Hermione had been surprised, but not unhappy to receive Marcus's owl asking her out on a date. She decided to sleep on it to decide if it was a good idea to go out with him. She woke up, still excited at the prospect and eagerly wrote him back that she accepted.

Now that it was Saturday, though, she felt like it wasn't the best idea. She'd been running around all day, nervously primping, unsure of how the night was going to end. She promised herself that he wouldn't see her naked, that she would take things a bit slower this time. She still wanted to look good through and slipped on a little black dress and high heels, finally happy with her appearance.

Marcus said that he would be by at seven o'clock to pick her up, so she was waiting in her living room with a magazine by quarter to seven. The minutes on her clock began to tick by. Before she knew it, it was already a quarter past seven. Hermione sat on the couch, huffing away, annoyed with herself that she thought Marcus might like her.

Marcus had been having the worst day. Because they didn't play a game that weekend, they'd had extra practices and Potter had kept the chasers later, running stupid drills well after everyone else had showered and left.

Once practice was over, Marcus hurried to his house to get ready for his date with Hermione. Unfortunately, it was already quarter to seven when he hopped in the shower. He thought about sending her an owl to let her know he would be late, but he figured that he would only be a few minutes.

By the time he was ready to go, he saw that it was seven fifteen. He decided to pick up some flowers for her on the way to apologize for his tardiness. He selected some pink roses that looked very nice from the corner shop, only to be run into by someone leaving the public floo. The flowers were crushed. But, he was already late to fix them so he flooed through to her flat anyway.

When he arrived, he could tell that she was already annoyed and holding the mangled looking roses didn't really give off the impression that he wanted to. He gave her a sheepish smile. "So sorry that I am late. I got you these, but someone ran into me," he apologized.

Hermione frowned at him, but took the flowers anyway, smelling them. It was a nice thought, but it certainly didn't make up for being almost an hour late to pick her up. "Thank you, I will just put them in water," she told him, before grabbing a vase. She cast a spell and the once crushed flowers were back to their original form.

"Well, would you still like to go to dinner with me?" Marcus asked, a bit nervous because of how late he was. "I mean, I know it's a bit late and all, but I would still really enjoy it if you came with me."

Hermione bit her lip, before deciding that she did still want to go to dinner with Marcus. After all, everyone was late every now and again. "Yes, that would be nice. I am starving," she admitted.

"Great!" Marcus told her, before pulling out a thin book from his pocket. "Here, grab on, it's a portkey." He offered the other half of the book to her, and she hesitated before grabbing onto it.

Where on earth could he be taking her that he needed a portkey?

Her musings were answered when they appeared in the entrance vestibule of what seemed to be a very posh restaurant. "Where are we, Marcus?" she asked, cautiously.

"It's a new restaurant that just opened," he told her with a grin, showing off his now straight teeth. "Just, it's in Paris. One of my friends recommended it to me."

Hermione pursed her lips together. Well that was interesting. She felt rather silly being whisked away to Paris for dinner. And just who was this friend? In her heart, Hermione knew it was probably some blonde woman who begged him to take her here. But, Hermione mused, she should be glad that Marcus had asked her there, not someone else.

They were quickly escorted to their table and they ordered just as fast. While they waited for their meal to arrive, Marcus asked her about her work. It seemed to Hermione that he only had a basic knowledge of what she did, but she was flattered none the less that he had taken an interest in it at all.

The only problem was that the way he was framing his questions rubbed her the wrong way. He was still looking at things through such a pro-pureblood lense. Didn't he know that he was on a date with a muggleborn? He even went so far as to question the efficacy of muggle genetics. They were only muggles after all. How much could they know?

The final straw to what was shaping up to be a pretty lacklustre date came when Marcus was eating his entree. He had ordered mussels in a white wine sauce, and when he was trying to get a stubborn bit of mussel out of its shell, he accidentally sent it flying across the table, one half of the shell hitting Hermione directly in the face.

When the waiter asked if they'd like a dessert, Hermione firmly declined, much to Marcus's disappointment. She was happy to portkey back to her flat, after he'd paid the bill, allowing him to floo home from her fireplace. "I had an interesting time," she told him, unsure of how she felt about the date. Maybe they were too different to have something more after all.

"I know I really mucked up our first date," Marcus said, staring down at his shoes. Usually he didn't have to work so hard to keep a woman's attention. "Could I...could I kiss you goodnight? I think I can manage to get that right."

Hermione bit her lip, not knowing if that was really the best idea, but in the end she caved, wanting to see if they still had a spark. Marcus leaned down and pressed his lips against her own. He applied just the right amount of pressure, and it was honestly more than Hermione could hope for. It made her feel like she had electricity in her veins. When he ran his tongue along the seam of her lips, Hermione pulled back. She didn't want to get caught up in the physicality of this. She wanted to make sure they had an emotional, intellectual connection as well.

Marcus quickly masked the disappointment on his face, but understood that if he wanted to properly date Hermione, he would need to give it time. "I would really like to see you again," he admitted. "I'll owl you, alright? Goodnight Hermione."

Without waiting for her response, not wanting to give her a chance to shoot him down after such a catastrophic date, he stepped into her floo and returned home.