AN1: Lots of testing coming up. MY LONGEST CHAPTER EVER! Please review!!!! I didn't get the 12-13 that I wanted last time. Can you make it happen for this one?
One thing: I got reviews from some of the hidden readers that don't often review. That really made me smile! Please you guys, continue to review!!
Disclaimer: If I owned HP, then I wouldn't be as excited about getting my license. Who needs their license when they have chauffeurs and limos?!?!
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"I really don't know, Gin, maybe we shouldn't interfere with them. If you really see this 'connection' that they have—which by the way, seems pretty far fetched—then they will get together on their own."
Ginny shook her head at the naivety of Harry. "You know as well as I do how stubborn they both are. They just need a bit of a push in the right direction. Give me a quiver of arrows and call me Cupid. They'll be together before the week is over."
"Wanna bet?"
"You're on, Potter."
"As are you, Mrs. Potter."
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Hermione drummed her fingers on the desk impatiently. She really didn't care for the whole concept of inter-office sweepstakes. The prizes usually tanked and she never won anyway. Hermione was grumpy, tired and hungry, which was definitely a lethal combination on a Monday afternoon when one was forced to be somewhere that one didn't want to be when one would much rather be eating.
Harry, oh Harry James Potter. She loved him, he was her best friend, he really was, but because of his involvement in the inter-office sweepstakes, she really loathed him. He was the creator of them; those that were and would continue to be the bane of Hermione's existence. He gave her an apologetic look in response to the daggers she was currently glaring into his emerald eyes.
An overly loud and peppy voice broke the heated staring contest between the two childhood friends. "Now, there will be two winners of this month's prize; one from the Healers' wing and one from the Aurors' department. The winner from the Healers is...Hermione Granger!"
Whatever Hermione was expecting, to win was definitely not it. Immediately, a faux-pleased smile graced her features and she stood up. If winning meant that she'd get her lunch faster, then by all means, bring it. Hermione shook the hand of the coordinator, Parvati, and took the envelope.
"Thank you, now I really must be going."
Parvati laughed anxiously, "But don't you want to know what you've won?"
Groaning inwardly, Hermione nodded. "Ms. Granger and the other lucky winner have won a ticket to a sporting event of their choosing!"
Hermione started to perk up. At least it wasn't Quidditch.
"At first, it was going to be tickets to the Quidditch World Cup, but not everyone enjoys Quidditch." All of the eyes in the room trained onto Hermione who kept her gaze focused on Parvati. "So this ticket is redeemable to any event—muggle or wizard—that the winner would like to go to."
A true smile spread across Hermione's face and for the first time that day, she looked happy. She knew exactly how she would spend this ticket. She hadn't been to a baseball game in ages. After a round of applause was given, Hermione quietly slipped out the door as Parvati drew the next winner. Hermione couldn't care less who else won; all she wanted was to eat her lunch in peace.
If Hermione had stayed to listen, then she would have heard the special announcement that Ginny Potter made. That the other ticket winner had already been chosen and that wherever Hermione chose to go was where the other winner had to go to. And that they would be sitting next to each other.
And that the other winner was Draco Malfoy.
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"Er, Ginny?"
"Yeah, Harry?"
"Do I even want to know how you have the connections to get up here?" He asked as they continued to climb flight after flight of stairs on that warm Saturday afternoon.
She laughed softly. "Some things are better left unsaid and unexplained."
Harry took her word for it and didn't ask anymore. He resolved to ask her later how she had managed to get them in the controller's box of the baseball game that their two colleagues were attending.
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The rest of the day, actually, the rest of the week, went by rather quickly for Hermione. Time flies when you're having fun and time also flies when you're super excited for the weekend, Hermione discovered. Unless, of course, it feels like it's taking a century because you are just that excited.
She had chosen to go to a baseball game. She didn't know who the teams were or any of the players. She wasn't going for that aspect of the game; she was going to reminisce. Hermione loved the days when her family would take a trip to a baseball game. Those days were the best of her childhood. She even preferred going out to a game than reading! And knowing Hermione Granger that is certainly saying something!
When she got to her seat, she smiled contentedly. This was a good seat! It wasn't in the nosebleed section and it wasn't too close up. It wasn't quite the middle either; it was more towards the front. The seat on the left side of Hermione was empty, and she didn't mind at all. Getting more excited by the minute, she made friendly chatter with the cute muggle guy sitting next to her—Hank, as she soon found out. This seat just kept getting better and better!
A snotty voice made her head snap around and nearly made her give herself a crick in the neck.
"Well, well, well, look what the dog dragged in."
Hermione turned and to her horror saw Malfoy.
"You!? What—but, why, wait! What?"
"As coherent as ever, I see," he smirked.
"What are you doing here? Surely you can't be the other winner! Didn't you get to choose where to go? Did you honestly want to come here or did you just do this to annoy me?"
"And you tell me that I have an ego? I didn't come here for you," he said, as if the idea were simply preposterous. "I came because I had no choice."
"What do you mean? Of course you had a choice! The two winners had the privilege to choose what kind of sporting event to see!"
"That's what you think," he knew that Hermione would be bursting with curiosity right now which was exactly why he didn't bother to elaborate. Instead he sat down in his seat and got comfortable.
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"What are they saying?! I can't hear them! Harry, tell me what they are saying!"
"How would I even know what they're saying? I can't hear them either! Just relax, Ginny, judging from the scowls they are both sporting, it was hardly an invitation to go shag somewhere. Although knowing Malfoy and his sense of humor, that might actually be a possibility. Hermione probably would have hauled off and slapped him though. Just like in third year...man, that was priceless."
Ginny glared. "Your humor is not appreciated in the least. We want them to kiss, not to fight."
"Good luck with that. Other than using an Unforgivable, I don't have any idea how you are ever get those two to kiss."
"You'd be surprised," was her cryptic response.
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It hadn't quite been an hour into the game when Hermione decided what team she wanted to win. It was the Eels versus the Seahawks and she was hoping for an Eels victory. She didn't know where either team was from, but in the long run, that didn't matter. It was the players and the conditions and their batting average and etc.
When the Eels—clearly the best team—got ahead by three points, Hermione stood up and cheered with the rest of the Eels supporters. Hank smiled at her. "You aren't seriously rooting for the Eels, are you?"
"Yes. You aren't seriously rooting for the Seahawks, are you?"
He grinned. "Yes."
"Why would you be a fan of such a lame team?" Hermione was joking; she didn't honestly know anything about either team. She sensed that he caught on to her joking tone and they continued to tease each other about terrible taste in baseball teams. The conversation quickly turned slightly more personal.
"So, where are you from?"
"I'm from London, I work as a...doctor," she supplied quickly. She couldn't use the term 'Healer' without messing up the Code of Secrecy between the two worlds.
"Me too! What med school did you go to?"
Hermione searched her brain for some way to explain Hogwarts without actually explaining it. "Oh, it was this private school up in the hills."
Hank looked interested and slightly amused. "Could you be any vaguer?"
"Yes, actually, I could."
"That was a rhetorical question."
"I know," Hermione blushed at the intense look he was giving her. His face moved closer to hers and Hermione closed her eyes in anticipation. Just then a large drink cup flew past her head and landed directly onto Hank's lap.
"Would you please excuse me for a minute, I'm going to go to the loo," he gestured to the stain on his trousers."
Hermione smiled and let Hank pass her. As he passed Draco, the wizard 'accidentally' tripped him.
"Oh no, I'm sorry," Draco said obviously insincerely as Hank stumbled.
The man didn't catch his sarcasm and waved it off good-naturedly. "It's all good."
Hermione plastered a smile to her face until Hank was out of hearing range. Once he was a good distance away, Hermione's smile morphed into a scowl. "Unbelievable, you are just completely unbelievable, Malfoy."
"I'm afraid I have no idea as to what you are referring to."
"Cut the crap, Malfoy. I know you were jealous and I know that you were the one who threw the cup at him."
He spluttered as if the mere idea was inconceivable. "Please, Granger. Quit talking nonsense; I was not jealous and I most definitely did not throw that soda."
"Sure, sure, whatever you say."
Draco sensed the disbelief in her tone. "You don't believe me, do you?"
"Not one bit."
"Well I wasn't jealous."
"You sound awfully defensive," she said with a hint of a smirk on her face.
"Why on earth would I be jealous of him?"
"AHA! I never said anything about who you'd be jealous of."
Draco didn't see her point. "So..."
"So you were jealous of him because he was talking to me."
"Please. The only reason he was talking to you was to get in your pants. Like he's actually a doctor! You've got to be pretty naïve to believe that," He immediately regretted those words as soon as they had come out, especially once he saw the brief look of hurt cross Hermione's face. But it was too late, he couldn't stop.
"Why else would he talk to you? You aren't remotely interesting and all you do is read," Hermione recoiled as if she had been slapped, and Draco winced. He didn't want to be hurting her like this. It wasn't even true; nothing that he was saying was true at all. But he knew that she lacked confidence and would take it to heart. His insult switch was on and he didn't know how to turn it off. He could hear the next insult that he was aiming to hurl and he tried to stop it.
"Although why he'd want to sleep with you is beyond me," He desperately wished that someone would just bonk him over the head with a brick just so he would stop letting this horrid insults pour out of his mouth. "As far as I'm concerned, a niffler would be a better partner than you. At least they are good looking."
He could see the tears welling behind her eyes and wished that he could take it all back. Why had he been such a right foul git to her? She didn't deserve it. He'd be lucky if she ever even tried to hex him again, much less ever speak to him. Hermione made a move to get up and leave, but Hank was approaching her again, coming back from the loo with the majority of the stain gone. Torn between wanting to leave the game and go wallow at home or talk with a truly decent (and quite handsome!) muggle guy—to hell with what Malfoy was saying, it's not like he knew Hank at all—she finally decided to stay. Besides, if she left than Malfoy would know that he had gotten to her.
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"Gin, I'm bored! I don't know why you made me come with you. I don't even like sporting events that don't involve brooms and snitches. And watching Hermione and Malfoy isn't even interesting. All they are doing is watching the game and occasionally arguing with each other. If I had wanted to see them argue then I'd have found a pensieve and put my memory of Hermione slapping him in third year. Now there's something that I'd never get tired of seeing!"
"Well if you didn't come, then you wouldn't have believed me when I would tell you that they kissed."
"Ginny, listen to me. They. Will. Not. Kiss. There is nothing, I repeat, nothing in this world, short of an illegal spell, that would get Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger to kiss. Do you hear me?"
A smirk and a "We'll see..." from his wife were the only answers he got.
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Draco wrung his hands in his lap nervously. He loathed apologizing almost as much as he loathed being wrong. How could this one person that he didn't loathe, make him go through two of the things he loathed most, in less than two hours?! It was quite annoying. He didn't know why he had overreacted to Hermione talking to that guy, and when Hermione claimed he was jealous, he laughed in her face and then proceeded to say terrible things to her. It was a wonder that she didn't slap him.
Yet five minutes later, when the odd feeling in his stomach subsided—and Hermione, he noted with satisfaction, had stopped talking to Hank or whatever the hell his name was—he realized that she was right.
Bugger.
He had indeed been jealous, and now he had to swallow his pride and apologize. The only thing worse than apologizing at this point was to not apologize and have Hermione be forever hostile to him. For some reason, the thought of that made him uneasy. He wanted Hermione to be somewhat friendly. Not chummy, but friendly. There was a difference.
He leaned over to her. "Hey, er, Granger?"
She ignored him.
Malfoy swallowed his pride and tried again. "...Hermione?"
She surveyed him coolly, successfully hiding the pain that she felt. "What?"
"I would like to apologize for my words earlier. They were rude, inappropriate and believe me when I tell you that they were complete lies." There. He had apologized. But there was no way that he would tell her, to her face, that she had been right and that he had been jealous.
Hermione's face froze in shock and in horror. Draco was a bit taken aback and slightly hurt that she was so surprised.
"I do sometimes apologize, Granger. I'm not that much of a git, despite what you may think."
She didn't acknowledge him. He was about to demand she say something when the crowd all around him started a low chant. "Kiss, kiss, kiss..."
"Oh!" Comprehension dawned upon Draco's chiseled features. "I get it; some unlucky couple is on the billboard and now they have to snog in public and be humiliated. But that doesn't explain why you're so surprised."
He turned around to look at the billboard and his mouth promptly fell open. "Oh."
The unlucky couple was them.
The voices grew louder and louder. "KISS, KISS, KISS..."
Hermione could have sworn that she heard the voice of Ginny Weasley over the crowd as if she had been speaking into a powerful microphone or using a Sonorous Charm. Hermione shook her head imperceptibly to rid herself of that ridiculous notion, it just wasn't possible.
Without another second of thought, Draco leaned over and let his lips rest firmly on Hermione's. The contact seemed to have shocked the woman out of her...trance of sorts...and she wrapped her arms around his neck and reciprocated the kiss. His hands found their way around her waist and his tongue into her mouth.
After what seemed like hours but in reality was less than a minute, Draco heard faint cheers coming from all around him. Only then did he realize exactly where he was and who he was kissing. He took his hands off of her face and hastily separated his lips from hers. As amazing as the sensation was, a Malfoy never snogged in public—much less in front of muggles.
Hermione nervously played with a strand of her hair before turning back to the game, a flush slowly creeping up her neck. Draco could see her biting her lip to keep from smiling and he held back a grin. She was just as affected as he was.
Even if he hadn't caught her glancing at him frequently after what he dubbed in his mind: 'the incident,' he'd have still been able to guess that she had liked it as much as he had. I guess that's one way to get an apology across.
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"I told you that it would work," Ginny smiled winningly at her husband. "They couldn't just not kiss. Not with all that pressure. He was bound to ."
Harry chuckled and kissed his wife on the cheek. "You are one conniving woman, Mrs. Potter."
"She'll thank me for it later," Ginny said confidently as she kept the billboard-camera focused on the blushing couple. "I know she will."
"For the record, they only kissed; it isn't like they are dating now. So, for the record, you haven't won the bet."
"The game isn't over yet, love. Just you wait."
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The rest of the game was spent in an awkward silence. Neither of them was exactly sure of what to say. Before the kiss, they had at least been able to exchange insults, but now, they were both too shocked and too embarrassed to speak. Thankfully, it was already the bottom of the ninth inning; the unbearable silence would only go on until the end of the game...right?
The last batter was up and the tension in the stands was extremely high. This could make or break the game. Unbeknownst to Draco and to Hermione, both of them were inching forward in their seats and slightly closer to each other.
"Strike one!" The crowed booed at the empire's call.
Hermione latched onto Draco's hand. It was a reflex action. Whenever she was nervous, anxious, or scared, she grabbed someone's hand and squeezed the life out of it. Curiously, Draco glanced at their hands and then at her. Her face was still and not flushed. He figured that she hadn't noticed her own actions.
"Strike two!"
She held his hand tighter and her breath hitched in her throat. This was the last pitch. Either their team would win or lose. At this point, the stands were absolutely silent. Not one sound was heard. The pitcher threw the ball. This time, the batter swung, and hit it right on.
The stands erupted into cheers and yells as the player on third slid home. The game was won. Hermione let go of Draco's hand and stood and clapped furiously as did the rest of the stands, the kiss apparently forgotten.
"They won!" She screeched.
A grin broke out on Draco's face and he took Hermione by the waist and twirled her around. Almost as soon as he had spun her full circle he realized what he had just done. He set her down and waited for her to slap him. When she didn't, his confidence was bolstered.
"Do you want to go to dinner with me tonight?"
Hermione nodded and a small blush colored her cheeks. If possible, Draco grinned even wider. He walked towards the end of the aisle to get out of the row. Everyone in front of them had already gone and the people behind them were starting to get impatient. He took Hermione's hand in his and led her to the exit.
The blush deepened and Hermione made no move to take her hand from his.
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"Ha!" Ginny crowed gleefully. "I won, I so won!" She did a little dance around the room. "I won the bet! In your face!"
Harry feigned confusion. "What bet?"
Ginny didn't buy it. "You've been known to have a selective memory, Mr. Potter. You don't fool me one bit! How about this, I won't make you do anything horrendously crazy..."
For a split second Harry looked relieved. But knowing his wife, he wouldn't be relieved for long. "What do I have to do then?"
"Oh not much," Ginny tried to be nonchalant and hold back her laughter, "You just have to break the news to Ron that Hermione is dating Draco."
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AN2: Is there even baseball in the UK? I really don't know. So, please don't criticize me on my lack of sports knowledge.
Please review!!!! TWELVE OR THIRTEEN!!!
Lovelove, Amanda