Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter franchise, nor anything affiliated with it. I also do not own any songs used in this fic, all rights to those songs belong to the artists, go support their work on Youtube, Spotify, or other music platforms.
Hermione's POV
I take a step forward and suddenly I'm falling. As the world spins around me, at least the amount of the world I can see, I tumble down the stairs until I land in a heap at the bottom. I'm covered and tangled up with the large fabric decorations.
"Ow." I groan.
I definitely bumped my elbow, my knee, and my shoulders, and actually... everything. The stairs were obviously not where I thought they were. I struggle to pull myself out of the decorations and I find myself just getting even more tangled.
"Hermione? Hermione!" I hear Draco calling my name. Great. Now he's going to see me like this and realize I fell down the stairs. I'm never going to hear the end of this.
"Hermione? Where are y-. Hermione is that you?" He says, followed by lots of laughter. I glare in the rough direction of where I think he is from under the mess of fabric and try even harder to get out.
"Hermione, you do realize you're a witch right? You could have just levitated everything to the Great Hall and saved yourself all of this trouble." He says as I hear him getting close. Of course, he is correct, I can't believe I actually forgot about that.
He helps untangle me from the mess and sticks out a hand to help me up. I scowl at him but grudgingly accept the hand. I'm still mad at him for bailing last minute on the two most recent planning meetings, resulting in my planning almost all of the final details.
The worst part about him missing the meetings is that once I finished the work for those sessions, I had gone to the library only to find him chatting with other girls in our grade. One of the times he was sitting and laughing with Hannah, his new Charms partner and I couldn't help but feel a surge of jealousy. Based on what I could hear they weren't even on topic for their assignment, so he'd missed a planning session for small talk.
I left on both of those occasions before they realized I was there, and I made sure not to confront Draco about it later. I merely gave him the cold shoulder ever since and remained as professional as possible when I had to speak with him. I suspect he still doesn't know why I'm mad, and I'm quite happy to keep it that way.
I'm not quite sure what compelled me to do this, probably spite, but once I stand up, I gather the fabric in my arms once more and carry it without magic. Draco looks at me while I do this with an incredulous expression and just does a 'what do I know' gesture with his hands before walking back to the dorms to get the sound equipment we rented.
I continue down towards the Great Hall, and with a bit of struggling on my part, I manage to get everything hung up on the walls and ceiling. The prefects should be coming soon to help set up the smaller pieces of decor and set up the tables with the centerpieces and dishes. I use my wand to place the tables in our pre-arranged pattern. I step back to admire my handiwork and notice that Draco has been here for a while and is setting up the speakers and music for this evening. What really made me notice what he was doing, is when he plays a small snippet of a song from Hamilton the musical.
The song, from what I can tell, is Burn. Sung by the character Eliza Schuyler/Hamilton after Alexander Hamilton cheats on her. I find the irony right here hilarious. Suddenly, I know exactly what I'll do tonight.
I leave quickly and dash to the washroom before coming back just when the prefects enter the hall. I quickly delegate their tasks to them and we get it all set up much earlier than when we were doing the Halloween ball since we all knew what to do. When we're done, I step back and check to make sure everything's in place and that it looks good. The colour scheme I chose for this dance was Medium Sea Green, Saffron, Picton Blue, Purple Pizzazz, and Sasquatch Socks. They're bright and colourful, but are also bold and not too neon.
I then dismiss the prefects to go get ready for the ball. I take a look around the hall to see if Draco is still here. I can't seem to find him, so I assume he's gone back to the room. I head back as well and go straight to my room once I've gotten to the dorm. The semi-formal dance has fallen on a Saturday, so McGonagall allowed everyone to go to Hogsmeade in preparation for it. From my window, I can just about see the throngs of students going up and down the path from the castle to the village.
Thankfully, I was able to get permission from McGonagall to bring Ginny with me last weekend for dress shopping while it was quiet. She selected a long forest green dress to complement her red hair, while I chose a red swing dress since I've always loved how flattering they are. They also seem so cheery and have this wonderful vintage feel to them. I chose a red one because of how the colour stands out against my skin tone. This particular dress I had seen during one of my earliest Hogsmeade trips and I had made a note to try and get this dress when I had a chance. I'd forgotten though until Ginny and I went back to that boutique and one of the saleswoman came up to me. She said that she'd seen me eyeing this dress awhile back and, knowing that we had a dance coming up, had kept it aside for me.
It's about an hour and a half till the dance now. We decided to make the dance earlier than last time since it's a Saturday and people have had time since yesterday evening to get ready and we've had a lot of time to prep the hall. The menu is similar to last time, though we've focused on lighter and more fresh foods as opposed to the heavier pastries and quiches from last time. One of the dishes we selected were sandwiches made from cucumbers instead of bread, they're quite tasty and not as 'healthy tasting' as I thought they'd be.
I head to the bathroom and knock once to make sure Draco isn't in there. I wait a few moments before slowly opening the door just in case he didn't hear the knocking and is in there. When I enter there's no one there and I sigh in relief in my head. I bring my dress with me and start to warm up the shower. I undress and step in. I let the warmth of the shower wash away my stress and internal conflicts. I just enjoy the bliss of it.
When I'm done I step out and dry myself off with my towel before getting dressed. I slip on my dress and adjust it to fit me perfectly. I then pin up my hair as much as I can, but it's not that easy since my hair is usually untamable. Since it's wet it stays more than when it's dry, but it still doesn't do exactly what I want. When I'm satisfied enough with the state of my hair, I leave the bathroom and go back to my room.
I reach into my trunk and pull out my 'makeup' and face creams. I sit down in front of the mirror in my room and moisturize my face so I have a base to work with. I then apply a little bit of foundation on the more blemished parts of my face. Once I'm done with that, I pull out my lip balm to soften the skin on it and after a little bit of consideration, I apply a thin layer of light red lipstick. I then check my appearance over once again before choosing a necklace, not the one given to me by Draco but a silver and sapphire one to contrast the red of my dress, and a ring.
Once I'm satisfied with my appearance overall, I pack my purse and find a pair of shoes to go with my outfit. I settle on a pair of black mid heels.
I make sure I have everything before walking down to our common room and then out towards the hall. It's about half an hour before the ball, but I should be there early anyway since Draco and I, mostly just me, have planned this ball and should be overseeing most of it. I enter the hall and see that a handful of the teachers are sitting at their table, while only a smattering of the students are present. I spot Draco, all dressed up in a suit, next to the stage setting up the speakers and doing a double check of the sound systems. I do a onceover of the hall and see everything is ready but the food, however the house elves assured me this morning that everything will be ready to be set up onto the tables a half hour into the dance.
I find a table and claim it by putting my purse there and pulling out a couple spare cardigans from my purse to save seats for all of my friends. I notice Ginny and Luna walking in together and wave them over.
"Hey guys! How are you? You both look magnificent tonight." I say. Ginny is wearing the dress she bought when we both went dress shopping together, and she's paired it with a golden necklace and brown heeled sandals. Luna is wearing a knee length midnight blue dress with streaks of light blue and silver all over it. She's wearing silver earrings with it and a pair of silver slippers. I'm a little confused because it looks a little too normal for Luna, but I smile when I notice that the earrings are in the shape of her turnip earrings and you can see the shapes of different patronuses stitched onto the dress amongst the silver streaks.
"I'm doing well," says Ginny.
"There aren't too many Nargles here tonight." says Luna. She then stares off into space before looking back at me. "However, there do seem to be quite a few around you Hermione. Perhaps you should take my necklace to keep them away." She then reaches into a pocket I didn't notice in her dress and pulls out the necklace she usually wears before placing it in my right hand. "Here, keep that on you, they shouldn't bother you tonight now."
I smile at her and place it in my purse which I now pick up off of the chair since we can all sit together now and it shouldn't be too hard for the others to find us.
After about 10 minutes of the three of us chatting at our table, the guys join us including Draco.
"Hermione, we should go up soon to tell everyone what's on the agenda tonight." says Draco.
"Sure." I say, careful to keep my poker face on and my voice neutral.
He looks at me with a weird expression before leading me up to the stage.
"Hermione, we'll need to kick the night off with something, perhaps you could perform a song to get the ball rolling?" He asks me.
"Okay. I have something in mind actually. It should be on the list of songs you procured for us." He nods and shows me the little machine they're using for people to choose their songs. It's a standard application on a tablet so that if you know what you're looking for, it should be fairly simple to find in our database of music. I set up the song while Draco goes up and speaks to the now almost full hall. He talks about the muggle musical theme and explains how the song list works. He explains that the person after you will have the job of starting the song once you've selected it. He then says that I'll be introducing the night with the first song.
I then walk up and go up to a microphone. I then nod at him and he presses play. I can see a flash of shock and confusion flash through his eyes when he sees what the song is before I turn back towards the audience.
The introduction starts to play and I hope that I can remember all of the lyrics. Taking a deep breath I begin
I saved every letter you wrote me
From the moment I read them
I knew you were mine
You said you were mine
I thought you were mine
I reach deep inside of myself and pull out every negative thought and emotion I've felt about Draco and him hanging out with other girls.
Do you know what Angelica said
When we saw your first letter arrive?
She said
"Be careful with that one, love
He will do what it takes to survive."
The first thing I think of is jealousy. That time was supposed to be set aside for him and I to spend together. Yes it was for the purpose of work, but he still made the commitment and broke it. All for small talk.
You and your words flooded my senses
Your sentences left me defenseless
You built me palaces out of paragraphs
You built cathedrals
I'm re-reading the letters you wrote me
I'm searching and scanning for answers
In every line
For some kind of sign
And when you were mine
The world seemed to
Burn
Burn
The second emotion to course through me is sadness. I'm sad because I don't know what this means for us. I'd be lying if I said that this isn't going to make a difference. I've made it into a difference. I've ensured that something has changed and I almost regret it. I want to go back to when we were together and we had all the time in the world, but now I think I've made this worse and we won't be able to.
You published the letters she wrote you
You told the whole world how you brought
This girl into our bed
In clearing your name, you have ruined our lives
Do you know what Angelica said
When she read what you'd done?
She said
"You have married an Icarus
He has flown too close to the sun."
You and your words, obsessed with your legacy...
Your sentences border on senseless
And you are paranoid in every paragraph
How they perceive you
You, you, you…
I'm erasing myself from the narrative
Let future historians wonder how Eliza
Reacted when you broke her heart
You have torn it all apart
I am watching it
Burn
Watching it burn
But after all of this, I know I feel angry. I should not regret doing what I did. I had every right to be upset, and now I'm angry. I let it take over. I let the fury and raw emotion seep into my every word. I let it show on my face. The biggest change now is that tears are falling down my face. However, they are tears of hurt and hatred. One of the worst kinds. With a feeling akin to exhilaration, but not nearly as pleasant, I dive into the next part of the song.
The world has no right to my heart
The world has no place in our bed
They don't get to know what I said
I'm burning the memories
Burning the letters that might have redeemed you
You forfeit all rights to my heart
You forfeit the place in our bed
You sleep in your office instead
With only the memories
Of when you were mine
I hope that you burn
I let my voice trail off on the last notes as the music fades and the crowd of students before me erupts into a thunderous applause. I take a brief bow before running off of the stage. I aim to walk right past Draco and sit back down in my seat, but as I move past him, standing by the tablet, he grabs my arm and looks me directly in the eye.
Draco's POV
Hermione's been acting weird for the last week or two. She suddenly stopped talking to me and I don't know why. I've tried to interact with her, but she just refuses. When she does though, she's very reserved and formal. I miss her. Just this morning she fell while trying to get some stuff to the Great Hall for the dance. I tried to help her up and make a small joke but she just glared at me and grudgingly accepted my hand.
Now I'm standing at the side watching her sing Burn from Hamilton and I'm so confused. Her performance is so believable that I don't think she's acting. I start to feel angry now because she's obviously mad at me for something but I don't know what it is. If she was so mad, why didn't she say anything about it? I can't fix something if I don't even know what happened.
When she's done, she runs off the stage. As she goes past me I reach out and grab her arm. Looking her directly in the eye I say, "Hermione, what was that all about? That wasn't just an act-" However I don't get to finish what I'm saying before she cuts me off.
"No, it wasn't just an act. Leave me alone." She spits at me. She then wrenches her arm out of my grasp and runs out of the hall.
I quickly try to catch up, but there are so many people between her and I, that I struggle to do so. I may have been able to stop using crutches over the last few days, but running is still a little difficult even with the braces and I have a weird sort of limp with it. When I finally get past everyone, who had been standing up to get the food which had appeared on the tables, I can't see her in the hall. I run down the hall to try and find her, but it takes me a bit of time. I'm surprised that she managed to get so far away while wearing heels, even if they are only mid-heels; she doesn't exactly wear them very often.
When I'm almost right behind her she stops running. She turns around and the moonlight illuminating the hall reflects off of her face in a beautiful way. Her eyes catch the light in such a way that they sparkle. Her hair seems silvery on one side, while the other is golden from the torches lining the hallway. If the circumstance was different I'd almost want to kiss her. However the circumstances are not different and that is something I definitely cannot do.
"Hermione, what is wrong? You've been ghosting me for the last week or so, and now you've performed a song about cheating with such raw emotion and conviction. Did I do something wrong?" I ask her. Before she can respond though, I try to remember the song I heard earlier this week when I was trying to figure out what was going on. I hurriedly sing the first line and she lets me continue.
Why won't you talk to me
Something's wrong I can see
Save the lies I won't believe
You can be honest, you can be honest with me
I want her to know that whatever happened, I'll listen. I need to know what I did wrong because if it something that has to be corrected, I will do everything in my power to correct it. She's so important to me and she's pushing me away now.
So come on and run away with me
You are the only thing I need
You are my lungs, my air, the oxygen I breathe
So come on and run away with me
You're hiding things you'll never show
You're showing things that you don't know
More than hope I still believe
That you are the honest, you are the honest in me
Hermione is so important to me because she is the main reason I'm a better person today. She believed in me and has helped me every step of the way. She is so truly the honest in me and I don't want to hurt her now after everything.
So come on and run away with me
You are the only thing I need
You are my lungs, my air, the oxygen I breathe
So come on and run away with me
When you finally find
The words to say
Will I be there
To lift your weight
So you don't sink inside yourself again
When she helped me become who I was, she was also in a darker place though she didn't often show it. Now that I'm better off, I want to help her out and lift her out of wherever she is right now, even if I'm the cause of it.
And with these hands
I will build you up
To break you down
To show you love
So you don't have to be the one to run away
So come on and run away with me
You are the only thing I need
You are my lungs, my air, the oxygen I breathe
So come on and run away with me
Come on and run away with me
So come on and run away with me
I look at her with pleading eyes and I can see that hers hold tears. I'm scared now. I'm scared that I'm going to lose the most important and wonderful person in my life. I'm scared that I'm going to lose my best friend. I'm scared that I've done something unforgivable.
"Hermione, I'm going to ask again. What did I do wrong? How have I hurt you?" I say.
"Draco, do you really not know?" She asks. There is hurt evident in her voice.
"No, and I'm so sorry that I don't. Please tell me. Whatever I did, I didn't mean to do this." I say with a plea in my own voice.
She releases a huge breath and leans against the wall. "'What did I do wrong?' Oh I don't know, I mean you missed two of our planning sessions. You broke the promise we made that day you missed the first meeting. Maybe it seems insignificant and maybe it actually is, but it upset me more than I care to admit. You didn't even tell me until 5 minutes before the meeting, so I couldn't even get a chance to reschedule it."
"Hermione," I interrupt her, "If you had told me it was important to you, I would have found a way to reschedule the meeting. Based on how calm you were when I told you about everything, I thought you were okay with it. I didn't realize you were upset about that. I'm sorry." I say.
"I'm not done." She says coldly as she glares. "Missing the meeting isn't the main reason I'm upset. The main reason I'm upset is that you skipped it to spend time with Hannah and the other girls in our year, you weren't even working on your Charm's assignment. I caught you, both times, in the library just chatting away about nonsense stuff."
Realization dawns on me for two reasons. I now know why I thought I heard someone eavesdropping from behind a bookshelf, but I couldn't find anyone at the time. The second reason is that she must have seen this whole incident as akin to cheating, almost. Though I doubt she'd admit it, or that she'd even realized that herself. I find it somewhat endearing that she cares so much about me that she got jealous so easily. However I also feel a little angry that she's being a bit too possessive and got upset when I was merely talking to another female, our classmate, twice. It's like she was expecting the worst from me, and it hurts my pride a bit.
I try to think of what to say and rationalize that getting mad at her would only escalate the problem further instead of solving it. Which would not do us any favours later on. I need to be the bigger person here and admit that I messed up. In all honesty, I should have at least given her proper warning and explained the full situation. I also should not have skipped the meeting for something so trivial.
"Hermione, I'm sorry about all of this. I should have thought about how this would affect you. Just please remember that I love you, and always will. You mean so much to me; you got me here today and had faith in me when no one, not even myself, had faith in me. You made my life worth living, so I ask for your forgiveness now." As I say this, I take her hands in mine, clasping them and lifting them to be level with her shoulders.
She suddenly starts crying and buries her face in my shoulder. I hear her whisper "I'm sorry" multiple times amidst her sobs and she hugs me. I'm a little surprised at first, but I wrap my arms around her to return the gesture.
"Draco, I'm sorry I overreacted again. I think the stress of having Ron back here now, schoolwork, and planning the ball has been getting to be too much for me. Can I ask that the two of us take a bit of a break for the next while? It's not that I don't like you or anything, I love you so much, I just don't want to hurt you more than I already have."
I'm shocked by her request and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hurt even a little bit by this. However I do want to respect her wishes so I respond with, "It's alright. Whatever you're comfortable with. I'll be here when you want me, and I won't stop waiting for you, even if it's till I die."
She smiles at me in gratitude and then speaks up. "You don't have to be so dramatic. That was cute, but it was also very sappy. Ginny would have loved to hear that, if she found out you'd never hear the end of it. We should probably get back now… wait how long have we been here for? Oh shoot! I didn't think of that when we left! We have to get back now, make sure that the hall isn't in cha-"
"Calm down." I say, cutting her off. Her worrying is quite cute but unnecessary. She overthinks a lot of stuff and stresses so much about everything. "I had a feeling some sort of incident would happen between us tonight, so I asked Blaise yesterday if he could keep an eye out during the ball and take over if he noticed that we'd both disappeared. I'm sure it'll be just fine, but we should head back before it gets any later."
"Oh okay. Thanks." She says.
We then walk back towards the hall and find the place to be just like it was when we left, crowded and noisy. I see Ginny on stage with Luna and they're performing a version of My Favourite Things from the Sound of Music and they seem to be having a lot of fun. Ginny looks very pumped and into it, while Luna seems to be dancing a little bit to it in her dress.
I turn to see Hermione staring at them with a huge smile on her face. When they finish singing, they come down and join us after Hermione waves them over.
"Sorry about that guys, I just had to sort out something with Draco." She says.
"Oh that's alright, though I hope you got to see most of our performance just now. There's a surprising amount of the school who know a lot of these songs. I was worried they wouldn't be popular or anything. It's been great. You should have seen Neville earlier though, he and Blaise partnered to sing I Don't Dance from High School Musical 2 and it was hilarious." Says Ginny.
"I'm sure it was." Replies Hermione with a grin. At first I don't think I know what they're talking about, and then I remember that Hermione showed me those films back during Christmas break. That was a scene that didn't make sense to me at first, but then Hermione explained to me that the whole thing was supposed to be ironic.
I turn to face all three of them and then ask if they would like me to get them a glass of punch while they head back to our table.
"Thank you very much Draco, you're quite the gentleman. Perhaps even more than Neville, just don't tell him I said that." Says Luna with a teasing smile.
"Yes thank you Draco. Hermione is quite lucky to have you." Adds Ginny.
Hermione and I both visibly tense when she says this, but I don't think either of them notice.
I walk over to the buffet tables and get four glasses to fill them with punch. I use my wand to do all of them at the same time and then levitate them towards the table. Halfway there I'm pushed a little from behind. I spin around to see Ron standing behind me.
"Ferret." He says calmly.
"Weasel." I reply while gently levitating the glasses onto our table which is just a couple meters away.
"What are you doing, trying to be all chummy with Hermione, my sister, and all of my old friends?" He asks me.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that Blaise was one of your friends. But by all means, go ahead and try to talk to them. I'm not so sure they'd want a terrorist sitting at their table, but I guess they let me sit with them so you may have some hope." I reply. Weasel and I have been getting quite good at our verbal battles and I found them kind of amusing. I sort of miss arguing and fighting with Hermione like in our earlier years. Now we're almost too civil or we blow up and it doesn't quite feel right.
"You want to fight ferret? How about right here?" He says to me.
"You mean right now? Well I guess you put the offer out."
"I'm not gonna chase you down Malfoy."
"Well I kn-"
I'm cut off by Hermione who quickly jumps in front of me, pushing us apart, while frantically asking us to stop. "Wait! Don't fight. You're only going to ruin the reputations that you've both re-built!"
At the same time, I can see Pansy quickly grabbing Ron and trying to snatch his wand. I hear her say something along the lines of, "Don't be stupid!" and "Are you trying to go back to Azkaban?!"
Ron and I both burst out laughing at the same time. Hermione and Pansy look equally perplexed, while the rest of our friends just look very, very confused.
"Draco, why on earth are you laughing? You too Ron. This isn't remotely funny. You two having a duel, or even a fist fight here could ruin all of the inter-house unity we've fought for this yea-." Ron cuts Hermione off and responds.
"Hermione calm down. Draco and I weren't actually going to fight each other. We're on mostly civil terms now, since we've been partners for quite a few assignments and have had some time to talk. We were actually referencing The Greatest Showman just now since Draco introduced the soundtrack to me."
Pansy, Hermione, Ginny, Blaise, and Neville all look gobsmacked when he's finished. Luna just looks slightly bemused and has the kind of look on her face that implies she's known about this for a while. I have to resist the urge to start laughing again, but I can feel a smirk growing on my face. However it fades just a little bit to be replaced by a bit of fear when Hermione spins towards me with a fairly angry expression.
"You ferret! This whole time you haven't been trying to kill each other and you didn't think to mention this to me?! I've been stressing so much about both of you and how much trouble you could create when you guys are partnered!" She rants.
"Yes well, I never really found a chance to tell you recently since you've been ignoring me for the about a week and a half. Also… wait a second. Pansy, why did you come to stop Weasley from attacking me?" I just processed that fact and I can see everyone else in our group thinking the same thing now. Both Ron and Pansy turn a bit red, but Pansy tries to explain.
"Well… just like Draco and Ron hit it off pretty well after being forced to work together, Ron and I have become pretty friendly as well since we're Muggle Studies partners. I can see how Draco and Hermione started to get along now." She says. Ginny looks at Hermione, Pansy, Ron, and I with a very peculiar expression before bursting into laughter.
"You guys are ridiculous. At this rate, inter-house rivalry will be completely eradicated by the end of this year and all of the Slytherins will be paired with Gryffindors." She pauses for a moment before adding, "Not to say I don't want it to happen, it's just that I didn't really think it could. Now, how about we all sit down like normal people?"
We all nod in agreement and sit down after pulling up two extra chairs for Pansy and Weasley. I find it amusing that Hermione, Weasley, Pansy, and I have pretty much switched partners with each other. Now that I know the two of them are friends, or at least somewhat, I can see the affection that the two of them are displaying. I guess it's probably the same for the others when they're looking at the interactions between Weasley and me.
We chat for quite a while about Pansy and Weasley, Weasley and me, and finally everyone's favourite topic, Hermione and me. We both try to steer the conversation away from it, but they still manage to ask a couple of questions that Hermione answered with as calmly and politely as possible, although she was obviously flustered. I'm just glad she answered them, if I had tried to answer I would have messed something up.
When it seems most people have had a chance on the karaoke machine, I go up and set up a playlist of some instrumental dance music. There are some funky ones, but there are also some nice slow dance ones as well. I spent some time working on that playlist, making sure that it all flowed nicely but still offered variety for people's different music tastes. I also include some more popular wizarding lullaby tunes. When I get back to the table, I see most of our friends have gotten up and are dancing along with most of the students in the hall. Luna and Neville, and Ron and Pansy are partnered up. Ginny gets invited up by Blaise and she accepts. I'm glad he was kind enough to offer her a dance seeing as how her boyfriend wasn't able to come to a students dance. The only person left now is Hermione and I refuse to let her just sit off to the side after all of the work she's put into this dance.
I walk over to her and offer my hand to her. She looks a little surprised at first, but gracefully accepts my hand. A smile graces her features as I gently place a hand on her hip while holding the other one to the side. We start to slow dance to the music which just so happens to be a favourite lullaby of mine. Though the lullabys do not have lyrics, many wizarding families make up their own. I begin to softly sing the ones my mother made up for this one in Hermione's ear.
Listen to the wind as it howls by
Listen to the sea as it swells
Listen to the sounds of nature cry
Listen near the old citadel
Listen to the crackling of a dying flame
Listen to the dripping of the dew
Listen to the leaves as dirt they claim
Listen as the forest's day is new
Listen to the birds chirping eloquently
Listen to the bubbling brook
Listen to the sounds though you cannot see
Listen through the old story book
I know there are more verses to it, but those were the three she used to sing to me most often. The song goes on for what seems like an eternity, but not in a bad way. I don't want this moment to end. I don't want to leave and start living a step further away from my love. Now I have her here and I can gaze into her brown eyes like I did the first day I realized I loved her. I feel the urge to kiss her, the situation is perfect and I'm sure she wouldn't mind. However I can't let myself do it. I can't do it because she said she wanted to take a break from being partners. I don't want to break her trust. For now we are just friends, best friends mind you, but still friends and I will treat her like a friend should.
When the song ends, we head back to our table and sit down. Just as we get comfortable, I hear her stomach growl and I realize that we never actually got any food between all of the drama of tonight. I realize I'm quite hungry as well, so I volunteer to go get us some of the food from the buffet tables. When I get there, Blaise comes up to me.
"Draco buddy, how's life treating you?" He asks me.
"Well enough." I reply.
"Are you sure mate? I mean you look kind of sad right now and I mean Hermione kind of introduced the night with a song about cheating so…"
"I mean, the two of us are okay and we made up, but we're not quite as good as we used to be." I say. It's kind of cryptic but I'm sure he can guess where we are right now.
"Oh man, that's got to hurt a bit, no? I feel you. Just don't give up on her, okay? She's great and you are very lucky that she took interest in you at all." He says to me. "And if for some reason you end up hurting her for no reason, I'm gonna apparate to wherever you are and slap some sense into you."
"You realize that you sound like a protective older brother, right?" I say to him. "You're reminding me of this one time that Potter had a talk with me about treating her right and how he'd probably kill me if I hurt her."
He smirks at me with an expression that could rival my own. "Well considering how much time I've spent with her over the past half-year, I might as well be her older brother. I didn't even realize I was doing that though. I guess that explains why Weasel and Potter used to be so protective of her." He says.
"Yeah, I guess so, she's a wonderful person and she seems to have that effect on a lot of people. Well anyway, how about you help me get some food for Hermione and I? We haven't had a chance to eat yet this evening." I say.
"Wait you guys haven't eaten yet? Why are you letting me chat with you right now? We need to get this food over pronto before she gives up waiting for it and tries to, politely, raid the kitchens!" He says and immediately helps me get some food onto a plate for her.
"Only you raid the kitchens when there's no food. The rest of us merely go to the kitchens and ask the house elves for food."
"That's fair. But anyway, hurry up!" He says as he speeds off with Hermione's plate of food in front of him as he weaves his way through the crowd and towards our table. I catch up and arrive at the table just about 10 seconds after he got there. Hermione immediately started eating once Blaise left and she's somehow managed to eat a quarter of the food on the plate in that time.
"Hey." I say once I've sat down.
"Hi." She replies once she's finished chewing her food. We eat in silence fairly quickly and when I check the time, I see that it's about 5 minutes before the ball is supposed to finish.
"Hermione, the ball is supposed to end in about 5 minutes. Do you want to come with me to address the students?" I ask her.
"Sure." She replies.
We both get up and walk up to the stage I set up this afternoon. I step up and stand in front of the microphone.
"Hello, students!" I say. Hermione is standing just next to me and looks a little nervous in front of everyone. "The ball will be ending in just a couple of minutes. I just want to say thank you to the prefects team for helping us set this ball up, we couldn't have done it without you guys. Thank you as well to Headmistress McGonagall who approved this ball and let us make this happen. Thank you to Ginny Weasley who asked Hermione and I about another ball, pestered us the most about this, and gave us the idea for the theme. None of this would have even begun to be an idea if not for her. Lastly, I just want to say thank you for coming out here tonight. Tomorrow is a Sunday so you can all sleep in tomorrow."
I then let Hermione say the final words for the night. "Have a good night everybody, or at least what's left of it." We then step back and walk off, Hermione following just behind me.
"Well at least that's all over and done with." I say to her.
"Yes. Finally another thing to check off of my To Do list." She replies.
"We have to clear all of this up once everyone has left, right?" I ask her in a way that suggests she really doesn't want to.
"That's right, though I also wish we didn't have to." She says with a tired and sympathetic smile.
"Can we just levitate everything back to our common room and sort it out in the morning?" I ask.
"That's a good idea. Saves us a lot more time and lets us sleep longer."
"Well, we might as well chill for a little bit longer while everyone gets ready to leave." I say.
She nods and we just sit down watching the student body of Hogwarts mill around everywhere with most people talking to each other, instead of being overly cliquey. Even with just levitating things and taking that back to the common room, we don't get back to our room to sleep till about 1:30 in the morning.
Author's Note: Sorry about the late update, I've had to deal with some issues at home and it's taking up a lot of time. However, it does mean that I got some more ideas for the chapter and could make this a much longer one than usual. The fighting was also written better than it would have been since some of my friends have been having a bit of a spat and I've heard many of their arguments. The two songs used were Burn from Hamilton: An American Musical and Runaway by We The Kings. The colour codes for the colour scheme of the ball following the same order is: #2DB75B, #F4C63D, #3BC8EF, #FF3FFB, and #FF3F75. Thanks for the feedback and support, but please review! it's really nice hearing from you guys and hearing what you guys think of it and how you think it could be improved a bit. Have a great week, till next time!