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Chapter 13 – Normalcy for a while

It sped towards winter at an alarming rate, Hermione seemed to be coming to terms with the loss of her parents a little more every day, she had received news from an owl her favourite aunt had sent to her that everyone in the family were thinking of her and if she wanted to she would be able to stay with her in the summer.

Draco hadn't heard from his mother but then he hadn't expected to but he did get a letter from the ministry one day

Dear Mr Malfoy Jr,

We regret to inform you that your father has made innumerable attempts to escape from Azkaban prison and on this note we must take matters further.

He will be administered the dementors kiss on Sunday December 5th

If you would like to come to Azkaban to say goodbye. Then please reply and let me know, I will sort out an appropriate chaperone.

Yours regretfully

Cornelius Fudge

(Minister of Magic)

Draco just stared at the parchment and frowned. He wasn't too sure if he was happy about this or not. He should be he supposed. His father had never really been a father to him.

He showed the letter to Hermione, she glanced up at him quizzically,

"How do you feel about this Draco?" She asked

"Good I think. Well I am pretty sure I am glad, he is a waste of space and the world would be better off without him" he told her "and at least then my mother would be able to sell the estate or something and have some money"

"Are you going to go?" she hoped he didn't want to. She didn't see what good that would do.

"No" he said "I don't want him thinking I care, because I don't"

"Ok" she said

Time went by as it tends to do. Ron and Harry spent more time with Hermione than they had been doing. And Draco spent a lot of time in the Gryffindor tower, much to the chagrin of the slytherins.

On the 7th of December Draco received an owl from his father's solicitors,

Dear Mr Malfoy Jr,

We deal with all the Malfoy estates and such like as we have done for many a year. We have been sent confirmation that your father received the dementors kiss on the 5th, and so now we have followed his will. He left his entire estate to you apart from a small mansion in Paris that he has left to your mother. I have taken the liberty to transfer the balance of seven hundred and forty six thousand million galleons to your personal Gringotts vault. Also the deeds for your fathers many properties and for his few businesses are in there also. I hope to speak to you soon and look forward to doing business with you

Yours Sincerely

Mr Budgekins

Draco was in shock, he was surprised his father had that much money. He knew money was something he had never had to worry about but still he hadn't realised quite the proportion of his fathers wealth. Hermione wasn't around when this letter had arrived she had been up in Gryffindor tower having a girlie make over session with Ginny, he hid the letter in his room, he didn't want people to know he had that much money. Not that it really mattered but he felt uncomfortable by it.

He did decide to do one thing though and immediately scrabbled some instructions onto a fresh piece of parchment and sent his owl "Hercules" off to Gringotts.

He was having a nap when Hermione came back, but heard the portrait open and saw her. She looked stunning, but then she usually did. He had thought about her a lot this year, luckily for him he had studied occlumency from Snape in his second year, his father had requested it. So he had been able to cut off any thoughts he hadn't wanted Hermione to read. She however had had many an amusing thought that he had been privy to. He hadn't let her know that he knew some of them. He was going to save them to use as blackmail in the future. Not in a bad way though

"Wow!" he said rubbing the sleep from his eyes "You look nice, going somewhere?"

"no" she said blushing and trying to pull the skirt that Ginny had forced her to wear down a bit more. "Gin just got carried away, I feel like a prostitute or something to be quite honest"

"never, you always look too much of a lady for that" he told her

She sat down on the sofa next to him and tried in vain yet again to pull her skirt further

"Hermione your skirts fine" he said "its about twice the length of the ones pansy wears"

"that doesn't mean all that much, my belt is about twice the length of the skirts pansy wears" she grinned

Draco laughed at this. It was obviously a bit of an exaggeration but humourous none the less.

Harry and Ron came up to the heads common room a little while later and Hermione had changed by then. 'thank god' she thought 'how uncomfortable would I have felt in that skirt sat here with all three of them'

"hey" Harry said as he sat down, Draco had just been and let them in. Harry had pinched his spot next to Hermione, he sent Harry a glare that they all missed and sat on the other sofa.

Ron sat next to Draco

"So guys any plans for the ball yet?" he asked

"Not as yet" Hermione said "we were going to work on it this weekend. That gives us a week to get it ready"
"shouldn't we have planned this much sooner?" Draco asked her

"Dumbledore said it would be fine to plan it this week, what with everything that's happened" she explained and looked at her hands sat in her lap

"Ok fine" Draco said "so what kind of ball shall we have? Your regular ball or a fancy dress or what?"

"Erm I dunno I quite like the sound of a fancy dress one, make a nice change" Hermione said thinking of things she could go as.

"Ok" cool and what theme should we use to decorate the great hall?" he asked

"What about just colours from all the houses and the crests but have them all interlinked." Hermione pondered

"Sure sounds good" he said "there done"

"Now we just need to have a prefects meeting and go over it with them all" she said and rushed over to the marble tablet, she wrote to Dumbledore their plans and then asked him to inform the prefects that there would be a meeting the next night at 8pm.

The Prefects meeting went smoothly and each prefect knew their tasks. The Gryffindor prefects would decorate a quarter of the hall in Gryffindor colours, this would be done by using red and golden silks, enchanting them so they stuck to the walls and then the other house prefects would do the same with their house colours in a quarter of the hall. They would then cast a charm Hermione taught them to bleed the colours together throughout so say the Gryffindor quarter would mainly be red and gold, it would have the slytherin green and silver, the Hufflepuff yellow and the Ravenclaw blue all bleeding into it. And then they would reach into an arch that would go through the enchanted ceiling somewhat like rainbows and meet in the middle where there would be a big crest of Hogwarts to complete them all.

The prefects thought this was going to take a lot of work but it was actually quite simple. Just a spell here and there.

Everyone was going mad trying to organise their costumes and dates for the ball in a week.

Dumbledore arranged a special Hogsmeade visit so that everybody could go and get new robes and dresses.

Hermione what costume she was going to get yet. And still hadn't got a date either, she knew that Harry wanted to ask her but as yet he hadn't done.

She wasn't too worried, if she ended up going alone she would just say she was being a chaperone to the younger students. All years were allowed to this ball although the younger years had to leave at set times throughout the night. The first years would leave at eight, the second years at nine, the third years at ten, the fourth years at eleven and everybody else at midnight.

So the whole school was abuzz with it all. The younger children were so excited and many of them had sought Hermione and Draco out to thank them for taking them into consideration.

The Hogsmeade morning arrived and Hermione and Draco went down for breakfast.

"Are we going straight after?" Harry asked

"Yeah better to give me all day to choose something" Hermione said "you know what I am like"

They just laughed at her

"Hermione, I could help you pick a costume out" ginny piped up

"No thanks gin, I would like to pick something myself" Hermione said

Ginny looked a bit upset by that and Hermione felt bad. But she wanted to do it herself.

They left just after breakfast and arrived at Hogsmeade soon after

"Right costume shop" she said

"Ok" the boys grumbled following her to the shop.

Draco didn't take too long to find his

"See you at the three broomsticks" he said

"Aren't you going to show us?" the trio asked

"Nope" he said and tapped his nose "It's a surprise"

And with that he left. Harry and Ron didn't take much longer either and they left also

"Charming" Hermione said

"Whose prince charming?" the lady asked "are you Cinderella then?"

Hermione laughed at the aged lady and decided that wasn't too bad an idea

The woman went and fetched a dress from the back of the shop she handed it to Hermione and picked up some glass slippers too

"Try them on then love" she said and ushered Hermione into the changing room.

Hermione tried the dress on it was a lovely powder blue colour, it was tight fitting to the waist then came out at the bottom. (A/N You know how ball gowns do)

She tried the glass slippers on and they were a tad too big so she shrunk them a little with the help of her wand. "Perfect" she said.

She paid for her purchases. It was only a rental but it was still pretty expensive. She didn't mind so much since she knew her parents would have wanted her to buy some nice things with her money.

She shrunk her bag and stuck it into her pocket, she didn't want the boys trying to see.

She went to the three broomsticks just as Ron was buying the boys a butterbeer,

He bought Hermione one too, which surprised Hermione a little seeing as Ron never had much money. They usually treated him, which he didn't like them doing but they wanted to

"Hey Ron, you had a windfall or something?" Hermione joked as she sat down

"Something like that" he said

"Oh yeah?" she raised an eyebrow at him

"well" he said "I received an owl from my mum this morning and she put ten galleons in with it, poor bloody owl, anyway there was a note saying that someone had deposited ten thousand galleons into their vault at Gringotts and had left a note with the head goblin just saying please have it"

"Wow, that's really weird" Hermione said "I wonder who it was"

"That's really cool mate" Harry said "about time your mum had a bit of luck"

"apparently dads running round saying we cant keep it but mum has got some people coming to do a load of repairs and stuff on the house that she cant do" he told them

Draco just sat quietly drinking his butterbeer trying to look surprised.

Hermione noticed this and put two and two together being the clever witch that she is, but decided against saying anything, she didn't want to embarrass either Ron or Draco.

They finally made their way back up to Hogwarts and Hermione carefully put her gown and shoes at the back of the giant wardrobe.

'I wonder what Draco's going as?' she thought as she cast a personalised locking charm on her wardrobe, you could never be too careful she reasoned

She went back down to the common room where the boys were drinking some butterbeer they had sneaked back

"So anyone got any dates for the ball yet?" she asked

"I am going with Hannah abbot" Ron said

"Oooh interhouse, very good" Hermione said

"Well she asked me actually" he said going slightly red

"I haven't asked anyone yet" Harry said "I am not sure if I should or not"

"Why not?" Hermione asked, they all knew the answer to this really and she shouldn't have asked but she couldn't not say anything.

"Oh voldemort and that you know" he muttered "I am going bed now anyway goodnight" and he left

"Shit he is a bit touchy lately Hermione" Ron said "I had better go see if he is ok" and he left also

"So what about you "Mr all the girls want me" Malfoy?" she asked and laughed

"Nope" he said "I might go stag"

"Me too" she said "nobody would want to go with me after all"

"Why wouldn't they?" he asked

"I dunno, well nobody has asked me" she stated

"Ah I see" he said "well their loss then"

"Yeah I suppose" she said and looked at her hands, she had a habit of doing this when she was upset.

"You will be fine" Draco said and hugged her

"yeah of course I will" she said and smiled at him "anyway I am quite tired"

"Of course" he said "goodnight"

She went off up to bed and Draco berated himself for not asking her

'why would you ask her' he asked himself 'cause I like her' he reasoned 'yeah but not in that way' 'yeah but are you sure' 'NO, I am not sure of anything when it comes to her' 'you love her' 'I do not' 'yes you do' he smacked his forehead and went to bed, stupid subconscious,

The next morning was a Sunday and Hermione liked to lie in on a Sunday. Draco woke up early as he usually did when an idea struck him.

He penned a letter and found Hercules snoozing on his perch

"Here you daft bird, do something useful" he told it as he poked it in the stomach, it opened one eye and glared at him, it then went straight back to sleep

"You imbecilic bird wake up!" he shouted at it

But it was ignoring him now

"FINE!" he shouted at it and set off to the owlery.

He sent the letter with the school owl and went back to his room to kill Hercules.

He went back in his room and Hercules was sat there wide awake and Draco could swear the bloody thing was smirking at him

"That's it I finally think I have gone mad" he said swearing at it and locking him in his cage

"You are going back to the shop" he told it. The bird looked haughtily at him

"Don't believe me huh" Draco raised an eyebrow at it "you cocky little git"

He was on his way out of his room with the cage and saw Hermione sat on the sofa.

"Where are you taking your owl?" she asked him

"to the slaughterhouse" he grumbled

"Draco" she reprimanded "poor bird"

"Well not really I am taking it to Snape to take it back to the shop, he is stupid and wont send my letters" he told her and dropped the cage on the floor

"Draco, you will hurt him and your sulking" she said

"I do not sulk" he said "he is stupid and annoying, yeah that's it I am annoyed" and he walked back into his room, leaving the bird in his cage in the middle of the common room floor on its side,

Hercules hooted dolefully

"Poor thing" Hermione said and picked the cage up, Hercules hooted at her

"Its ok you can stay with me" she told him and took him into her room.

She went down to Draco's room to get the perch he had for him on his desk

She knocked at the door

"Come in" a muffled voice shouted

She entered the room, it smelt really nice as usual, but she couldn't see Draco, then she noticed a big mound of person underneath the duvet

"Draco are you in bed?" she asked

"Yes" he said

"Why?" she asked

"Because woman I am sulking" he said

"Hah I knew it" she said and picked up the perch and left. She had been gone a minute when Draco stuck his head out from under the covers and saw she was gone

As Hermione went back to her room, she noticed a school owl sat on the windowsill

"Well hello" she said taking the letter from it and petting his head

The owl flew off and she let Hercules out and he sat on the perch and went to sleep.

She sat on her bed and looked at the letter. It was in block capitals so she had no clue as to who the author was from the writing on the envelope, the letter read

Dear Hermione,

I was hoping against all hope that you would accompany me to the ball. I have been meaning to ask you for a while but I haven't known how to. If you wish to then please be outside the charms classroom at 6:15 on Friday night,

That was it? Who was it from? Thousands of questions buzzed around her head. She decided if nobody asked her before Friday then she would turn up, it couldn't hurt she supposed

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