DPOV
The Muggle beauty woman has been here for hours. She did Hermione's nails first, and then while they were drying, she washed, treated and cut my hair, leaving it fairly long, long enough to push back, but falls back over my brow in a straight fringe that sort of falls onto one side. Both she and Hermione swear it makes me look dashing. This woman is one of the biggest ladies I've ever seen. She's tall and wide, with an enormous bosom that just looks incredibly soft. She has very glossy black skin and very long, shining cornrow dreads. She has a very, very loud, booming laugh, which matches her loud, booming, bubbling voice. Hermione clearly knows her, and so far, a good half an hour has been spent talking about how much better Hermione looks.
"You don't suit skinny! You should have hips and a bosom and soft legs and flesh on your bones! Hips are good for children!"
"Bloody hell, Mary, I've only just got a partner!"
"You've got a partner?"
"Yes, God, yes. Blimey."
"There was a time," shouts Mary, yanking at Hermione's hair to get all the conditioner out, "that you would have phoned and told me that! Even at your lowest, when you were all eyes and dark circles and suicidal, you'd phone and tell me stuff!"
"Good God, it only happened three flaming days ago!"
"Alright, sit in this chair." Hermione submits to a rather rough towelling of the head and then some brisk brushing. If Mary hurts her, she doesn't protest. "And you haven't been taking good care of all this hair!"
"That's why I called you."
"This man, is he coming to this event?"
"Yes, and no, you won't meet him, he's not getting here until after you're gone."
"Oh, fine! Deprive me of my gossip!"
"Deprive you of your gossip my rear end. I know full damn well your daughter wants to go to a kibbutz in Israel with that hippy guitarist bloke she met at some berry picking meet! If that isn't enough to keep you going, what the heck is?" Mary is trimming away at top speed, and laughs her booming laugh.
"Oh, darling, I know! I know! Running off with some skinny white boy - nothing wrong with white boys, it's just the skinny ones! Those ones you see with the fringes and the skinny jeans! Broken her grandfather's heart! Wouldn't be so bad if he had a job! But he busks on bloody Bond Street underground station! Can't even sing that well! Are you having this up or down?"
"Well, the dress is strapless. I was thinking down, do that clever thing you do that makes my hair wavy instead of curly, with those flowers woven in?"
"Good idea! You know my son got a conditional offer from York University? Just got to get his grades!"
"That's great! Which son?" Hermione asks. I'm genuinely enjoying listening to them both natter on and on.
"My second oldest! Oldest boy is working at a bank in the City! Brought me a cruise for my birthday, to the Caribbean."
"Alright for some." Mary is now blow-drying Hermione's hair, brushing it out so it falls in soft waves down her neck. She's weaving in flowers at top speed, making then actually keep up the top part of Hermione's hair so it's back off her face and then tumbling down her back. It's the first time I've seen her hair down in quite a while, and it flows to the middle of her back now, a far cry from her frizzy school days. Mary finishes with Hermione's nails, hair and make up at six forty-five, and Hermione retreats up to her room to put the dress I got for her on, after paying Mary an amount she refuses to discuss, advising me to get into the tuxedo she hired for me. She says that wearing a tux as opposed to stiffly formal dress robes will make me nicely distinguished, ignoring my protests that I get quite enough attention as it is.
"Don't worry, I spoke to Blaise, he's wearing one too." I roll my eyes, but oblige anyway, and am ready way before she is, just as Blaise knocks at her front door. I let him in, and we try to sit on the sofa without creasing our shirts too much. I have no idea what she's doing up there, but she can't only be getting dressed, it's taking far too long.
"Do you want something to drink? We've got Coke, water, wine -"
"Coke?"
"Fizzy."
"I'll try that." I get us both a Coke, something Hermione introduced me to last week, and we wait, patiently, for Hermione to do whatever it is she's doing. At exactly seven-thirty five, she comes downstairs, fashionably late, and probably prepared to make one hell of an entrance at the Ministry.
BPOV
I have to all but scrape my jaw up off her coffee table when she makes her appearance. The dress Draco brought her suits her very exactly, and it's now obvious why we're both wearing forest-green bow ties. Her gown is tight to the waist, and has been cut to give soft curves to a figure that's still very slightly too thin, and the full skirt has been sprinkled with tiny sparkles that catch the flames from her little fireplace and make the dress look like it's always being ruffled by a very slight breeze. She looks absolutely incredible. Draco mumbles something and slips upstairs, and she starts blushing under my gaze.
"Do you - am I - is this OK?"
"Oh, that is far, far beyond OK. You look stunning." I cross to her, and place a very tender kiss onto her lips. She smiles under my touch, and I don't think I've ever enjoyed kissing anyone this much. "My one objection is that I get the feeling I'll get very, very jealous tonight. They're not going to be able to stop staring at you."
"Thanks," she murmurs, kissing me fleetingly. "We need to be getting on. Draco, we need to make a move! There's a difference between fashionably late and rude."
The irritating bit about this damn Ball is that, apparently, you get announced on arrival, so we can't all enter together. I have to go in alone, looking like a proper loser, and immediately attempt to avoid the hawk-like gazes by locating Harry and Ginny.
"Potter, Ginny, watch those doors," I say, grinning.
"Announcing the arrival of Miss Hermione Granger and her guest, Mr Draco Malfoy." The sound of about one hundred male jaws falling to the floor is almost tangible. And if I thought she looked stunning in the living room of her home, she looks ten times as beautiful descending a torch-lined flight of stairs with a handsome young man on her arm. I nearly implode.
"I see Mary was over again," Ginny comments, greeting Hermione with a kiss and a giggle. "You look absolutely stunning. Half the people in this room are still staring at you."
"You don't look bad yourself. I love this dress!"
"Harry got it for me."
"Really?"
"You know, every once in a while, I do make good choices in the clothes department." The girls both giggle.
"Come on, Hermione. We'd better do the duty round. Boys, get Hermione something alcoholic and me something soft." She and Hermione start revolving around the room, joined by Kingsley. Most people here seem very keen to meet the war hero behind the radical changes to the Wizarding World, and Ginny herself attracts so much attention as well, presumably because it's finally been announced that she's pregnant. It's starting to show too - and oddly, seems much more obvious tonight than it did at Christmas. I suppose that's just the way.
"Why is everyone still staring at Hermione?"
"Jealous, are we?" Harry smirks. "Because she's a stunningly beautiful war hero who has the balls to keep her scars on show and who is also overhauling half our laws. And apparently is still single. You two really need to announce it."
"I want her to. I wanted us to shout it from the rooftops. But she keeps saying it's still too soon after Professor McGonagall's funeral. Say's it'll be insensitive."
"I say announce it tonight. What better time?"
"I might ask her when she's finished the rounds." I stop a passing waiter and nab us both a glass of champagne. "Or, I'll just go offer her this."
"No," Draco says, "that'll look odd. I'll take it to her." He takes both glasses out my hands, sips one himself, and almost glides over to Hermione, who is currently talking to an irritatingly handsome wizard who looks vaguely familiar.
"Potter, do we know the man Hermione's talking to?"
"Cormac McLaggen."
"That jumped-up keeper you had in sixth year when Weasley got poisoned?"
"Yep. He and Hermione went to Slughorn's Christmas party together." I feel like I've just swallowed a pint of vinegar. "Oh, don't worry. She never did like him much. But he works in the Sports department now, I suppose she's got to show some sort of interest."
"It's not how she feels about him I'm concerned about," I growl. "It's the fact that he keeps touching her bloody arm and stroking her elbow. And the fact that if he doesn't get his hands off my woman, I'll go over there and punch him in the face." Mercifully for him, Draco reaches them, leans over and kisses Hermione's cheek. McLaggen looks like he's been slapped in the face. Hermione looks nothing but relieved, taking the champagne from Draco and then slipping her arm into his.
"You don't mind Draco touching her," Potter comments.
"Potter, the last person in this room who'd do anything inappropriate is Draco."
"Why?"
"Good Lord. Draco's gay, Potter. He'd be more interested in seeing you naked than her. Not that he wants to see you naked."
"Oh!" Hermione, Ginny and Draco all rejoin us, and Hermione looks right at me,
"I'm so sorry. I couldn't get rid of him."
"I know. But I might still have to bury him in a shallow grave." She laughs. "I've been thinking," I venture. "We should announce it."
"I suggested tonight. Hermione, it makes sense. And it'll stop Zabini getting arrested for murder, because you know McLaggen will have another go at putting the moves on." I grit my teeth at that, and Potter laughs.
"Alright. You have a point. But how do we announce it?"
"Now?"
"Might as well," she shrugs, blushing.
"We do this," I say, taking her glass and handing it to Potter. I sweep her into my arms, she shrieks, and then I kiss her. Shocked gasps and an immediate upsurge in the noise tells me that everyone has either seen or has been nudged and told. I can hear Ginny laughing. Hermione loops her arms very firmly around my neck and returns my kiss in kind. When we eventually put each other down, every single person is gaping at us. The reporters are now immediately identifiable, as they all have notebooks out and are scribbling away furiously. I think a couple of flashbulbs might have gone off. We'll be front page news.
"That was not, in any way, subtle," she says, half scolding.
"Are you annoyed?" I ask her, grinning widely.
"Not in the slightest." I kiss her again, but apparently we're old news now, because at least not everyone is staring. Apart from McLaggen, who's holding a broken glass in his hand and is looking like he would have preferred a good punching to this. Ginny is almost purple in the face with the effort to not just howl with laughter.
"I was thinking more along the lines of making a brief announcement to the press when one of them comes to talk to you during the dancing, but I suppose your way works just as well," Potter says, laughing. Before any of us can discuss it any further, Hermione apparently spots someone else she knows.
"Oh, Draco, would you mind coming over here with me?" And she accuses me of lacking subtlety. She drags him off.
HPOV
Still somewhat flustered by Blaise, I spot Tom leaning against the far wall, looking depressingly lonely. I grab Draco, insist he joins me, and migrate across the floor, deliberately avoiding making eye contact with anyone, although whispers follow us.
"Tom, darling, how are you?" I ask, kissing his cheek. We go way back, he and I. We were actually on the same ward at St Mungo's after the War, when I went in to have an infection in one of Fenir's claw scars treated. His own scars were self-inflicted, and one of them had become infected. He almost blamed himself after I tried to kill myself, convinced meeting him had somehow given me the idea of how to do it. It had been a while since we really spoke when he came to see me about Draco, and we got a lot cleared up between us.
"I'm fine. No need to ask how you are. I suppose you know that little stunt will be smothered all over the Prophet tomorrow."
"Shut up, it was hardly my idea."
"I didn't think so," he says, grinning. "Uh - I'm Tom." He addresses Draco, and I resist the urge to just spin around and wander off.
"Draco," he says, holding out a hand, actually blushing a little. Tom takes the proffered hand, shakes it. Having experienced Tom's handshakes, I know they're strong and somehow convey dependency. Draco's blush deepens. Tom has not yet let go of his hand, and he is lingering on the pull back. I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Draco offers more information. "I work in Hermione's department. I'm her - what am I?"
"Assigned bitch," I say, inspecting my nails and smiling.
"That about sums it up. I was assigned after they decided I wasn't a murderer." I resist the urge to face palm, but Tom seems to appreciate his rather brutal honesty.
"I never thought you were a murderer."
"Thank you." I decide this would be a good idea to leave them to it, but then the Minister announces that the dancing is about to start, and we should make our way into the Ballroom. Tom excuses himself, but asks Draco if he can come find him later. Blushing wildly, Draco says that he'd like that. Tom seems to melt into the crowd, and Draco just gapes after him.
"So?" I ask, barely able to control myself. We're almost alone in here now, and I want the details now.
"He seems - nice." He'd only just returned to normal colour, and he's blushing again.
"Will you dance with him?"
"Maybe."
"OK. Come on, lets go find Harry and the gang."