I noticed on your schedule you aren't doing anything Saturday..."
Draco was quiet and Rachael's eyes suddenly grew. "Oh, not that I'm a creeper or anything, I just happened to look and now I'm rambling and this is getting so out of hand and why can't I stop? I just mean, do you want to go out on a date with me, even though girls aren't supposed to ask, but I thought 'fuck with rules, I'm independent.'" She groaned. "Now you probably think I'm not classy and trashy since I just said 'fuck with rules.' Oh, I just did it again, I'm so sorry, I-"
"You can stop." Draco said, giving a small laugh. Rachael closed her mouth and blushed, quite embarrassed by her actions. "That sounds really nice, it does, Rachael."
"But..." She started the sentence for him. Draco actually felt pity for her. She was probably used to being rejected and knowing when to begin with 'but.' Part of him wished that the second half of his answer didn't exist, she was quite a pretty girl. Long, wavy blonde hair, blue eyes hidden behind glasses, and had a curvy body.
"But when I'm not at work, I'm at home with Haley, and I just can't do something extra for me, like go on a date. It sounded fun though, truly." He answered with complete sincerity.
Rachael looked somewhat hurt but also understanding. "I get it, I have to care for my nephew sometimes and he's a real hassle." After a long pause she bit her bottom lip and added a bit more. "Is there another girl?"
Draco didn't answer right away. It wasn't that there was, it was that he was debating whether or not Granger would be considered 'another girl.' His mother and Granger were the only two females outside of work he saw at least once a week. He could lie, and say that there wasn't another girl, or he could lie and say there was. He chose not to speak at all.
"Oh." Was all that came out of Rachael's mouth. "See you at four." She muttered half-heartedly as she scurried away, leaving Draco alone in the usually empty corridor.
What had just happened?
He didn't know, but all he did know was that at that moment, he needed the warmth of his daughter in his arms to muffle everything going on in his mind. Including Granger's relationship to him. Were they friends? Were they enemies? Acquaintances? Foes? Were there any other synonyms to describe what Granger was to Draco? None that he wanted to admit to.
"Daddy!" Haley cried to Draco when he swaggered through the studio doors. The small amount of parents or watching siblings left in the foyer eyed Draco slightly before returning to their earlier events.
"Hey Bugga!" Malfoy said, sweeping her up in his arms. He kissed the top of her head, and sat with her in his arms onto a cushioned bench. "How was class? Feel like a ballerina yet?"
Haley nodded and hugged her father close. "A very good barina." she laughed, kissing Draco's cheek. Instantly it felt like all of his problems melted away with the kiss. He held Haley close and kissed her blonde locks again.
"Why don't you get your street shoes so we can go home, how about it Bug? Then you can eat a nice bowl of ice-cream when we get home and take a warm bath." Draco suggested, pulling Haley away from his chest.
With a wordless response, Haley leapt from her father's arms and raced around the corner to retrieve her small black galoshes, for it had rained early that day. Draco let out a small chuckle at her abundant energy and stood, brushing dust off of his trousers.
That's when he turned and saw her. Granger. Hermione Granger.
She stood in the front of the largest studio, waving her arms around and around at around 20 girls standing in blue and green peacock-like outfits. She was talking, but Draco couldn't hear. Wandlessly, he cast an Improved Hearing charm on his ears.
"...you're all flopping around now, trying to duplicate these mystical creatures from the Garden of Eden, but I'm not feeling it!" she exclaimed, not yelling at the girls though. In fact, she was almost laughing with them. She flung her body around, impersonating the dancers and they laughed at the hideous sight. "Your audience doesn't want to see that either! So act like a bird! Again!"
Instrumental music began playing that Draco could only describe it as "ba dum dum dum DUM dum, da dum DUM dum, dadump DUM dadumpdump da dum dum DUM." And then it repeated. It was rather techno and pretty however.
Apparently the dancers didn't act like birds exactly how Hermione wanted, so she paused the music again. "I have an idea," she started, putting her hands in front of her. "When you dance, everyone tweet, tweet like a bird! You're supposed to be birds, you look like birds, and if you sound like birds, maybe you'll dance like birds! Tweet!" She smiled, her face growing brighter. She wasn't any happier than she was teaching dance. Draco could tell.
The music started again and along with it, shrills tweets. Some girls tweeted in time with the music, others however, just tweeted in general.
As the dance neared its end, Hermione began tweeting too, and joined the middle of the dance, becoming a bird. Draco couldn't help but be captivated by her beautiful, sharp movements. "And chassé, tilt jump, pas de bourrée and hit, hit, hit!" she exclaimed. "Hand by your face, give yourself a beak and hit! Hit! HIT! YES! Yes, perfect!" Hermione smiled and watched the rest of the dance, completely glowing.
Hermione's gaze drifted until it matched Draco's. Her face didn't fall, she just continued to smile.
Flabbergasted, Draco glanced over his shoulder. "Where the hell is Haley?" He muttered.
But something was going on with him. He had a plan. He didn't want Hermione to see him watching her, and he couldn't go on without watching her.
After a month of preparation, it was finally finished, the Polyjuice Potion. Over the month, Draco plucked multiple Muggle hairs but finally decided on a light brown strand of hair he knew belonged to a male.
Now he currently was standing in the Academy watching Hermione dance with guilty eyes. He sulked somewhere in the shadows so Hermione couldn't see him. She was dancing alone, practising something, and it was about 9 at night. He had dropped Haley off at his mother's so he could put his Granger-watching plan into action. He wasn't stalking her, he simply wanted to watch her dance. Ballet, contemporary, jazz, anything. But now she was wearing pointe shoes, and dancing in a small circle.
Draco's hour was almost up, but he didn't want to leave. He craved her dance, for no reason. He craved her, for some reason that was all too foreign to him. He'd never felt this way before, and it scared him.
The floor of the small classroom was slippery and Hermione was attempting to break in her new pointe shoes. The satin tips were still unused and it caused a few bumbles.
She chasséd to the corner and prepared. Travelling towards the windows (and Draco's hiding spot) she performed a tours jeté. As she landed the fresh silk contradicted with the floor and she fell with a thud to the floor.
Immediately, without thinking twice, Draco rushed into the studio and wrapped his arms around Hermione, pulling her up. "Are you okay?" He asked worried and curious about her fall.
"Yes, I-" Hermione raised an eyebrow, confused by the sudden stranger, as if to say 'Who are you?' The question needn't to exist however, since Draco's clock ticked to 0.
The metamorphosis from Polyjuice Potion was always a strange one. His eyes popped and his skin bubbled. The colour of his irises transformed from a deep hazel to his normal colourless silver. The brown hair lightened back into his trademark almost-white locks, and he grew a few inches in height.
Again there were in the awkward stance of their lips being close to one another. Since the other incident and cheek kiss they had tried avoided talking as long as possible and it seemed to have been working.
Don't lean in... Draco thought worriedly, but Hermione did the exact opposite. He braced himself for her soft lips to embrace his but they didn't. Instead she surpassed his lips and gave him a hug.
Then Hermione was gone. "Goodbye Malfoy," she called in a small whisper. Draco didn't hesitate in leaving, he had to get out, now. She had no idea what she did to him on a normal day when he watched her dance. Dance was his drug, and she was the dealer. Or rather, was it vice versa now?
Hermione's heart was pounding obstreperously and it ricocheted through the halls of the Academy. Did she want to kiss him? Maybe...? Right now she was just confused and wanted to fall asleep crying.
Crying and wishing she hadn't fallen.
A/N: I really like this chapter, I hope you all did too!
I actually finished this a day EARLIER than I thought! Yay me! Most of this chapter was written while I watched "To Kill A Mockingbird." It's a good book and movie.
A lot of scenes in this chapter, (like the Rachael scene) wasn't supposed to happen. It just came out when I wrote! That just occurs sometimes when I write!
waterflower20-Yes, Hermione WAS wearing the cast, I just didn't describe it! I didn't really think about it at the time!
Please everyone Review, Follow and Favourite, it means everything to me
You all are going to Review for me because I updated sooner right? No? Okay :( Please give me your thoughts anyway, it truly brings a smile to my face to see how much you love it! My dream is to become a well-known Dramione writer, but to do that I need fans! And I love you all!
*BIG HUG*
P.S. NEWEST longest chapter! Yay! It was over 5,000 words, and it was 10 pages! I feel so accomplished!
