Chapter 6

"So, what do you say?"

Had Hermione heard right? Did Draco Malfoy actually just invite her to a party? Was he being serious or was this just another joke? She had no idea how to respond, but a part of her wanted to say yes because for some odd reason, the thought of spending time with Draco actually sounded like fun.

"I'm not waiting forever for a response. Either a yes or no will suffice."

She hesitated for a moment. Clearly the drinks had clouded her judgment, causing her to respond by saying, "yes, I'll go with you."

He gave her no time to rethink her decision. Immediately he grabbed her hand and led her through the dungeon hallways. Eventually he slowed at what looked like a bare stretch of wall. He whispered something beneath his breath and suddenly the wall faded, and a passage was revealed.

Still hand-in-hand, Draco led Hermione through the dark passage which opened up to an extravagant room. To Hermione's surprise, the Slytherin common room had high ceilings, despite being in the dungeon. Tapestries hung across the walls, displaying famous Slytherin wizards, and there was a large house crest hung above a fireplace roaring with green flames. The windows looked into the depths of the Black Lake, providing a subtle green light throughout the room. For a moment, Hermione thought she saw a merperson swim by.

"What the fuck Draco! She can't be here," Pansy yelled across the room.

All eyes shifted to Hermione. She released Draco's hand and instantly regretted saying yes to his proposition. She had clearly failed to think about who else would be in attendance. Hermione was now stuck in a room full of people who either viewed her as Potter's sidekick, the fake golden girl, or someone who helped put their families in Azkaban.

Just as she was about to turn around and leave, Blaise laughed at Pansy and said, "oh, shove it Pansy, let Draco have his fun."

Hermione wondered how that response was coming from the same person who had dosed her drink with an anxiety potion earlier that night.

"He can have his fun elsewhere; this common room is not open to outsiders. No one, but the members of Slytherin, have been in this room for over seven centuries," she shrieked.

Hermione laughed, knowing Harry and Ron had broken that years before. Draco eyed Hermione suspiciously, curious to know what she found funny.

"Calm down, you're not nearly as sexy when you're angry," Nott said, putting his arm around her.

The flirtatious route seemed to work. It wasn't long before Pansy had forgotten all about Hermione crashing the party.

"She's had a thing for Nott for a while now. I'm not surprised his attention got her to give in," Draco commented.

"I always thought Pansy was interested in you…"

"Were you jealous Granger?" Draco said in a smug tone, causing Hermione to blush.

"Don't worry," he added, "that was ages ago. Our parents always loved the idea of us together, so we dated briefly in fourth year. But truthfully, Pansy is a little too needy for my taste. Now how about we get ourselves another drink."

Hermione nodded, and they headed towards a table across the room. As Draco poured them both a cup of the green liquid, Blaise made his way towards them.

"So, care to explain," Blaise interrogated Draco as if Hermione were not in the room. However, she was glad he asked, because she too was intrigued to hear Draco's reasoning for inviting her.

"Not all of us are trying to ruin her night," he replied.

Blaise looked over to Hermione and said in a playful tone, "it was nothing personal Granger, just couldn't stand the thought of losing a bet to Pansy." He chuckled to himself before adding, "I'll give it to you Gryffindor, nobody has made Draco this social in months. He'd normally be moping in his room by now."

Draco shot Blaise a nasty looked. Getting the hint, Blaise winked at Hermione while saying, "don't have too much fun tonight Gryffindor."

Hermione felt relieved. That conversation could have gone much worse. Firstly, he could have ended his last sentence with mudblood, but instead he chose to call her by her house name. Secondly, Hermione would assume that this was the closest thing she would get to an apology for the anxiety potion. And best of all, he implied that Draco was just as excited to be with her, as she was to be with him. Never in a million years would she have guessed Draco Malfoy would give her butterflies.

"Do you want something more comfortable to wear?"

Hermione looked around the room and noticed everyone else had changed out of their formal attire.

"I don't have my wand on me. This dress really is impractical. But I could go to my dormitory quickly and change."

"Don't bother, I have a jumper you can borrow, and I'll get one of the girls to lend you some pants."

Draco briefly left Hermione's side to talk to Daphne Greengrass, who kindly used accio to retrieve a pair of black pants and handed them to Draco. He walked back towards Hermione and said, "come on, we can change upstairs."

She followed him up a curving black staircase into the Slytherin dormitories. Draco disappeared for a moment while she looked around. The dormitory looked oddly similar to the Gryffindor rooms, but all the red was replaced with green. Everyone had their own four-poster bed with a trunk for possessions sitting in front. Draco returned to the room, no longer wearing a suit. He reached into his trunk and pulled out a dark green jumper.

"Here, it might be a little big but I'm sure you'll look great in green."

"Do you mind helping me with the corset of my dress."

Draco made his way behind Hermione and gently pushed her hair out of the way. Hermione could feel his warm breath on her spine and felt shivers through her body. Once the dress was loosened, Draco turned to give Hermione privacy. Although Hermione knew he did not see her change, she still felt that this moment was very intimate. After getting dressed, she turned to face him.

"Okay, you can look now."

When Draco turned to see her, he grinned.

"I told you green would be a great colour on you."

Hermione blushed and Draco stepped closer to her. He brushed the hair out of her face and said, "God Granger, it would be a lot easier to ignore you, if you weren't so god damn beautiful."

Hermione's heart was racing. If she weren't this close to Draco's lips, she would have sworn Zabini slipped her another anxiety potion. Draco leaned towards her as if for a kiss, but instead whispered in her ear.

"I'd love to keep you up here forever, but I assume the rest of the party is going to start spreading rumours about what we're doing pretty soon. Assuming that you'd hate me if I ruined your reputation, we should probably get back to the common room."

Hermione felt bittersweet. A part of her was glad Draco cared about her enough to protect her, but the other part of her wanted to have a careless night that she would likely regret in the morning.

As they walked back downstairs, the other students were setting something up on a table in the center of the room. A silver chalice was surrounded by smaller potion vials.

"Perfect timing," Theodore Nott exclaimed. "We were just about to come find you so you could join the game."

"What is this?" Hermione questioned.

"Truth or dare, or at least the Slytherin version of the game," Blaise began, "you see, we play the game a little more extreme than other houses probably do. The rules are simple. In the center of the table is a cup with diluted veritaserum. A single sip will cause the drinker to be brutally honest for approximately one minute. If you choose truth, you must take a sip and answer your question. If you choose the dare option, you must complete whatever task is given to you. However, if you refuse to answer the question, or fail to complete your task, you must take a sip from one of the unlabeled vials."

"and what exactly are the unlabeled vials?"

"They vary. Some are prank potions purchased from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, other are our own concoctions, and a few are potions taken from Slughorn. They all have a surprise negative side effect. You might break out in pimples even Madame Pomfrey can't get rid of, or your teeth will grow without stop, or onetime, Goyle turned green for a week."

Many people in the room began to laugh, but Hermione felt too nervous to find the thought of Goyle turning green funny.

"Alright Granger," Draco spoke, "as our guest, you can go first. So, what will it be? Truth or dare?"

Too nervous that she would fail if given a difficult dare, she opted for truth, hoping Draco would go easy on her.

"Earlier tonight, you laughed at Pansy saying only Slytherins were allowed in the common room. I'm curious, what was so funny?"

Pansy looked angry to hear Hermione had laughed at her. Hermione was handed the silver goblet and took a sip. She was relieved by the simple question and figured she could manage to word her answer without disclosing the cat hair incident.

"Well, Pansy said no one outside of Slytherin had been in your common room for over seven centuries, which I know isn't true, so I thought it was funny. Harry and Ron came in here in second year. Draco actually let them in."

All eyes shifted to Draco and he looked horrified. Quickly, Hermione continued her story to ensure they understood why.

"In Draco's defence, he didn't know it was them. I brewed Polyjuice potion in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, and they drank it in order to look just like Crabbe and Goyle. We were trying to figure out who the heir of Slytherin was."

"Damn Granger, how the hell did you manage to brew Polyjuice potion at the age of twelve?" Nott asked in awe.

"It was actually not as difficult as you would imagine. I used flattery on Lockhart after class one day so that he would sign a library slip allowing me to get the recipe from the restricted section. Then I broke into Snape's cupboard to obtain the rarer ingredients, knowing he would never suspect me. It took about a month to brew, but hiding it was easy because no one ever goes into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom."

Majority of the room looked rather impressed.

"I never knew the golden-girl broke so many school rules," Blaise said in admiration.

It seemed her turn at truth or dare had not been embarrassing at all, but rather gained Hermione extra points with the Slytherins.

"Alright then, your turn Blaise, truth or dare," Hermione asked.

"I'm going to go with truth. I'm hoping I might come out looking like a badass like you Granger."

Hermione thought for a second what to ask and then said, "What is the most embarrassing thing a teacher has ever caught you doing?"

Blaise took a sip from the chalice and began his story, "funny you should ask, because it was actually during a game of truth or dare. Your boy Draco dared me to make it to the astronomy tower and back without any clothes on. Got halfway there before McGonagall stopped me."

The whole room burst out in laugher at the thought of McGonagall seeing a student naked.

"Her reaction was priceless. Earned me a month of Friday night detentions and she took 50 points from Slytherin, but I think deep down she enjoyed the sight," he finished in a cheeky voice then asked, "Nott, truth or dare?"

Without hesitation, Nott said, "dare."

"I dare you to steal all of the crystal balls out of Trelawney's classroom. I would worry for you that she would see this coming, but something tells me she was too busy predicting student deaths."

Nott stood up and walked out of the room. Less than ten minutes later, he returned with a bag floating beside him full of crystal balls.

"Too easy," he said while entering the room.

Everyone gave a round of applause for his success.

"Pansy, sweetheart, truth or dare?"

Pansy saw right through the 'sweetheart' act, knowing Nott had something difficult in store for her.

"Dare," she said, staring straight into his eyes, not willing to back down.

"I dare you to go skinny dipping in the Black Lake. And to make sure you don't cheat we're coming to watch."

Nott looked a little too pleased with himself. The group of players stood up and snuck out of the castle. At the shore of the lake, Pansy began to undress confidently. Hermione was glad it was Pansy instead of her. She knew that if it were her dare, she would never have been confident enough to go through with it.

Pansy made her way into the cold lake. After getting past the point where she could stand, she screamed loudly and was pulled under.

"What the fuck! Nott you have to do something!"

Nott did not hesitate to dive in after her. They were both underwater for what seemed like several minutes. But Hermione knew that the stress from the situation was simply making time feel longer. Finally, Pansy and Nott came back above water.

Pansy was laughing. Nott yelled, "what the hell Pansy?"

"I knew that would get you in here too."

She had faked the entire thing in order to trick Nott into the water. Hermione began to laugh with her. By the time they made their way to shore, the sun was beginning to rise across the lake.

"Oh shit," Hermione blurted out. "What time is it?"

"Probably around 6 A.M.," Draco told her calmly.

Hermione was horrified. She hadn't realised she had been gone that long. The entire Gryffindor house would be worried sick for her. What would they say when they found out where she had been?

"I have to go."

Pansy spoke up, "you can't leave until we finish the game. Draco still has to choose."

"Fine, but make it quick please," Hermione pleaded.

"We don't have the chalice out here, so I guess dare is my only option"

"Perfect," Pansy smirked. "I dare you to kiss the Gryffindor."

Hermione's heart skipped a beat when she heard the dare. She wondered why Pansy was encouraging that they become more intimate, but then quickly realized her true intention. Having a crowd of people witness their kiss would ensure that the whole castle knew about it within a few hours, including the Gryffindors.

Draco turned to Hermione, and her heart began to beat even faster. He gave her a gentle smile as he walked closer. Then, he put his hand on her lower back and pulled her close. He leaned in and their lips met.

Hermione had never noticed how much taller he was. She had to stand on her tiptoes to kiss him back. His hands moved up to the base of her head and his lips began to press against hers more passionately. And then, he released her and said, "you better get going," with a wink.

Hermione's cheeks were red. She couldn't believe so many people had watched her kiss Draco Malfoy. Quickly, she turned away and ran back to the Gryffindor common room. She had no idea how she would explain this to her friends.

End of chapter notes: thank you to everyone who has been following the story! I would like to write another version of this story, but with the focus on Draco instead of Hermione so that readers can see both sides. I'd love to know if you think it would be best to wait until this version is complete, or if you would like them to be uploaded side-by-side. If you have an opinion, let me know!