Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own Harry Potter or any of these characters
A/N: Thanks to Chanteur-Dombre who has begun to beta read this for me. :)
Summary: Draco and Hermione share a toast.

Hermione watched as Draco approached her from across the room. Somehow he managed to move gracefully through the crowd of drunken revellers. She was struck by the contrast between his suave, composed appearance and the chaos surrounding him. He was on a mission: one hand held their beers while the other deftly parted the sea of bodies.

The path between them was littered not only with the sloppy fallout of inebriation, but giddy witches with coy smiles here, batting eyelashes there. Being a shameless flirt, Draco couldn't help but respond with a wink or a sexy smirk. As she observed this Hermione felt a pang of... something. Before she had a chance to give it more than passing consideration, he had reached her.

He smiled, handing her one of the two beers.

"Here you go, luv." He said the last word with a teasing, familiar ease, one Hermione recognized as friendly affection; not Love with a capital L or even spelled that way.

Hermione returned his smile. "Thanks, Malfoy."

The space between them was close enough to hear each other over the thud of music, far enough to say to anyone watching, "Just mates!" Hermione had momentarily turned her gaze to survey the room once more. He observed her with a curious glint in his slate-grey eyes.

"So, what should we toast to?"

She thought for a long moment then practically whispered, "How about we toast to my living up to that little challenge we had?"

For a moment, Draco's face was confused. But then he noticed the flush in Hermione's cheeks and he remembered. Unexpectedly, he felt a sudden emptiness at her subtly implied revelation. He stammered, "You...what? When?"

"Last Tuesday. We were both working late and it just...happened." She rushed the words all at once, wondering if the admission was a mistake. "It was rather bizarre."

"Bizarre?"

"Well," she said, looking at her hands, and starting to nervously peel the label off the beer. "I know when we made our 'agreement' I was supposed to seduce him. But as it turned out I didn't have to. He told me he'd been biding his time, waiting for the right moment to tell me how he felt."

"And how does he feel?" Draco tried very, very hard to sound somewhere between casual (because of course it was Hermione's business, so he didn't really care who she was with), and enthusiastic (because of course it was his duty as her friend to be happy for her). He squelched the contempt that was bubbling from deep inside, swallowing the bile in his throat.

Hermione sighed ever so slightly. "Says he fancies me."

Draco stared down at her hands, watching as they continued to strip the bottle. Hermione had surprised him in the past, with the depth of her compassion, her intelligence and her ability to accept him despite his flaws. But when it came to how he saw her, on a sexual or deeper emotional level, he didn't think anything could stir him. Sure their relationship was complicated, but it was a complex friendship, period. There weren't supposed to be pangs of... something else.

The "challenge" she'd referred to related to Alex Triblehorn, a mediwizard she worked with at St. Mungo's who she had a terrible crush on. Draco had teased her mercilessly about it, daring her to make a move on the man. Hermione was not an aggressive woman - at least, not when it came to her sexuality. Draco never imagined she would go for Triblehorn. He'd been correct in that assumption. But he hadn't bargained on Triblehorn making a move. More than that, he never in his wildest dreams thought it would make him feel... bad.

He pushed that thought away and looked up again, hoisting his beer in the air.

"Well, then. To your new... conquest."

Hermione raised her bottle, but not her eyes.

"Yes, cheers," she said half-heartedly, barely grazing the neck of her bottle against the bottom of his, her awkwardness apparent.

"Granger," Draco chided. "You have to look a person in the eye when you toast. Try again."

She lifted her eyes slowly, hesitant at what she would see in his face, or maybe just worried about what she would reveal. His shiny amber-coloured bottle was poised in the air. Hers moved once again, but this time as the bottles met - with a full-on clink - their eyes locked and something inexplicably shifted between them.

"To my conquest," she said, smoothly.

"Cheers," Draco said, his mouth dry and his voice low. It dawned on him suddenly: it wasn't Triblehorn she was referring to with the toast.