Author's note: Hope everyone is enjoying the story. This chapter is the longest out of the four so far, so prepare yourselves:)
Plans, Plays, and Parties
She looked up at him, her eyes once again shining with tears. Quietly she spoke. "Today is my eighteenth birthday."
He watched her as she closed her eyes and the tears began to slip down her face in a silent motion. He didn't know what to say to her. With every second of silence the tears increased in number and she began to shake with every breath she took. Draco found himself moving to sit next to her and slowly pulling her into his arms to comfort her. She buried her face in his chest and clung to his shirt still allowing her tears to fall freely. To him she felt so small in his arms, so fragile, like a porcelain doll that would break if you held it too tightly. He tried to calm her telling her that it would be all right, to please stop crying. His deep voice soothed her and soon she stopped shaking. He released her from his hold and pushed a lock of hair out of her face that was beginning to stick to the trail the tears had left behind. She again wiped her face with the handkerchief and went to hand it back to its owner.
"Keep it for the rest of the day in case you need it," he said with a small smile. "We'd better get going. If we don't leave now we'll without a doubt be late for class." Then he helped her up and left her room and went to get his books which were sitting beside a chair in the common room. Minutes later they were out of the common room and running down the stairs to get to class. They caught each other's eye as he walked into Transfiguration and she continued down the stairs and out onto the school grounds. By the time she reached Hagrid's hut, Ron and Harry had seen her and were standing waiting for her to join them.
"Hermione, what took you so long?" asked Ron as the class gathered around what Hagrid was about to show them.
"Er – I couldn't find my book," lied Hermione and shushed what he was about to reply so that she could hear the lesson.
"Mornin' everybody," Hagrid boomed to his class. "Today I've got a special treat for yeh. These are Livelies. As yeh can see, a Lively is a beautiful bird with purple and navy blue feathers, but don' get too close ter them. If they get too excited, they start ter twitter like mad, hence the name Livelies. Can anyone tell me what Livelies come in handy for?"
Everyone looked at Hermione. With a sigh she began, "Honestly, doesn't anyone else know the answer? No? Oh fine. Livelies are native to the United States and are useful in detecting earthquakes. They live in tiny burrows a few feet underground along fault lines. When an earthquake is about to occur, Livelies shoot up out of their burrows and begin to twitter uncontrollably. Many wizarding communities in the southwestern United States have prevented mass destruction from earthquakes by the pre-warnings from Livelies."
"Very good, Hermione. Ten points ter Gryffindor!" said Hagrid and he began explaining how the feet and ears of Livelies are very sensitive to movement and high-pitched sound. He then proceeded to demonstrate how the Livelies react by tapping on the cage that the Lively was sleeping in. The bird woke up immediately and began banging against the sides of its cage making loud chirping sounds. They were given an assignment to draw and label a Lively due at the end of class.
"That was a rather interesting lesson, I think," Hermione said to Harry as they turned in their papers. "It is a very intriguing bird."
"Yeah," said Harry, "I'm more happy that he kept it in the cage, though." At this they both laughed and made their way over to where Ron was still struggling with his drawing.
"Oh! Here's my Potions essay, Harry," she said handing him a roll of parchment. "You'll probably have enough time to finish before class. Oh for heaven's sakes, Ron, just turn it in already."
Ron took one last look at his drawing and then took it up to Hagrid. When he returned, the three of them walked over to their favorite tree beside the lake. Harry was looking over Hermione's Potions essay and making corrections on his own. Ron was lying on his stomach playing with a blade of grass and Hermione was sitting against the tree reading.
"Hermione, when is the next prefect meeting?" Ron asked out of the blue.
"Saturday," replied Hermione looking up from her book. "You'd better finish up with your essay, Harry. We only have about 10 minutes before we need to be in Potions."
"Wonderful," said Harry sarcastically, "I can't wait for double Potions with the Slytherins. Let's just hope Snape isn't in a bad mood."
"Is he ever in a good mood?" Ron asked now levitating a twig. He and Harry laughed at the remark but Hermione went back to reading her book. She didn't understand why she didn't want to laugh with them. Was it because she was Head Girl and not supposed to be making jokes about teachers? Or was it because she was still sore about them forgetting her birthday? Why didn't she remind them about her birthday? Was it because they should have remembered? They had known her for 7 years of their lives. Or possibly was it that she didn't want them to know? That if they were intended to know, they would have known first thing that morning. Was she being selfish about her wanting them to remember her birthday or were her thoughts justifiable? Did they have a reason for forgetting or were they purposely forgetting to make her upset? No, that can't be right. But why would they forget?
"Hermione? Hermione!" Harry was waving his hands wildly in front of her face. She didn't realize she had been staring into space. "I said I finished my essay. We need to be heading up to the school now or we'll be late."
"Oh. Y-yes, you're right Harry. We have to get going," she replied with her thoughts still lingering on the internal battle she just had with herself. The three students then got up and made their way up the hill to the castle. They began sprinting down to the dungeons in fear of Snape taking off 10 points each for the three of them getting to class a minute before the bell would ring. Luckily, Snape was reading over something in his office when they arrived and they had at least 4 minutes to spare. Harry quickly returned Hermione's essay and looked over his own once more just to be safe. Hermione was setting her bag down when she looked up to see Draco walking into the room. He was looking back at her. They kept eye contact until Hermione felt someone poking on her elbow.
"Hermione, did I spell this right?" asked Harry pointing to a spot on his essay, but there was no time to answer. The bell rang, Snape slammed his office door shut, and class began.
"Pass your essays to the front of the room. I would like to remind all of you that this is your last year at Hogwarts and you want to be doing the best you can possibly do, unless," his cold eyes wandered over Harry, Ron and Neville, "you are incapable of doing so. Today we will be preparing the Doxycide potion. In your essays you should have written about how the Doxycide potion is used and what ingredients are in the potion. I expect to have a corked vile of potion from each of you by the end of class." He waved his wand and the list of materials and directions appeared on the board. "Begin."
To Draco the class seemed to go on forever. He finished his potion with an insanely large amount of time to spare. His vile was the only one sitting on the table in the front of the room. At first he had tried to watch Crabbe and Goyle make their potions, but that only made him become bored faster. He set his head down on the desk and tried to clear his mind of the sounds in the noisy classroom. One sound was sticking out in his mind more than all the others.
"Ron! Don't put that ingredient in yet! Look at the board and see what you forgot to put in. Harry, you're stirring rather wildly. Boys, try to be careful!"
Her voice filled his head as he drifted off into a sound sleep.
There was a red and white checkered blanket spread out on a grassy field. He sat up on the blanket and looked around. "What a nice nap," he thought as he saw his two sons tossing a quaffle around. He turned on the blanket and opened their picnic basket sitting next to him. Five turkey sandwiches were neatly packaged in their own individual bag. There was an assortment of fruit: apples, oranges, bananas, and grapes. In the right side of the basket were a container of homemade lemonade and a stack of plastic cups. He began to pull the contents out of the basket setting them at five different spots on the blanket. Five. Five spots. Five sandwiches. Five cups. He counted himself and the two twins. Two were missing.
"Boys, try to be careful!" a voice called from somewhere behind him. He looked up from the blanket to see the boys wrestling. He turned around. There was a swing-set a little bit away from him. Two people were by the swing-set: a little girl with curly brown hair swinging and giggling all the way and a woman with the same color hair as the little girl pushing her on the swing. She was wearing a light green sweater and jeans and her hair reached her lower back in sweeping waves. He called to her, "The picnic is ready, darling." She turned. Somewhere in the distance he heard a loud bell. Someone was shaking him. "Get up, Draco. Class is over."
He woke with a jolt, not realizing where he was. He stood up and began walking out of the room. "Potions," he thought, "That's where I was." He recalled the dream he had, the woman in his dream. She had turned to face him. What did she look like? He couldn't remember her face.
"OY, MALFOY!" He turned to see a red faced, red-haired boy storming towards him.
-5 minutes earlier-
Hermione had been the second person to finish her Doxycide potion and she chose to help Ron and Harry with theirs. They finished by the end of the class but Harry's seemed to bubble a lot and Ron's had a strange odor. Nevertheless, they both turned in a corked vile as the bell rang. All three of them collected their books and began to leave the room.
"Hey, Hermione, you dropped this," said Harry handing her a white handkerchief with a beautiful dark green edge and the letters "DM" written in black in the corner of the fabric. "What is 'DM', Hermione?" he asked staring at the piece of cloth in her hand.
Her face went pale. She hadn't realized that Draco had his initials embroidered into his handkerchief. "Nothing," she stated rather lamely.
"Well it can't be nothing," Ron said grabbing it from her hand, "otherwise it wouldn't be written in such fancy writing. And it's green and black. Those aren't normal colors for you, Hermione. Those are colors one would associate with..with…"
"Slytherin!" Ron and Harry said simultaneously. It quickly dawned on them what "DM" stood for. Ron's face got as red as his hair and Harry's fists clenched. In a matter of seconds they were stomping down the hallway towards the owner of the handkerchief. Hermione stood there dazed as to what just happened. "Oh no," she thought as she heard Ron scream.
"OY, MALFOY! What's the meaning of this?"
"Well, Weasley, that's a handkerchief. If you want to know what it means, then ask Granger. She's a walking dictionary," he said without the intention to insult but more complimentary.
"I didn't ask for the definition, Malfoy," said Ron, his face getting (if possible) even redder. "I want to know what your handkerchief is doing with our Hermione!"
"I lent it to her. Do you find a problem with that?" he asked calmly as Hermione arrived between her two friends.
"You stay away from Hermione, you ferret faced buffoon," Harry yelled, finally getting into the argument.
"Hey Potter, you from fourth year sent an owl. He wants his insults back," Draco said with a smirk. Hermione cast him a pleading glance as if asking him to stop. The smirk vanished from his face. "Boys, if we're going to continue to fight, lets be gentlemen and not do it in the presence of a lady. Shall we?" He indicated to a classroom on his left. Harry and Ron looked to each other, then to Hermione, and then to Malfoy and began to stomp towards the classroom. Draco followed them in, only stopping to tell Crabbe and Goyle to guard the door.
Hermione stood looking there for a while, switching between looking at the door, Crabbe and Goyle, and Draco's handkerchief in her hand. It was Draco's fault they were in there. If he hadn't given Hermione his handkerchief then none of this would have happened. But then maybe it was her own fault. If she hadn't have been crying then Draco wouldn't have had to be the gentleman and give her his handkerchief to dry her tear-stained face. But then why was she crying in the first place? Harry and Ron, that's why she was crying. They forgot her birthday and made her so upset. So it was their own fault they were in there. She hoped Draco didn't hurt them too bad though. But then what if Harry and Ron hurt Draco pretty bad. It is a two against one fight, which is clearly not fair. And all Draco did was be kind to Hermione earlier that morning. For whom should she hope wouldn't get hurt, then? Her two best friends for seven years of her life who forgot her birthday or a boy who has made Harry's, Ron's and her own life a living hell since first year but is suddenly acting sweet today by comforting her when she really needed someone? Yes that was strange. Out of nowhere Draco starts acting this way. Wasn't it only this morning that they were screaming their heads off at each other? But it was a more passionate battle this morning, worse than they'd ever had before except maybe last Sunday. And then he started getting nicer and nicer as the day drew on. Why all of a sudden was he acting this way? There has to be some change in his thoughts that made him act like this. For all these years she'd thought of his as just mean and cold-hearted but today it seemed like a different Draco. Why? Why did he change today?
"HERMIONE!"
She didn't realize she had been standing there for a while just staring at the handkerchief in her hand. She looked up to find the owner of the voice who called her. The bright red hair of Ginny Weasley caught her eye and she walked over to where her friend was. At least someone had remembered her birthday. Of course she didn't actually say "Happy Birthday, Hermione" but what else could that hug have been for?
"Hey, Gin. I'm so glad to see you," Hermione said with a smile.
"I'm happy I found you," Ginny said rather out of breath. "I've been searching these halls since the end of my last class for you. I forgot you had double Potions today. I just have something to tell you that couldn't wait until later."
Hermione smiled. She knew she would get her first "Happy Birthday" of the morning. "Oh, Gin, I just knew - -"
Ginny interrupted her, "I know! I just knew that Neville would ask me out too! I mean every time I walk into the common room or the Great Hall he looks at the ground and sort of blushes. It was so adorable. And then this morning at breakfast he asked me if I would like to be his girlfriend. And since I'd given up my crush on Harry years ago I'd sort of developed a liking to Neville. He's quiet, sweet, and sensitive. I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier because everybody was going out the Great Hall and I couldn't very well stop in the middle of the crowd and back up traffic. So instead I gave you that hug to tell you something good happened. I'm so happy, Hermione!"
Hermione stared at her friend. The hug wasn't for her birthday. It was because Neville asked Ginny to be his girlfriend. "That's great, Ginny." She'd forgotten just like Harry and Ron. "I'm really happy for you both." What kind of friends did she have that just forgot her eighteenth birthday? "It was pretty clear that Neville has liked you for a while." How could they all have forgotten? "I'm glad he finally asked you."
"Oh, I just knew you'd be happy for me. We should start going toward the Great Hall though. Lunch should be starting in about 10 minutes and I want to meet up with Neville and everything." Ginny blushed and a small giggle escaped from her mouth. Hermione looked back to the classroom where Harry, Ron and Draco were fighting. No loud crashing sounds were coming from the room though. They probably put a silencing charm on it.
"Okay, lets head up there," Hermione said her eyes still lingering on the door. They walked up to the entrance hall where they met Neville. He must have left potions almost immediately to try and find Ginny. They must have just missed each other searching for each other and Ginny searching for Hermione. Ginny walked to his side and they held hands while walking into the Great Hall. Hermione smiled to herself thinking of how sweet they were together. Upon entering the Great Hall, a tall figure with a long white beard approached Hermione.
"Hello, Miss Granger," Professor Dumbledore spoke in a happy voice. "I see you are here early to lunch for our meeting. Ah, but where is Mr. Malfoy."
Oh no! The meeting with Dumbledore that was rescheduled from before breakfast to before lunch. She had completely forgot about it with everything that was going on. And now Draco wasn't here because he was down in some classroom fighting with Harry and Ron. What was she supposed to tell Professor Dumbledore? Hermione was in a panic, "He..er…he's probably…umm…"
"Right here, Professor." He entered the hall less than a minute after Dumbledore began speaking with Hermione. "Sorry I'm a little bit late."
-15 minutes earlier-
Draco shut the door to the empty classroom and before he even turned around he put a silencing charm on the room and addressed the to other boys in the room. "Put the wands down, Potter, Weasley. I'm not going to fight you." When he turned around his suspicions were confirmed. There were two wands aimed directly at his head. He didn't make a move to reach for his wand but instead began talking to Harry and Ron.
"I have known you two for the past seven years of our schooling. I've seen you everyday of the school year. First years look at you and whisper to each other, 'Wow, that's Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger. They're smart, talented, and the best of friends. They look up to you, Weasley, as a Gryffindor prefect, keeper on the Gryffindor house quidditch team, and coming from a good family line. Potter, they look up to you obviously as the Boy-Who-Lived, but also as the Gryffindor quidditch captain. Above all you two seem to treasure loyalty, trust, and friendship. Why is it then that I am standing here in this classroom with the two of you? Because you two have got to be the biggest idiots I have ever known in my life."
All through Draco's introductory speech, Harry and Ron stayed silent. Their wands were still pointed at his head and neither could understand why Draco Malfoy was talking to them so calmly and, basically, analyzing their lives.
"Where do you get off telling us what our lives are like?" Ron said furiously.
"Yeah, get to the point, Malfoy, or you might end up in the hospital wing with hair growing excessively in uncomfortable places." Harry said tightening his grip on his wand.
"Merlin. For Gryffindors you two are quite impatient," said Draco with a smirk and then seeing the look on Harry's face continued to speak. "All right already, the reason Granger had my handkerchief is because she was practically bawling her eyes out earlier."
"WHY?" shouted Ron, "WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?"
"Oh please, Weasley. It wasn't my fault. It was your own bloody fault. Don't get so worked up at me when you two are the reason she was crying."
"Really? And for what reason would cause her to be crying because of us, since you seem to be the expert on Hermione today," Harry said glaring at Draco.
"You two really don't know what today is, do you?" Draco asked, amazed.
"I know! It's Thursday!" Ron said excitedly.
"It's more specific than that, Weasley," Draco said rolling his eyes.
Harry began thinking. He looked to Draco, then to Ron, then to a book sitting on a desk by him. "Are they coming out with a revised edition of Hogwarts, A History today?"
Draco slapped his hand to his forehead. Could they really be this dense? At least they weren't pointing their wands at him anymore. "No, Potter. It has to do something more with Hermione herself."
Ron took on a rather fearful look. "It isn't that monthly…uh…'girl thing', is it?"
"Honestly, Wealsey, you're worse than Potter," Draco said, shocked that Ron had thought it was that. "You're both way off track, you gits, it's her birthday. Her eighteenth one at that."
Harry's jaw seemed to drop to the floor and Ron began frantically counting the days on his fingers. When he had finished calculating, his jaw also dropped. They forgot her birthday! And of all people to remind them, Draco Malfoy. Before the two could say anything else, Draco spoke again.
"Now there is still a way to redeem yourselves. Right now, Hermione is still under the impression that you two know nothing about her birthday, being the great idiots that you are. If you can keep the act going and tell all of yours and Hermione's friends to not say anything to her about her birthday as well, then I think I have a way of helping you."
Five minutes later, they exited the room, knocking out Crabbe and Goyle on the way so they wouldn't realize that the three of them had left the room without a scratch on any of them. Draco made his way up to the Great Hall quicker than the other two, realizing he was slightly late for the Head Boy and Girl's meeting with Professor Dumbledore. As he was taking his final steps toward the door he heard Dumbledore speaking to Hermione.
"Hello, Miss Granger! I see you are here early to lunch for our meeting. Ah, but where is Mr. Malfoy."
"He..er…he's probably…umm…"
"Right here, Professor. Sorry I'm a little bit late."
"Quite all right, Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore replied. Was that a mischievous glint in his eye? "Won't you two please follow me to a more quiet place so we can have a chat?"
Dumbledore led them to a room behind the Great Hall where the Tri-Wizard Tournament students met after their names came out of the Goblet of Fire. As they walked, Hermione looked over at Draco. He didn't look like he'd been in a fight at all. She wondered how Harry and Ron looked if Draco looked like this. They'd have time to run to the hospital wing before Hermione saw them though, so she wouldn't know how badly they were injured. When the reached the room they found three comfortable looking, amethyst colored chairs arranged nicely in front of a brightly burning fireplace. The headmaster took a seat at one chair and signaled for Draco and Hermione to do the same. He stared at the fire for a minute and then began to speak.
"Both of you, I'm sure, are fully aware what is happened outside of Hogwarts' grounds. With everything that has been happening, I am forced to cancel all Hogsmeade trips in concern of the students' safety. In place of those this winter Hogsmeade trip, I would like the two of you to plan an event for the whole school to enjoy. Can you come up with any ideas at this moment?"
After the initial shock of hearing there would be no trips to Hogsmeade, both began thinking of what could take the place of a trip to Honeydukes, one of the students' favorite shops.
"We could have a ball," Hermione suggested. "We haven't had a formal occasion since the Yule Ball during the Tri-Wizard tournament."
"An excellent suggestion, Hermione. Draco, do you have any ideas?"
"I think the ball is a wonderful idea, but it doesn't seem enough. There should be something the students can watch and enjoy. Something like, like…a play."
"A marvelous idea, Draco! Why, Hogwarts hasn't seen a theatrical performance for at least 40 years!"
"We could combine the two," chirped Hermione in excitement. "The play could be performed in the afternoon and a ball could be help in the evening. A Winter Festival!"
"Wonderful ideas, both of you. But we can't very well have the whole school trying out for this play, can we? That would be a monstrous task of auditioning all of the students."
"I suppose you're right," said Draco thoughtfully. "What if we limited the amount of students to audition. Possibly to a certain group or year."
"PREFECTS!" Hermione burst out. "The play could feature the acting capabilities of the Prefects!"
"Excellent!" said Dumbledore with equal enthusiasm. "But I assume that would include the Head Girl and Boy as well."
Hermione and Draco looked at each other then back to Dumbledore. "A lovely idea Professor, but I'm not sure on Draco's acting skills and I'm more of a singer myself," said Hermione with a teasing smile at Draco.
"A musical, then! What a fantastic idea, Hermione." Her jaw fell to the floor. She didn't mean to suggest a musical. And now she felt obligated to audition. "I assume that a group of professors including my self will audition you all," he continued. "What musical could we perform? Something that has an old story to it but a timeless idea. And something with magic in it could keep the students interested."
She thought of it immediately. An old story but a timeless idea, something with magic, a musical. It all fit. She could suggest one of her favorite children's story that was made into a movie by an American company. Disney was the name, she thought. Draco still looked puzzled as to any suggestions, so why not suggest it?
"Cinderella?" she said quietly. "It was my favorite movie when I was younger," Hermione continued. "It has a multiple songs in it, obviously the main character, Cinderella, having the majority of those songs to sing. But there are talking animal characters. Using the Polyjuice potion to change some student to look like animals would be out of the question because first of all students aren't supposed to make that potion," she smiled to herself, "and second of all it's very dangerous, having horrible effects on the person afterwards." She shuddered thinking of the time in second year after she accidentally turned herself into a cat. "Instead of actually looking like the animal, we can dress the actors like the animal with fabric ears and buttons for noses and the like. And also we could use actual magic in the play. Of course, only one character would have to know these spells, but it's basically transfiguration and charms. It would actually be very simple!"
Draco was astounded that Hermione could come up with that detailed of plans in such a short amount of time. "I think it's a wonderful idea," he spoke for the first time in a while, "Let's do it!"
"Stupendous! Cinderella it is, then! We can inform the Prefects about this musical at the next prefect meeting on the Saturday. Thank you for your quick thinking, both of you. I, if nobody else, am certainly looking forward to this event. I'll leave you two to discuss anything else that you might have in mind." With that, Dumbledore exited the room.
Hermione stood up as if to leave and began humming a tune that seemed strangely familiar to Draco, as if he'd heard it somewhere before. "What is that you're humming?" he asked still seated in his chair, "It has a pretty sound to it."
"What?" She stopped walking. She hadn't realized she'd been humming loudly enough for him to hear. "Oh, it's just a short song from the musical. It is sung when Cinderella and the prince are dancing at the ball. It has words, you know."
"Really? And what are these words?" he asked as if challenging her to sing it.
"Oh, I'd rather not…I don't think…"
"Come on, I insist," Draco said giving her a pleading smile.
"Well…all right. It goes like this: So this is love mmm mm mmm mm, so this is love. So this is what makes life divine. I'm all a-glow mmm mm mmm mm, and now I know the key to all heaven is love. My heart has wings mmm mm mmm mm, and I can fly. I'll touch every star in the sky. So this is the miracle that I've been dreaming of. Mmm mm mmm mm, so this is love."
He knew those words. That was the song that 'his wife' had been humming in his dream last night. How strange that they would hum the same song. Of course one of them was only in his dream, but Hermione had sang it beautifully, just now, and as if that song controlled her very soul.
"Wow," Draco said after she finished. "That was amazing. I didn't know how well you sang. Thank you for singing it for me. I know you didn't want to but I'm glad you did"
With a modest blush Hermione sat back down in her chair. "I was thinking just now that maybe we should have a different kind of prefect meeting. Like a luncheon of sorts, to celebrate the upcoming winter festival. During the luncheon we can discuss when auditions will be, who will be participating as actors or stage hands, all sorts of stuff."
"Great idea. We can hold it in the Room of Requirements. How about you inform the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff Prefects and I'll let the Ravenclaws and Slytherins know about it. We could have just a simple lunch. How do turkey and ham sandwiches sound to you?"
"Sounds delightful. And we can serve butterbeer and tea for refreshments."
"Good. Maybe we can get the house elves to make the sandwiches and some kind of side dish. Does that sound okay to you?"
Hermione gave a slight frown at forcing the house elves to do more work, but nevertheless agreed to the plan. "Speaking of lunch, if we don't leave this room then we'll miss today's lunch" At that, the two left the room and went to their separate house tables. Hermione sat across from Ginny and Neville and informed Ginny about the newly revised Prefect meeting and told her to inform the rest of the Gryffindor Prefects in case Hermione couldn't find them before Saturday afternoon. From the looks of it, Draco was saying the same thing to one of his sixth year Slytherin Prefects. A smile crept across Hermione's face when she realized how lucky she was that both Dumbledore and Draco agreed to 'her play'.
The rest of the day went along rather dully to Hermione. It seemed that not one person had remembered her birthday, though it wasn't bothering her as much as it had been earlier. She didn't want to tell anybody either. She always had this thing where she put other people before herself. So why should she bother her friends with such unimportant information when there was a war going on outside of Hogwarts. Surely they were all worried about their families. Why should Hermione make them think about just one more thing? These were her thoughts when she sat down on a chair in the Heads' common room after dinner that night. Suddenly Draco burst through the portrait out of breath and sounding very urgent.
"Hermione! Come quick! One of the Gryffindor Prefects just told me that something is going on in the Room of Requirements and he wasn't sure if he could handle it himself so he found me and I came to get you. If it's a big Wizard's duel, we'll need the both of us there to straighten things out."
Hermione shot out of her seat and bolted out of the door with Draco tailing close behind her. They reached the Room of Requirements in minutes and waited for the door to appear. They both pulled out their wands and Draco slowly reached for the door handle. He threw the door open and a flood of periwinkle and white confetti showered the two of them. The room was scattered with Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws.
"SURPRISE!" they all yelled.