Chapter 2
Tuesday 18 July
I didn't sleep at all. In fact, I spent most of the night tossing and turning and whacking my pillows as I tried to get comfy. All I could think about was what Draco said. Maybe he was right, maybe I was making a big fuss out of nothing. In fact, when I thought about it I realised that I was the only girl I knew who was still a virgin. Apart from Susan's sister Penny, and she was only 15 or something.
It wasn't like I was worried that it was going to hurt (well, not completely) but the longer I held onto my virginity (I hate that word), the more difficult it was to think about actually bumping uglies with someone. And although Draco got me all hot and bothered and occasionally I felt like I really loved him, but was he the person I wanted to have sex with? I mean, everyone says you never forget your first time and 50 years from now did I really want to have memories of Draco going where no boy-shape had gone before?
But what really bothered me was knowing that the person I really wanted (and, yup, his name begins with R and ends in N) didn't want me back. Or, at least, was giving every appearance of someone who didn't want me back. All this nocturnal soul-searching left me feeling sleep-deprived and in a foul mood. I finally managed to drag myself out of bed and into a cold shower which a) did nothing to make me feel more awake and b) left me feeling more bad-tempered. I was actually kinda sorry that The Mothership wasn't around so I could have unleashed some of my aggression by snarling at her before I went to work.
I pulled on some slouchy boy trousers and a battered robe 'cause it made some crazy sense to look horrible as I felt, shoved my still aching feet into trainers and scraped my hair back into a ponytail before stomping towards the fireplace and taking the floo network to Diagon Alley.
Even though I'd managed to tut loudly at slow-walking old witches and pulled faces at any unsuspecting small kid who'd dared to even cross my line of vision, I still felt hissy when I got from the Leaky Cauldron to the Coven Café.
And there was Ron looking all foxy even with in chef robes on and his faded jeans. He gave me a lazy wave and smile from the serving hatch but I ignored him and grabbed my order pad and a Quik-Spell Quill and marched over to a couple of members of Ministry of Magic who were waiting to be served.
It wasn't my fault. When you're felling icky and some stupid green suit tells you to "cheer up love, it might never happen" they're lucky that you don't chuck their breakfast special into their lap. Anna, my boss, hurried over just as the fully-ladened plate I was levitating was beginning to tip lap wards as I jerked my wand. She ordered me into the kitchen for the rest of the day. I banged open the kitchen door and glared at Ron, Italian Tony, (the other chef) and Winky the house-elf (who assigned to cleaning dishes and tabletops). Ron looked hurt but Tony just laughed.
"I make you some black coffee, Hermione," he laughed. "And you don't speak if you don't have anything nice to say, huh?"
I gave Tony a look, which just made him laugh even harder as I opened a loaf of sliced white and attacked the first piece with my wand using a butter charm. We worked in silence for an hour until Tony announced that he was off to Gringotts and sauntered out.
"I leave you in charge Hermione," he announced. "But no picking on the new boy."
The minute Tony was out of the door, I turned and glared at Ron.
"You couldn't get a summer job somewhere else, could you?" I hissed at him. "You have to find work where you can bug me for the next eight weeks."
Ron looked hurt but I was immune to his puppy-dog eyes thang. "I've known Anna for ages. I have lived next door to her for three years," he pointed out mildly.
"Why can't you work in the Ministry or Weasley's Wizard Wheezes Shop during summer?" I demanded.
"Can you stop pointing that wand at me?" said Ron nervously. "They don't need any more full-time staff at the ministry or at my brother's joke shop. I'm behind my rent so Anna said I could help out here. Mind you, if I'd known you were going to be such charming company maybe I'd have started working here ages ago."
"Oh, ha ha," I said sarcastically. "Anyway, I didn't know you could cook."
Ron looked incredibly uncomfortable and shifted his gaze to the griddle where two mis-shaped sausages were doing a good impersonation of charcoal.
Although I hadn't thought it possible I started to grin.
"Oh, my God!" I squealed.
"Leave it!" said Ron warningly.
I ignored him. "You can't cook," I crowed. "You can't even make a decent cup of coffee! How did you think you were going to manage as a short order chef?"
"Are you going to carry on like this all day or are you going to help me?" asked Ron with a bite to his voice as the sausages started to smoke.
"I guess you're on buttering and slicing duties," I told Ron as I gently pushed him out of the way and started to scrape the meaty mess into the bin.
I guess Ron was worried that I was going to 'fess his lack of culinary expertise to Anna, which I wasn't (Ok, I was in a bad mood but I wasn't completely evil) 'cause he kept trying to be really nice to me. In between making up the sandwiches for lunch he kept offering me endless cups of tea and muffins while all I could do was bitch about how I was going to stink of bacon fat all summer and try to keep my eyes open. Sometimes it frightens me how much I can enjoy behaving like a complete cow.
In the end even Ron, who always has the patience of a saint in the face of my vast moodiness, gave up his attempts to jolly me up. I think the final straw was when he asked me if I was going to any festivals this summer and I told him to shut up and butter faster. By the time Susan came to help with lunchtime rush I was feeling more human but Ron was too scared to even look at me.
I have to admit I'd been worrying about Susan meeting Ron for the first time. She was my friend. I'd worked really hard to make new friends after breaking up with Ron. As break-ups go it had been particularly icky, especially when I'd decided to ignore the existence of his new girlfriend, Veronique, and started snogging him again. And the secret snogs also led to me falling out with my friend Cho Chang who couldn't handle being friends with me and Ron and Veronique. So I guess it was no big surprise that all my new friends had nothing to do with my old friends and the thought of Ron and Susan even being in the same room made me feel queasy. Not least because she knew I still had feelings for him, the kind of feelings that I'd tried to bury really deep so no-one would know they were there.
But what do I know? After ten minutes, the pair of them were acting like they'd been friends for ever. It was enough to make me puke.
Every time she came into the kitchen with an order she'd address Ron in fluent Ali G-ese and he'd answer her back. If I heard either of them say, 'Is 'cause I is a ciabatta?" one more time I was going to commit deadly assault with my wand.
After lunch I went on my break and managed to grab an hour's snooze on some sacks of flour in the store room. When I surfaced I felt human again. I bounded back into the kitchen and peered into the cooler block.
"I'm starving!" I announced to Ron who was magically producing mayonnaise into little bowls. "Have we got any chicken left?"
"Oh hi Hermione, your evil twin was looking for you earlier," he said dryly.
I pulled a face. "I'm sorry," I said in a small voice. "I didn't sleep very well last night."
Ron gave me an all-penetrating look. "You don't look like you've slept well in ages. You've got huge shadows under your eyes."
"Cheers for that, tact-boy."
"It makes you look all mysterious," backtracked Ron fast.
"Like you've been staying up all night to write intense poetry."
It was impossible to be mad at Ron for long. "Nothing that exotic," I told him with a smile. "I've just got a lot on my mind." Like you and Draco who just happens to be your girlfriend's cousin, I added to myself. But Ron was nodding and making some sympathetic comment about my NEWT results and how he knew I'd ace them. I started making up the mixture for tomorrow's muffins and sang along with the WWN while Ron helped Winky do the washing up. I looked up from my stirring to find him watching me with a sad little smile.
"What?" I asked defensively.
He shook his head. "It's weird seeing you in work mode, that's all. I forget how capable you are."
"You and Draco both have a vested interest in treating me like a little witch half the time," I muttered darkly.
"Is he being his usual overbearing self?" asked Ron with a cold edge to his voice.
I gulped. "I don't want to talk about him." There was a moment's silence before I continued. "Anyway, yup, I'm a very capable witch, as my mum is always telling me, and I shall be taking over the world in approximately two years, three months and 17 days."
Ron chuckled at that and made some sarky remark about how he expected me to win my first powerful coup before the end of the summer.
We had such a good time that afternoon. We didn't mention Veronique or Draco, just pratted about and sang along to the wireless. And as I walked home I wished that it could be just me and Ron again. Like how it was before but better 'cause I'd done loads of growing up since then. I didn't know how I was going to get through the summer to see him every day. Plus the weather was starting to get really hot and I was probably going to die from chip fat inhalation.
Luckily I was saved from a big gloom at the thought of spending summer in Derby by our band rehearsal that night. I'd had a nap when I got home and a long vanilla-scented soak in the bath, so I was feeling no pain.
When I got to the rehearsal room that we always used, Parvati and Lavender were already there, looking quite perky for two girls who'd been on a wizardhunt exactly 24 hours earlier. And Penny, Susan's freaky little sister who I've known for three months and still haven't actually heard speak, was also in attendance and trying to melt into the wall as usual.
"Hey colleagues," I said as I knelt on the floor to open my guitar case. "And how many guys did you pull?" I added as Parvati plonked herself on a stool next to me.
"Eight or nine," was the casual reply. "I lost count to tell you the truth."
"That's so skanky!" I shuddered. "What about Lavender?"
"She ended up copping off with that DADA Ravenclaw boy she's fancied for the last six months," groaned Parvati. "And she's spent all the day by her window waiting for him to owl her."
"Been there, done that, still working through the pain," I muttered.
"So what did you and that Malfoy-boy get up to?" Parvati asked.
I winced. "Had a big argument about why I wouldn't shag him.
"So the usual then?" laughed Parvati.
"Yeah."
"Are you two going to gossip all day or are we going to work on songs for our first platinum selling album?" called Susan from the stage where she'd been fiddling with her wand to make her voice sound a few times louder that it was.
You know, I think I'm turning into a rock chick on the quiet. Even though the guitar gives me back ache and makes my fingers hurt, I'm really getting into throwing rock-god shapes as I actually make proper chords come out of my guitar. And I even like singing (well, shouting if I'm being honest) on the choruses and doing harmonies while Susan screams out lyrics about how crap boys are and how she really wants to buy a Super Speedo Broom. I spent most of the rehearsal thrusting my hips and brandishing my guitar, and trying to jump off the drum riser and master A-flat diminished at the same time. I never thought I'd say it but I wish I'd taken some decent music classes.
And I also love being in a witch-shaped space. Hanging out with witches not hanging out with wizards for which I'm eternally grateful. It's weird but being forced to join this band by Susan has turned me into the fourth member of a gang and her and Parvati and Lavender have become my best friends. I'd never really had girl buds at school apart from Ginny. I remember my old gang; Me, Ginny, Harry and Ron.
But it was cool having a just girl gang. I'd never burp in front of Ron or try and turn a Pringle over in my mouth while Harry was watching, but I can do all those things with these girls and it just makes them like me more.
We finished the rehearsal with our killer song, Fang Vamps Suck, homage to Buffy The Vampire Slayer (hey I still watch muggle TV!), I'd just managed to complete my guitar solo without making mistakes and was concentrating on shouting, "Mr Pointy's coming to get you, fang boy!" at the top of my voice when I realised that Draco was slouched nonchalantly against a stack of wooden chairs by the door.
I immediately hit a bum note earning me a glare from Susan. And I suddenly thought, get over it, girl! I was in a band. I had a job. I had a life away from him. And he could deal with the real Hermione instead of the embarrassed little witch I became when I was with him. I took that thought and ran with it; or rather I stepped onto the drum riser for my final guitar flourish and jumped off as the song reached its noisy and dramatic final note.
There was a moment's silence while we tried to catch our collective breath and then it was broken by the sound of Draco clapping. Not a sardonic slow hand-clap but proper applause.
"That was fantastic," he exclaimed as he walked towards us. I pulled off my guitar and looked at the others.
"We're not really ready for an audience," Susan said, but she couldn't stop herself. "Did you really think we were good? 'Cause we don't want to be, like, a sad witchy band but I think we kick ass in a tuneful way."
"I thought you were brilliant. All of you," said Draco with more enthusiasm than I'd ever heard him muster before. "Edgy but commercial too. Kinda like this band called The Vamps that my elder brother was really into."
"I love The Vamps," yelped Susan.
And I was like, Draco has an elder brother? And he's actually being genuinely nice and well, unMalfoyish to one of my best friends? Must be a Full Moon.
Draco looked at me. "I never knew you could play so well," he said quietly. "You looked so cool. Just like the Weird Sisters, but not so scary."
I shrugged and made "aw shucks" type noises. It was like little green men, leaving someone who looked and sounded exactly like Draco in his place, but was still working on the attitude, had abducted the real Draco.
He helped us pack all our gear away in the rehearsal complex's storeroom and insisted on taking us to the pub to buy us a congratulatory round. Susan sent Penny off home 'cause we'd never get served with such an obviously underage witch in tow, and we travelled by floo to the Leaky Cauldron. Draco even held my hand in public and kept shooting me admiring glances and smiling at me. I guess I should have let him come to rehearsals more often.
He was an utter angel. Susan loved him because he knew about all the bands she was into. And Parvati and Lavender were warming to him because he was their "in" to a world of foxy DADA wizards (meaning young Aurors) and even I managed to forget what a pig he'd been on the night before as he squeezed my hand and generally acted like I was a princess among girl-shapes. It was a complete revelation.
I broke up all the mutual admiration that was wafting about at ten o'clock when I said that I was going.
"Oh, stay, Hermione," whined Susan. "It's early."
"I've got to be at work by 8.30 all this week," I reminded her. "It's OK for you, you don't have to be in 'til lunchtime."
"Oh," she continued to whimper. Just then Lavender's owl rapped from outside a nearby window and Lavender ran outside to read her message.
"I smell Auror-boy," said Parvati tartly as I stood up and pulled on my cloak.
"Well, I'll see you tomorrow," I said to Susan, "And I'll see you two soon," I said to Draco and Parvati. Draco was having none of it. "You're getting the floo network home?"
I nodded. "Yeah, oh I don't have any floo powder spare." Draco got up, "I'll take you to the nearest Port Key if you want?"
I ignored Parvati and Susan's raised eyebrows and waved them as Draco slung an arm round my shoulder and we walked out of the door. I knew I was safe 'cause snogging in streets was not Draco's style but he did hold my hand while we looked for a Portkey.
"I don't suppose you're going to let me come home with you?" he eventually asked with a half smile.
"Hmmm, you suppose right," I told him.
He gave me a mock punch on the chin. "But you'll think about what I said last night, won't you?"
I rolled my eyes. "Oh don't start," I groaned. "Look we've had a really nice evening, don't ruin it."
"I'm not," he protested. "I just know we'd be great together. I'd make it really good for you."
"There's a Portkey," I said gratefully as my wand lit up pointing to an empty Smarties tube underneath a bench. I turned to him. "Just give me some time, OK?"
He bent down and pressed his lips to the corner of my mouth. "Make it soon, Hermione."
I didn't sleep at all. In fact, I spent most of the night tossing and turning and whacking my pillows as I tried to get comfy. All I could think about was what Draco said. Maybe he was right, maybe I was making a big fuss out of nothing. In fact, when I thought about it I realised that I was the only girl I knew who was still a virgin. Apart from Susan's sister Penny, and she was only 15 or something.
It wasn't like I was worried that it was going to hurt (well, not completely) but the longer I held onto my virginity (I hate that word), the more difficult it was to think about actually bumping uglies with someone. And although Draco got me all hot and bothered and occasionally I felt like I really loved him, but was he the person I wanted to have sex with? I mean, everyone says you never forget your first time and 50 years from now did I really want to have memories of Draco going where no boy-shape had gone before?
But what really bothered me was knowing that the person I really wanted (and, yup, his name begins with R and ends in N) didn't want me back. Or, at least, was giving every appearance of someone who didn't want me back. All this nocturnal soul-searching left me feeling sleep-deprived and in a foul mood. I finally managed to drag myself out of bed and into a cold shower which a) did nothing to make me feel more awake and b) left me feeling more bad-tempered. I was actually kinda sorry that The Mothership wasn't around so I could have unleashed some of my aggression by snarling at her before I went to work.
I pulled on some slouchy boy trousers and a battered robe 'cause it made some crazy sense to look horrible as I felt, shoved my still aching feet into trainers and scraped my hair back into a ponytail before stomping towards the fireplace and taking the floo network to Diagon Alley.
Even though I'd managed to tut loudly at slow-walking old witches and pulled faces at any unsuspecting small kid who'd dared to even cross my line of vision, I still felt hissy when I got from the Leaky Cauldron to the Coven Café.
And there was Ron looking all foxy even with in chef robes on and his faded jeans. He gave me a lazy wave and smile from the serving hatch but I ignored him and grabbed my order pad and a Quik-Spell Quill and marched over to a couple of members of Ministry of Magic who were waiting to be served.
It wasn't my fault. When you're felling icky and some stupid green suit tells you to "cheer up love, it might never happen" they're lucky that you don't chuck their breakfast special into their lap. Anna, my boss, hurried over just as the fully-ladened plate I was levitating was beginning to tip lap wards as I jerked my wand. She ordered me into the kitchen for the rest of the day. I banged open the kitchen door and glared at Ron, Italian Tony, (the other chef) and Winky the house-elf (who assigned to cleaning dishes and tabletops). Ron looked hurt but Tony just laughed.
"I make you some black coffee, Hermione," he laughed. "And you don't speak if you don't have anything nice to say, huh?"
I gave Tony a look, which just made him laugh even harder as I opened a loaf of sliced white and attacked the first piece with my wand using a butter charm. We worked in silence for an hour until Tony announced that he was off to Gringotts and sauntered out.
"I leave you in charge Hermione," he announced. "But no picking on the new boy."
The minute Tony was out of the door, I turned and glared at Ron.
"You couldn't get a summer job somewhere else, could you?" I hissed at him. "You have to find work where you can bug me for the next eight weeks."
Ron looked hurt but I was immune to his puppy-dog eyes thang. "I've known Anna for ages. I have lived next door to her for three years," he pointed out mildly.
"Why can't you work in the Ministry or Weasley's Wizard Wheezes Shop during summer?" I demanded.
"Can you stop pointing that wand at me?" said Ron nervously. "They don't need any more full-time staff at the ministry or at my brother's joke shop. I'm behind my rent so Anna said I could help out here. Mind you, if I'd known you were going to be such charming company maybe I'd have started working here ages ago."
"Oh, ha ha," I said sarcastically. "Anyway, I didn't know you could cook."
Ron looked incredibly uncomfortable and shifted his gaze to the griddle where two mis-shaped sausages were doing a good impersonation of charcoal.
Although I hadn't thought it possible I started to grin.
"Oh, my God!" I squealed.
"Leave it!" said Ron warningly.
I ignored him. "You can't cook," I crowed. "You can't even make a decent cup of coffee! How did you think you were going to manage as a short order chef?"
"Are you going to carry on like this all day or are you going to help me?" asked Ron with a bite to his voice as the sausages started to smoke.
"I guess you're on buttering and slicing duties," I told Ron as I gently pushed him out of the way and started to scrape the meaty mess into the bin.
I guess Ron was worried that I was going to 'fess his lack of culinary expertise to Anna, which I wasn't (Ok, I was in a bad mood but I wasn't completely evil) 'cause he kept trying to be really nice to me. In between making up the sandwiches for lunch he kept offering me endless cups of tea and muffins while all I could do was bitch about how I was going to stink of bacon fat all summer and try to keep my eyes open. Sometimes it frightens me how much I can enjoy behaving like a complete cow.
In the end even Ron, who always has the patience of a saint in the face of my vast moodiness, gave up his attempts to jolly me up. I think the final straw was when he asked me if I was going to any festivals this summer and I told him to shut up and butter faster. By the time Susan came to help with lunchtime rush I was feeling more human but Ron was too scared to even look at me.
I have to admit I'd been worrying about Susan meeting Ron for the first time. She was my friend. I'd worked really hard to make new friends after breaking up with Ron. As break-ups go it had been particularly icky, especially when I'd decided to ignore the existence of his new girlfriend, Veronique, and started snogging him again. And the secret snogs also led to me falling out with my friend Cho Chang who couldn't handle being friends with me and Ron and Veronique. So I guess it was no big surprise that all my new friends had nothing to do with my old friends and the thought of Ron and Susan even being in the same room made me feel queasy. Not least because she knew I still had feelings for him, the kind of feelings that I'd tried to bury really deep so no-one would know they were there.
But what do I know? After ten minutes, the pair of them were acting like they'd been friends for ever. It was enough to make me puke.
Every time she came into the kitchen with an order she'd address Ron in fluent Ali G-ese and he'd answer her back. If I heard either of them say, 'Is 'cause I is a ciabatta?" one more time I was going to commit deadly assault with my wand.
After lunch I went on my break and managed to grab an hour's snooze on some sacks of flour in the store room. When I surfaced I felt human again. I bounded back into the kitchen and peered into the cooler block.
"I'm starving!" I announced to Ron who was magically producing mayonnaise into little bowls. "Have we got any chicken left?"
"Oh hi Hermione, your evil twin was looking for you earlier," he said dryly.
I pulled a face. "I'm sorry," I said in a small voice. "I didn't sleep very well last night."
Ron gave me an all-penetrating look. "You don't look like you've slept well in ages. You've got huge shadows under your eyes."
"Cheers for that, tact-boy."
"It makes you look all mysterious," backtracked Ron fast.
"Like you've been staying up all night to write intense poetry."
It was impossible to be mad at Ron for long. "Nothing that exotic," I told him with a smile. "I've just got a lot on my mind." Like you and Draco who just happens to be your girlfriend's cousin, I added to myself. But Ron was nodding and making some sympathetic comment about my NEWT results and how he knew I'd ace them. I started making up the mixture for tomorrow's muffins and sang along with the WWN while Ron helped Winky do the washing up. I looked up from my stirring to find him watching me with a sad little smile.
"What?" I asked defensively.
He shook his head. "It's weird seeing you in work mode, that's all. I forget how capable you are."
"You and Draco both have a vested interest in treating me like a little witch half the time," I muttered darkly.
"Is he being his usual overbearing self?" asked Ron with a cold edge to his voice.
I gulped. "I don't want to talk about him." There was a moment's silence before I continued. "Anyway, yup, I'm a very capable witch, as my mum is always telling me, and I shall be taking over the world in approximately two years, three months and 17 days."
Ron chuckled at that and made some sarky remark about how he expected me to win my first powerful coup before the end of the summer.
We had such a good time that afternoon. We didn't mention Veronique or Draco, just pratted about and sang along to the wireless. And as I walked home I wished that it could be just me and Ron again. Like how it was before but better 'cause I'd done loads of growing up since then. I didn't know how I was going to get through the summer to see him every day. Plus the weather was starting to get really hot and I was probably going to die from chip fat inhalation.
Luckily I was saved from a big gloom at the thought of spending summer in Derby by our band rehearsal that night. I'd had a nap when I got home and a long vanilla-scented soak in the bath, so I was feeling no pain.
When I got to the rehearsal room that we always used, Parvati and Lavender were already there, looking quite perky for two girls who'd been on a wizardhunt exactly 24 hours earlier. And Penny, Susan's freaky little sister who I've known for three months and still haven't actually heard speak, was also in attendance and trying to melt into the wall as usual.
"Hey colleagues," I said as I knelt on the floor to open my guitar case. "And how many guys did you pull?" I added as Parvati plonked herself on a stool next to me.
"Eight or nine," was the casual reply. "I lost count to tell you the truth."
"That's so skanky!" I shuddered. "What about Lavender?"
"She ended up copping off with that DADA Ravenclaw boy she's fancied for the last six months," groaned Parvati. "And she's spent all the day by her window waiting for him to owl her."
"Been there, done that, still working through the pain," I muttered.
"So what did you and that Malfoy-boy get up to?" Parvati asked.
I winced. "Had a big argument about why I wouldn't shag him.
"So the usual then?" laughed Parvati.
"Yeah."
"Are you two going to gossip all day or are we going to work on songs for our first platinum selling album?" called Susan from the stage where she'd been fiddling with her wand to make her voice sound a few times louder that it was.
You know, I think I'm turning into a rock chick on the quiet. Even though the guitar gives me back ache and makes my fingers hurt, I'm really getting into throwing rock-god shapes as I actually make proper chords come out of my guitar. And I even like singing (well, shouting if I'm being honest) on the choruses and doing harmonies while Susan screams out lyrics about how crap boys are and how she really wants to buy a Super Speedo Broom. I spent most of the rehearsal thrusting my hips and brandishing my guitar, and trying to jump off the drum riser and master A-flat diminished at the same time. I never thought I'd say it but I wish I'd taken some decent music classes.
And I also love being in a witch-shaped space. Hanging out with witches not hanging out with wizards for which I'm eternally grateful. It's weird but being forced to join this band by Susan has turned me into the fourth member of a gang and her and Parvati and Lavender have become my best friends. I'd never really had girl buds at school apart from Ginny. I remember my old gang; Me, Ginny, Harry and Ron.
But it was cool having a just girl gang. I'd never burp in front of Ron or try and turn a Pringle over in my mouth while Harry was watching, but I can do all those things with these girls and it just makes them like me more.
We finished the rehearsal with our killer song, Fang Vamps Suck, homage to Buffy The Vampire Slayer (hey I still watch muggle TV!), I'd just managed to complete my guitar solo without making mistakes and was concentrating on shouting, "Mr Pointy's coming to get you, fang boy!" at the top of my voice when I realised that Draco was slouched nonchalantly against a stack of wooden chairs by the door.
I immediately hit a bum note earning me a glare from Susan. And I suddenly thought, get over it, girl! I was in a band. I had a job. I had a life away from him. And he could deal with the real Hermione instead of the embarrassed little witch I became when I was with him. I took that thought and ran with it; or rather I stepped onto the drum riser for my final guitar flourish and jumped off as the song reached its noisy and dramatic final note.
There was a moment's silence while we tried to catch our collective breath and then it was broken by the sound of Draco clapping. Not a sardonic slow hand-clap but proper applause.
"That was fantastic," he exclaimed as he walked towards us. I pulled off my guitar and looked at the others.
"We're not really ready for an audience," Susan said, but she couldn't stop herself. "Did you really think we were good? 'Cause we don't want to be, like, a sad witchy band but I think we kick ass in a tuneful way."
"I thought you were brilliant. All of you," said Draco with more enthusiasm than I'd ever heard him muster before. "Edgy but commercial too. Kinda like this band called The Vamps that my elder brother was really into."
"I love The Vamps," yelped Susan.
And I was like, Draco has an elder brother? And he's actually being genuinely nice and well, unMalfoyish to one of my best friends? Must be a Full Moon.
Draco looked at me. "I never knew you could play so well," he said quietly. "You looked so cool. Just like the Weird Sisters, but not so scary."
I shrugged and made "aw shucks" type noises. It was like little green men, leaving someone who looked and sounded exactly like Draco in his place, but was still working on the attitude, had abducted the real Draco.
He helped us pack all our gear away in the rehearsal complex's storeroom and insisted on taking us to the pub to buy us a congratulatory round. Susan sent Penny off home 'cause we'd never get served with such an obviously underage witch in tow, and we travelled by floo to the Leaky Cauldron. Draco even held my hand in public and kept shooting me admiring glances and smiling at me. I guess I should have let him come to rehearsals more often.
He was an utter angel. Susan loved him because he knew about all the bands she was into. And Parvati and Lavender were warming to him because he was their "in" to a world of foxy DADA wizards (meaning young Aurors) and even I managed to forget what a pig he'd been on the night before as he squeezed my hand and generally acted like I was a princess among girl-shapes. It was a complete revelation.
I broke up all the mutual admiration that was wafting about at ten o'clock when I said that I was going.
"Oh, stay, Hermione," whined Susan. "It's early."
"I've got to be at work by 8.30 all this week," I reminded her. "It's OK for you, you don't have to be in 'til lunchtime."
"Oh," she continued to whimper. Just then Lavender's owl rapped from outside a nearby window and Lavender ran outside to read her message.
"I smell Auror-boy," said Parvati tartly as I stood up and pulled on my cloak.
"Well, I'll see you tomorrow," I said to Susan, "And I'll see you two soon," I said to Draco and Parvati. Draco was having none of it. "You're getting the floo network home?"
I nodded. "Yeah, oh I don't have any floo powder spare." Draco got up, "I'll take you to the nearest Port Key if you want?"
I ignored Parvati and Susan's raised eyebrows and waved them as Draco slung an arm round my shoulder and we walked out of the door. I knew I was safe 'cause snogging in streets was not Draco's style but he did hold my hand while we looked for a Portkey.
"I don't suppose you're going to let me come home with you?" he eventually asked with a half smile.
"Hmmm, you suppose right," I told him.
He gave me a mock punch on the chin. "But you'll think about what I said last night, won't you?"
I rolled my eyes. "Oh don't start," I groaned. "Look we've had a really nice evening, don't ruin it."
"I'm not," he protested. "I just know we'd be great together. I'd make it really good for you."
"There's a Portkey," I said gratefully as my wand lit up pointing to an empty Smarties tube underneath a bench. I turned to him. "Just give me some time, OK?"
He bent down and pressed his lips to the corner of my mouth. "Make it soon, Hermione."