Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
nan: Thanks for the compliment and the review.
Pigwidgeon188: Ginny and Gwen's plan for revenge on Lavender will soon be revealed.
Cybeleflame: I'm itching to write this story and I would be if I weren't so busy lately. More sparks will fly as Hermione and Draco work with each other on the latest project.
Draco-obsessed-grl: A cameo is a person who makes a brief and surprise appearance in something like a story or movie. Thanks for reviewing.
ShadowOfMoonlight: Thanks!
periwrinklemagic: Here's your update.
Karana Belle: If you still want to know what a cameo is then read my response to Draco-obsessed-grl. Sorry, but I am way too tired and lazy to write the definition again. Anyway, many thanks for your review.
keddababy: Yay! I love it that people are so anxious to read the next chapter of my fic.
Marz: Thanks for reviewing. I don't think it has been a month yet, but close enough I suppose. I'm sorry for not updating quickly, I've been very preoccupied lately.
xax: Thanks, I really appreciate your review.
frifri: I don't want to give too much away, but Ginny and Gwen were tired when Hermione came by. Also the fact that they know Hermione has had a thing for Harry for years. However, they aren't dense enough not to realize that Harry not being Hermione's date is enough reason for her to come to their house in the middle of the night. By the way, I hope you had fun, wherever you went.
Scottiechick-2001: This is definitely a Draco/Hermione fic and thanks, I will keep writing.
citcat299: I'll certainly try to. Not sure if it will be enough however. Thanks for reviewing.
fpg: Thanks for the review. I don't really think Hermione would be the type to be nice to someone she doesn't particularly like just because he or she is her boss.
Lady Zmurgy: Good luck in college!
muse daughter: Thank you oh so much for understanding.
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steffi-weffi16: Lol. You have no idea how much I laughed after reading your update. Dramione all the way!
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ayu: Thanks. I'll try and remember to email you when I update.
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Laelai: I didn't know that everyone would be so eager to read about Ginny and Gwen's plan of revenge. Well, you will soon find out what it is. Thanks for reviewing.
Chapter 7:
Hermione tore her eyes away from her research when she heard soft rapping on her door. She scowled for a moment, a bit angry that someone would interrupt her while she was working. She sighed. "Come in."
The door opened and Harry walked inside. "Hey Mione."
Hermione almost dropped her quill after she saw who walked into the room. She quickly composed herself before answering. "Harry, what are you doing here?"
"I came to pick you up of course," He said matter of factly.
"Pick me up?" Hermione asked. "For what?"
Harry laughed. "You're going to Ginny's party tonight aren't you?"
"Yes, but it doesn't start until-" She glanced at her watch, her face expressing pure panic. "Oh no, we're going to be late!"
"Don't worry. We're not going to be late," Harry told Hermione reassuringly.
Hermione started to stuff some of the files on her desk into her bag hurriedly. "Of course we are. I didn't even change into any dress robes for the occasion. Knowing Gin she probably has "important" people at the party and a handful of Hogwarts graduates."
Harry put a comforting hand on Hermione's shoulder. "I've got it all covered." He winked as he handed her a bag with several dress robes in it. "These is actually some of the clothes Lavender bought on her shopping spree, but she won't notice if one or two of them are missing."
"I don't know..." Hermione trailed off.
Harry led her to the women's bathroom. "If Lav does fret, you can buy her a new one to replace the one you where."
Hermione nodded and went into one of the stalls. She slowly pulled out the clothes from the bag, one robe at a time. She wrinkled her nose in disgust as she contemplated on which one to wear. All of them seemed too show way too much cleavage.
She pulled out the fifth robe from the bag and gave out a thoughtful sigh. Hermione took out her wand and cast a few spells to make a few changes to the robe and put it on.
Harry was waiting patiently for Hermione to come out of the bathroom. When she finally came out she let out a whistle of approval. "You look great."
"Really?" Hermione said her face growing red. Harry's compliment making her feel a bit self-conscious.
"Yes," He said nodding. "Now let's go."
The two soon apparated to Ginny and Gwen's house, which was packed with people. It took Hermione and Harry a full thirty minutes before they found Ginny.
Ginny grinned. "You guys made it!"
"Of course. So anyone I know here?" Hermione asked.
Ginny got out her guest list and said. "Let's see...there are quite a lot of Hogwart graduates, most of them who you know. Also there are some people from the Ministry if you're interested."
"Did you see Lav anywhere?" Harry said, trying to find her in the thick crowd of people.
"I saw her a few minutes ago talking to some guy," Ginny said with utter disgust.
"Well I'm going to go find her." Harry said starting to leave. "Nice seeing you again."
Hermione tried to not show her disappointment, but couldn't help letting out a small sigh. "I didn't think you would invite Lavender."
"Well, Gwen and I thought it best that we get to know Harry's new girlfriend. You know so we can become better acquainted, for lack of a better word," Ginny said casually.
"All right." Hermione said pretending that she didn't suspect something was wrong. "Where's Gwen?"
"She'll be here soon," Ginny said, smiling inwardly. "She just went to go get something to eat. Why don't you go say hi to Lavender? It's only polite to do so."
Hermione shrugged. "Sure, where is she?"
"Last time I saw her, she was near the pool," Ginny said, pointing outside.
Hermione and Ginny walked to the back yard and saw a small cluster of people crowding over somebody.
Ginny rolled her eyes. "I think we found her. No doubt she's telling them of her latest trip to Paris."
They pushed through the crowd and soon Hermione was face to face with Lavender. "Good to see you again."
Lavender responded with a strained smile. "It has been too long."
"How have you-" Hermione was interrupted as Gwen rushed over to her.
"Mione! You made it." Gwen said as she pushed threw the crowd, dropping her plate on accident on the floor once she made it through.
Hermione grinned. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."
Just then something was thrown where Gwen was standing. She ducked, the object thankfully missing her, but luck wasn't on Lavender's side. The book hit her in the face, more specifically her nose. The impact making her fall.
Lavender shrieked. "No! Whoever threw this is going to pay. Do you have any idea how much this cost me?" She tried to get up, but slipped on some of the food Gwen spilt earlier and fell back into the pool.
Everyone watched in horror, as Lavender got out of the pool soaking wet and clutching her nose. She walked straight up to Hermione and slapped her. "You! You did this. You were jealous that I got Harry." She laughed. "Don't give me that look. I know that you like Harry."
Before Hermione could retaliate Harry put a towel that he summoned around Lavender. "Come on. I'll take you home." He turned back for a second to look at Hermione. "Sorry about Lav, I'll come by your flat later."
Hermione stared numbly, rubbing where she got hit absentmindedly.
Ginny and Gwen scowled; the plan was not going as they had planned. Ginny put her hands on her hips. "Shoo, there is nothing to see here."
The crowd scattered quickly, afraid to face the Ginny's wrath. Leaving only Hermione, Ginny, and Gwen at the pool.
Gwen asked gently. "You ok?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." Hermione said, her voice empty of any emotion. "I'm going to go home now. I don't feel like partying much anymore."
"Hermione we're really sorry about what happened. You know what happened is not your fault," Ginny said getting worried.
"Yeah, don't worry about me," Hermione said. "See you later." She got out her wand and apparated to her room.
Hermione slumped onto her bed and stared at her ceiling. 'How could Harry let Lavender hit me like that and get away?' She closed her eyes and decided not to dwell on it too much.
She got up and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She opened up her closet got out a pair of sweat pants and a tank top and changed into it.
She stared for a moment at the dress robe that was lying on her bed. Hemione thought about tearing it up and throwing it out, but instead picked it up and stashed it in the darkest corner of the closet.
Satisfied, Hermione headed downstairs into the kitchen where she saw Draco eating a cup of toffee ice cream. She considered going back upstairs, but decided against it. She grabbed a spoon and took a big scoop of Draco's ice cream. Hermione popped it into her mouth rolling it around with her tongue to savor the taste.
"Hey," Draco said. "Get your own."
Hermione shook her head. "Stop being so immature and besides you weren't going to eat it all anyway."
"How would you know?" He asked.
She didn't, but wasn't in the mood to being wrong. "Because I said so."
He smirked. "Now who's being immature?"
Hermione stuck out her tongue in response and tried to get another spoonful of Draco's ice cream.
Draco moved the cup away from her and said. "Did something happen?"
"No," Hermione said, holding back the tears that were threatening to come out. Draco gave her an incredulous look. "All right. All right. Something did happen, but I don't really want to talk about it."
She was thankful when Draco did not ask more about it. For the next hour, they sat in complete silence, bathing in the contentment of each other's company.
There was a soft pop in the living room and Hermione went there to greet Harry. "Hey. What are you doing here so early? I thought you'd be with Lavender for the next couple of hours to comfort her," Hermione said, with a hint of anger.
Harry flinched. "I'm really sorry Mione, but you've got to understand Lavender wasn't in the right state of mind when she you know, hit you."
Minutes passed and Hermione still remained quiet.
"Hermione?" Harry said, beginning to get concerned.
"Why am I always the one who has to understand?" Hermione said livid with rage.
Harry gaped at her wide-eyed, he had never seen her this furious before. "I-"
Hermione glared at him. "Don't say you're sorry again. Why can't you understand that I..." She couldn't continue, as much as she wanted to tell him how she felt. She didn't think that she would be able to bear being rejected. "Just go."
"But..." Harry started, but stopped when he realized it would be useless. "We'll talk about this later ok?"
Hermione walked upstairs to her bathroom not bothering to wait for Harry to leave. She took a quick shower and went to bed.
Harry sat on his couch confused. 'What did Hermione want me to understand?' He drummed his fingers on the sofa and was deep in thought when he heard a soft pop of someone apparating into his kitchen.
Thinking it was Hermione; he got up quickly a smile pasted on his face. His face dropped when he saw Draco leaning on the kitchen counter. "Disappointed to see me?"
"No, of course not," Harry said. "I haven't seen you in a while. What have you been up to?"
Draco shrugged and poured himself a shot of vodka. "Working. Want some?"
"Sure," Harry said taking an empty cup from his cupboard.
Draco poured some liquor into Harry's cup. "You shouldn't have done that at the party."
"You were there?" Harry asked bewildered. "I thought you couldn't make it."
"I wasn't there for long, only enough to see the accident at the pool," Draco said, downing the drink.
Harry stared down at his drink. "I don't know why Hermoine's angry at me. She's so understanding most of the time."
"You really are dense Harry," Draco said laughing.
"Is there something that I don't know here?" Harry said.
Draco patted Harry on the shoulder as he got up to leave. "Don't worry about it. It's not important."
"Going already?" Harry said, still sitting.
"Yeah." Draco said getting his wand out. "Be good to her all right?" He said before leaving.
'Who did he mean, Lavender or Hermione?' Harry thought.
Hermione woke up early the next morning feeling terrible with what she said to Harry. After getting dressed she wrote a letter to apologize to Harry and telling him to meet around lunchtime at her house. She sent it off with her owl and left for her office.
Once she arrived in Draco's office, she saw him hurriedly packing the files for their latest project. Hermione watched for a bit before asking. "What are you doing?"
He looked up at her for a brief second and said. "A slight change of plans. We're leaving for the airport right now."
"Now? No one mentioned this yesterday," Hermione said.
Draco stopped packing for a moment. "I told you, there was a slight change of plans."
"But I haven't even packed yet," Hermione protested.
"You can buy new clothes when we get to Bali."
Hermione's breath hitched. "You don't mean the Bali, Indonesia."
"The one and only," Draco said closing his briefcase. "Everyone else is waiting for us at the air port. Let's go."
Draco apparated to the airport and Hermione followed him reluctantly. Once they got there they saw the rest of the people working on the project waiting for them.
After they made sure everyone was there, they boarded the plane. Hermione found her seat, which was fortunately next to a window and sat down. She only realized after she was settled in her seat that she invited Harry to her house that day. She got up to leave when Draco stopped her
"Where do you think you're going?" Draco said.
Hermione tried to get past, but failed. "I have to get off. I made an appointment with Harry today."
Draco made her sit down again. "Harry will be fine. You can send him an owl after we land. Besides we can't go through with this project if the person in charge of it isn't there."
"Fine," Hermione said, angrily, but she knew he was right.
Around noon Harry apparated into Hermione's flat. "Mione, you here?"
There was no answer so Harry went into Hermione's room, but came back out when he saw she wasn't there. He searched most of the rooms except for Draco's. Although he doubted that she would be there he decided to look anyway.
As expected she wasn't there. Right before he turned around to leave he saw a crumpled piece of parchment on Draco's desk. Curious he picked it up, the letters were for the most part faded, but he could make out what it said.
He got up to the part, "but I've loved you for the longest time." When he stopped reading. Harry for the most part was frantic, Draco couldn't have written this. I know for a fact he's straight.
He took a deep breath and continued to read the note. He finished it and gave a sigh of relief that it was written by Hermione not Draco. He suddenly froze when the full force of the letter hit him. 'Hold on.' He read the name of the person who signed the letter. 'Hermione loves me? This can't be true.' Harry remembered what Hermione said to him the other day.
Hermione glared at him. "Don't say you're sorry again. Why can't you understand that I..." She couldn't continue, as much as she wanted to tell him how she felt. She didn't think that she would be able to bear being rejected. "Just go."
He put the note back where he found it and apparated to the Ministry.
A/N: I finally got to write the next chapter for this story. What did you think? Was the chapter too predictable? As always read and review.