Chapter 5
Draco was back at his table, sipping on another glass of champagne and wishing it was Firewhiskey, when he heard Hermione and Potter coming back. With his back to them they probably didn't realize he could hear them faintly above the sound of the music.
"I just want you to be sure," Potter was saying, "I'll support your decisions, either way. I just don't want you showing up here with him because you know it would make Ron madder than a hatter."
The remark caused Draco to sourly down the rest of his champagne. He had thought he and Potter had an understanding, him being one of the few people that Draco actually respected (begrudgingly). It hurt more than he expected to hear himself described that way, and he wondered if that was truly why Hermione had agreed to go with him that evening. Her next words surprised him.
"Harry Potter, I'm going to pretend that you didn't just say that," her voice was sharp, hissing. "Yes, there are aspects of this evening that are just to make Ron mad. But Malfoy is not one of them. Malfoy is here for me."
"What do you mean Malfoy is here for you?" Potter sounded confused, and Draco bitterly thought it was because he didn't believe that a Malfoy was ever there for anyone but himself.
"Malfoy is on my side." She said it with conviction, and Draco was absurdly pleased with himself to hear her defense of him.
"Malfoy," Potter corrected, "is always on whatever side is against Ron." Well, that was probably true, Draco had to admit to himself. Although, irrelevant in this case.
"Well, so am I," huffed Hermione. Then she backtracked, "And that's not what you were saying ten minutes ago when you were praising Draco's actions in saving Ron." The sound of his given name from her lips gave him an odd thrill as he realized she'd never called him that to his face. And that he really, really wanted her to.
Potter sighed, "Malfoy is a good guy, Hermione. I even like him sometimes. That's not my problem." He paused. "I'm just worried about you."
Draco decided it was time to make his presence known. He stood up and turned around, the empty glass of champagne held casually in his fingertips. "No need, Potter." He glanced at Hermione who was clearly concerned about what he had overheard, and then he turned back to Potter. "Hermione," and he savored calling her by her name out loud for the first time, "can certainly take care of herself."
The great Harry Potter scowled like a child, "I know that, Malfoy."
Looking him straight in the eye, closing the short distance between them, Draco asked, "Do you? Really?"
He didn't break the stare and Potter searched his gaze intently, looking for something. Just in time, Draco remembered to shut down his mind to Potter's Legilimency, knowing that even Harry Potter's scruples would not hold when his friends were in danger.
What Harry glimpsed in those icy depths before the locks shut down must have surprised him greatly. He grabbed a Firewhiskey from a passing server, downed it in one gulp, and said, "Well, shit, Malfoy." And then he walked off.
Funny, that's exactly what Draco was thinking, his mind reeling, wondering what Harry had seen and hoping it wasn't what he suspected. But lately nothing had been going his way, so it was probably the worst, although he wasn't sure what the worst could be.
Hermione looked at him, confused, and he turned his attention back to her. "I don't suppose you'd like a Firewhiskey, too?" he asked. He actually meant that he needed one, but she shook her head, eager to get back to the conversation at hand.
"What just happened?" she asked. And since Draco didn't actually know, he just shrugged.
But something he had just heard didn't sit right with him. He knew she was trying to make Ron mad, and that was the whole point (a point of which he wholeheartedly approved), but he didn't like the thought that she was purposely trying to throw Slytherin house in Ron's face, as if Slytherins were somehow inferior or evil. He'd dealt with enough of that bigotry so it should have been unsurprising, but he had sort of been hoping that Hermione didn't view him that way.
With Harry gone they were alone at their table again, and Draco didn't waste any time. "Why did you wear the dress?" he asked, unsuccessful at keeping suspicion from lacing his tone.
She was busy flagging a server down and so she didn't see the look on his face. But she turned around, concerned, "I thought you said I got the right dress." She looked so put out, it was almost comical. But for some reason Draco needed to find out the answer to this one question, so he pushed her.
"But why did you get that color?"
Thinking about it, Hermione said, slowly, as if speaking to a child, "Because that's the color it came in." A server responding to Hermione's summons set a glass of Firewhiskey down in front of her. She thanked him and then promptly moved it in front of Draco.
He was taken aback at the gesture, temporarily sidetracked from his interrogation and looked questioningly at her. She shrugged, "What? You wanted one, right?"
He had. He'd decided he wasn't going to start shooting Firewhiskey if she wasn't going to be having any (out of some misguided attempt at politeness, he supposed). But clearly, since she was offering, he wasn't going to pass it up. He took a sip, enjoying the fire burning down his throat. But that didn't stop him from continuing. "But why not your house colors?" he prodded. "You've always shone in reds and golds."
"I just liked the dress," she stated honestly. "It was beautiful." Her brows furrowed as she tried to understand why he was quizzing her about her dress color.
He should have let it go at that, but he needed to be sure, so he pointed out, "You could have transfigured it to a different color very easily."
"I guess so," she acknowledged, uncomfortably. "I figured no one else would be wearing it. I've always wanted to, it just never seemed appropriate. I just...I wanted to feel bold. And powerful. And eye-catching."
He looked at her, then, understanding what she meant. "You are," he reassured her quietly. "Bold, powerful, eye-catching. And it's not the dress." She looked a little confused at that, and afraid he was saying too much, he added, "But the dress is perfect just the same."
She sat at the table, looking at her glass of champagne, lost in thought, her lips pursed. Then she turned to him and said, "You don't own a color, you know."
Nearly done with the Firewhiskey, Draco's eyebrows rose into his hairline, "Pardon?"
She huffed at him. "You don't own the color green. You were thinking I didn't have the right to wear green because I'm not a Slytherin. Well, your house doesn't own the color green."
He gaped at her, the glass still halfway to his mouth. "I was not thinking that."
But she didn't hear him, because she was still talking, a little bit peeved, "And if I decide to wear black one day, you can't arrest me for impersonating a Malfoy, either." She snorted at that. "Colors are colors. I will wear green if I damn well want to wear green. And if I wear it better than any Slytherin ever did, that's really not my fault. What?"
He was grinning at her, amused by her tirade, feeling light-hearted. "Actually, no one wears green better than me." He nudged the glass with the last of the Firewhiskey over to her, almost like a peace offering.
She snatched it up and downed it, and then remarked in her regular tones, "No one would ever know, since I don't believe I've ever seen you in green outside of school." She smirked up at him. "I assumed you would be wearing black tonight, and so I would be the only one in green. And really that was only an afterthought as I'd already bought the dress."
"Slytherin House would have been honored to have you, Hermione Granger," Draco said, meaning it, almost wishing that was how it had happened. He could have snatched her up before any Weasley ever laid eyes on her. There was no doubt in his mind that had she been in Slytherin house, Muggle-born or not, she would have been his long before now.
"Damn straight!" she said, and he grinned at her, knowing she was responding to his words, not his unspoken thoughts, but agreeing with the sentiment all the same.
"I thought for a minute, actually, that the dress was green just to get under Ron's skin by associating you with Slytherin." He raised his hands in surrender, laughing, as he saw her eyes narrow, "I know. Now, I mean. I know now. We don't own colors." As an afterthought he added, "Except for Malfoy Black, of course."
Intrigued, her eyes widened and she asked in hushed tones, "Do you really have your own shade of black, Malfoy?"
Before he could respond to her gullibility, they were interrupted by grating tones. "Why Hermione, I'm glad to see you're trying to come back out into society."
They both looked up to see a heavily made-up Lavender Brown, a sneer on her face, her words anything but sincere. In the silence that followed this proclamation, Lavender looked Hermione up and down, and then she conspicuously shifted her ample bosom, declaring, "I can see why Ron always found you so…lacking." Her eyes pointedly aimed at her chest. "Good on you for trying, though. It's too bad you have to reduce yourself to dressing like a...well, a tramp," she batted her eyes with false apology, "but I'm sure you'll eventually find someone happy to take what little you can offer."
With that shockingly bad-mannered statement, she flounced off with a little, "Ta-ta!"
Draco snorted in disgust, irritated that there was no good reason for him to whip out his wand and hex her. He leaned towards Hermione to make a disdainful comment about Lavender's effrontery but stopped abruptly when he realized the bright, vivacious girl of moments ago had all but wilted under the senseless verbal assault.
Suddenly angered, he turned her to face him, giving her a little shake. "You did not just buy that…that…swill from that swine," he bit out. When she turned her face to look up at him, he saw the bright sheen that spoke of unshed tears, and cursed under his breath. His fingers trembled with the urge to wipe them from her eyes, but he just gripped her shoulders a little harder, shaking her unresisting form.
"Listen to me," he ground out. "You're Hermione Granger. In all her life, with the darkest magic behind her, she could never aspire to come close to you. She will always be lacking. And Ron deserves her because he's an idiot who deserves nothing but strife and drama for the rest of his hopefully pitifully short life." He punctuated the last words with little shakes, her curly hair bobbing.
She sniffed for a moment, audibly gulping, and blinking back the telltale tears. "You're angry," she whispered.
"Damn straight!" he quoted her, releasing her shoulders because he desperately wanted to do the exact opposite. He regarded his empty Firewhiskey glass, his desire for another one obvious enough that a server immediately brought him one. Draco scowled at his retreating back, "Where was he two minutes ago?"
Hermione's voice was creaky, but she gamely tried to carry on a conversation. "What could he possibly have done two minutes ago?"
Draco snorted. "Well, I would have had Firewhiskey. I could have tossed it into her eyes to see if it burned, for one."
Hermione's hands quickly covered her mouth and Draco looked at her, worried that she was about to cry. But then a soft giggle escaped her hands. "You're so mean."
Relieved that she wasn't reduced to tears, he smirked and said, "It might have been doing her a favor. Merlin knows having the make-up burned off her could only improve her looks."
She giggled again, another quiet one, but it quickly escalated into a louder one. Draco couldn't help but laugh with her. She started to stammer around her giggles, almost unable to catch her breath, "Can you im—imagine?" Giggle. "Drenched in Firewhiskey." Giggle, giggle. "Peeved like Cr—Crookshanks caught in a thunderstorm." Her voice raised on the last word. She must have found this image hilarious, because he started to see the tears leaking from her eyes. She took a napkin from the table, dabbing at her eyes.
She finally calmed enough to reach for a sip of water. But when the glass was at her mouth, she caught his amused look, and burst out laughing again, spitting water everywhere on the table.
Draco caught the disapproving glare being shot at them from across the room by Ron Weasley, but thankfully Hermione was too caught up in her laughter and apologizing to the servers who were picking up the wet dishes and dabbing at the tablecloth. She didn't need any more negativity, so he purposely distracted her from glancing in Weasley's direction.
When the servers had left, replacing her glass of water with a new one, and Hermione was carefully sipping at it, he drily stated with finality, "Well, I'm not taking you out in public ever again."
Her chocolate eyes danced with laughter and she teased, "Malfoy Rule #29: Thou shalt not dribble your beverage at the dinner table."
He glared at her playfully, his voice thick with aristocratic tones. "Malfoys do not need rules to tell them what is obvious to even the most uncivilized peasant." A pause. "Which is that thou shalt not dribble your beverage anywhere."
She stared at him before bursting into more peals of laughter, sending warm trickles up and down his spine. Her hand clasped his arm, her touch burning through his sleeve.
Merlin, she was beautiful when she laughed. Weasley was such a fool.
As much as he hated to bring the evening to an end, he said, "We should go now. End on a high note, so the last thing people see is you laughing your head off." He stood up and offered her his arm.
Seeing the wisdom in this, she accepted and they walked out, her talking animatedly, and him trying unsuccessfully to maintain his normal stern expression. Neither noticed the glowers sent their way by one Weasel and the concerned glances exchanged by two Potters.