CHAPTER 3

A VISION OF LOVLINESS

It was about 7:00pm and Hermione was dressed for the Christmas Eve feast. Since less than half of each house was staying through the holiday, it was to be formal tonight with the long house tables removed and replaced with smaller round tables. Dumbledore thought it would be nice for everyone to get dressed up since there would be no official Yule Ball this year…just a graduation ball at the end of the year.

She descended to the common room and found Malfoy sitting in the chair by the fire.

He looked tense leaning forward and staring at the fire with his hands steepled in front of him.

"I thought you'd gone down to the Great Hall already", she said.

"No. I saw Dumbledore earlier and he thought it would be best if the heads came in together".

"Oh", she said a little surprised. "I didn't know. I'm sorry. Were you waiting long? I would've hurried", she finished walking towards him.

"I only came down a few minutes ago. I've been sitting here enjoying your festive decorations," he replied more to the fire than to her.

She gave a long sigh. "Please don't start again, Malfoy. I worked on this all day and I'm tired. I just want to get through dinner and go to bed. Tomorrow is going to be a long day and I'm not up for another row with you right now. I said I was sorry, what more do you want?".

He finally turned from the fire to look at her. What he saw made his breath catch in his throat.

She was a vision in a long forest green velvet gown. It was off the shoulder with tight long sleeves that flared out at the wrists and hung past her hands like an old fashioned Renaissance dress. The neckline was a low-cut scoop neck that only hinted at her cleavage. The edge of the neckline and cuffs were trimmed with burgundy and silver. The top of the dress hugged her curves down to her waist, then flared out and had a slight trane in the back.

Malfoy swallowed hard and consciously had to keep his jaw from dropping. It was like the time in their 4th year when she came into the Great Hall with Krum for the Yule Ball. She had looked amazing then, but there was no way he could have ever told her that…not with Pansy hanging on him and all her friends around. 'She wouldn't have taken him seriously anyway,' he thought.

But if at all possible, she looked even more beautiful tonight. She was all grown up with an air of elegance about her that would rival his mother's. Her hair was pinned up tonight as well, with little wisps hanging down here and there accentuating her soft features and brushing against her slender neck. She looked radiant.

It was hard to keep the amazement out of his voice, for he was unsure how to start. "G-Granger", he stammered. "your hair….that gown…" He was blundering this and he knew it, he just couldn't get his mouth to articulate what his mind was thinking. How could this beautiful creature be the same person he had fought with and hated for so long?

"Don't tell me….", she said with an over-exaggerated sigh

"How ever did you get all the bushy hair to stay put, Granger? And that dress? Where did you dig up that old thing? Honestly, you look like your wearing an old moldy sack…I thought you were getting dressed UP for the feast?"

"Stop it, Granger", he said taken aback at how dead on her impression of him was.

"Have I covered everything? I could go on and on, but I'm hungry and I'd like to get to dinner sometime tonight. Oh, but wait that's a perfect setup for the big Malfoy finish:

"You've already shoe-horned yourself into that thing you call a dress Granger, so you might want to just have a salad or better yet, forego dinner altogether."

He was getting angry now. All he wanted to do was tell her…

"Now that that's taken care of, can we go?" and she finished with a head tilt and her hands on her hips.

"Bloody hell woman, would you just shut it for one second and let me say what I want to say."

"What?"

"I said, if you would stop your tirade for one second I have something I want to say." He got up and walked towards her.

"I want your full attention when I say it because I don't know when I'll ever be able to get a word in edge-wise to say it again". He ran his fingers though his hair while he struggled to collect his thoughts. He began to pace.

"Well?", her voice came out more shaky than hard like she intended. 'What could he possibly have to say that she didn't cover?'

"You're….you look…", he stopped pacing and stood directly in front of her, "……magnificent", he finally got out. "You've taken my breath away along with any kind of coherent thought".

"You have me flustered and nervous here, Granger. Looking at you, dressed like that. I can't think of one horrid thing to say and it's got me totally off-kilter, to say the least. Everything in my brain is jumbled."

He took a deep breath. "You're exquisite".

She took a step back from him, totally caught off guard by what he was saying to her.

"Who are you?", she asked a little frightened of the Malfoy standing in front of her.

He shook his head, "Stop it, Granger", he said softly. "It's me. I wanted to thank you properly for all the work you did getting this room and….my room ready for the party. I overreacted earlier and I'm…..sorry. I just thought I owed it to you to tell you."

He looked up and saw that they were both standing underneath a piece of mistletoe she had strewn around the room. She quickly looked up to see what got his attention and her heart skipped a beat. He couldn't help it, he leaned down and placed a small chaste kiss on the corner of her mouth. He pulled back and looked into her bright brown eyes.

"I..I…", her heart was beating so fast she was convinced he could hear it. Her stomach was doing flips and her mouth had gone dry. "Malfoy, are you feeling alright?", she whispered searching his eyes for some demented punch-line yet to be sprung on her.

"I feel just fine, Granger." He didn't take his eyes off her.

"If this is your idea of joke….", she said softly.

"No joke", he said simply. He moved a hand to her chin and tilted it up towards him.

"Happy Christmas, Granger", he said and kissed her once again, but this time directly on the lips. The kiss didn't last for more than a few seconds. It was slow and soft, but it left both their lips tingling and shivers running up and down their spines.

"Happy Christmas, Malfoy." He was smiling down at her and she up at him. Their eyes were still locked.

She pulled her gaze away first, "Shall we go?", she said.

He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. "Yes", he said and offered her his arm.

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hehehehehehehe. This will be a shorter lead up than my other fic, for those of you who've read it. I should have the next chapter cleaned up and posted in a few days.