A/N:And there still isn't a winner. Which character is based off my roommate? Guess, guess, guess!

This is the end of the last hiatus. The last chapter will be up ASAP!

The Seventh Year

Chapter 16

The Nostalgia and the Glimpse Behind the Scenes

While the other girls seemed excited to push through the portrait-hole, Erin hung back. Hermione squeezed her hand on the way past, and whispered, "I have a good feeling about this. Don't worry, Erin. McGonagall wouldn't have picked him otherwise, I promise."

She smiled faintly back at the girl who would easily overwhelm her with awe if she wasn't sensible enough to put the past behind them. Where had Hermione been, at this time last year? Somewhere in the English countryside, trying to stay hidden from the world so that she could work out the meaning behind Dumbledore's bequeathed book and track down the keys to the Dark Lord's fall. Sometimes it still stunned her, what Hermione had been through. Erin had been through a lot, and dealt with a lot, so she understood how Hermione felt, but sometimes it was hard to fathom that so many things could go wrong for one person in one lifetime. . .

Let alone to two, or three people in one lifetime, if Harry Potter and Ron Weasley were considered.

Then her heart twisted painfully as this thought inevitably brought back the scenes at the end of war—Snape, dead; students she had known, like Colin Creevy, dead; Lupin, dead beside his wife, an Auror with pink hair she had not known, leaving behind a child, a child who was now Harry's godson, because those who do not heed the past repeat it, because the Dark Lord had shattered many lives, not just those belonging to Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

She was startled out of her reverie—Hermione had told her that Harry's parents had died, seventeen years ago, on this night, and that was something else that had popped into her head—by Marisa saying impatiently, "Stop staring, ink-arm. You look like a troll with your mouth open like that."

Grinning, she shook off the brief feeling of melancholic nostalgia and stepped through herself, noting in passing that Blaise looked stunning and stunned by Marisa, and that Sophie and Seamus were beaming at each other and trading subtle comments adorably.

"Benzene," she heard him before she saw him and spun around, not exactly sure what she should be expecting.

He was bowing slightly, looking very pale and handsome in a dark suit and cloak. She was impressed in spite of herself and smiled. "Shall we?" she asked.

He straightened and offered his arm very properly. She had to stifle a giggle. "To imagine that you were such a prat only a few years ago," she marveled.

"I take offense to prat, I would prefer git," he told her gravely. "And I'm still a git, that isn't something you grow out of."

The group trouped on down to the Great Hall, where Erin drew away from Malfoy briefly to consult make-up with Ginny and Luna as they waited for their dates. Blaise was deeply engrossed in a conversation with Luna, but Marisa had disappeared somehow. She was determinedly ignoring Draco Malfoy so completely (she wasn't going to look for him until she was ready to actually go into the Great Hall) that she didn't even notice the rather unexpected conversation that was taking place somewhere behind her.

"Listen, Malfoy, don't screw this up alright," Marisa whispered to the pale boy as they lurked in the shadows by the entrance of the Great Hall. "You won't have a better chance than this."

"Thanks," he said drily. "I hope you're right about this working."

She grinned so widely, she looked like a vampire. "I am positive. I can't believe I'm saying this, but good luck."

"Luck," he snorted. "'In my experience, there is no such thing as luck.'"

"Stop watching Muggle movies," Marisa advised. "They make you annoyingly cosmopolitan."

"Cosmopolitan?" Draco smirked. "Did you just use a 'big word'?"

"Of course not," Marisa said loftily.

"Why are you doing this, Marisa?" he asked impulsively.

"So you can say my name, but not hers? Nice," Marisa mused. "Honestly, she needs a guy not to screw her over for once. And you're the only one I approve of. Be grateful." And she vanished back into the crowd, somehow managing to pop up next to Blaise undetected.

Draco took a deep breath, and skirted the crowds so that he could exit. Erin was waiting with Ginny, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Luna, and Dean Thomas. "Shall we?" he asked pleasantly.

A/N: One more chapter! Almost there! So much sap in the next chapter. . .lol.