Disclaimer: You know the drill.

Ch. 21

I was exhausted, but besides that, I was actually pretty happy.

I had spent almost the whole day with the girls shopping for dresses, eating, and conversing, and being a girly girl for once. I was excited for the ball now than I had ever been. I had bought the sage dress, which I was definitely planning on the wearing to the ball, and the red dress that I had previously tried on, because Lavender had convinced me that it would work out for another occasion, claiming I looked gorgeous in it. I took her word for it. I had also bought a pair of silver, open toed pumps embellished with a cluster of rhinestones at the toes. I was happy with my selections, but I was so tired that I had had to levitate them up to my room in order to drag myself up the stairs. I needed to rest. However, my plans were interrupted when I saw a familiar, dark and regal owl perched up on my window with a letter attached to its foot. I walked over to the owl and took the letter, giving the owl a treat before he set off. In front of the envelope, there was a seal with the Malfoy coat of arms. I shook my head and smiled, opening the letter. It read,

Hermione,

Meet me in the Great Hall at seven or so? I think we should work on the blueprint a bit more, Slughorn is being a bit of a pest about it, and wants to see what we have tomorrow, so I think we could make a few more adjustments. Hope to see you, or else were screwed for tomorrow because I can't do this alone,

Draco.

I actually laughed at loud at the last sentence. He always had to add something funny to the serious things, even if he wasn't trying to. I checked my watch, and saw that it was ten to seven. I decided that I would have a quick shower and then head down to the Great Hall.

After my shower, I made it perfectly in time to meet Draco and walked into the Hall, looking for his pale blond head amongst nothing but brown wooden tables and benches. I spotted him almost immediately, his head lowered in concentration over the blueprint for the ball. I hurried over and sat next to him, but even then he didn't say a word. I paused for a moment, and waited for him to look up.

"Hey." He murmured, obviously too distracted with the blueprint. I had gotten used to this, though. The first time he had done it, I had found it quite rude, but he apologized and said that it was just really hard for him to focus on more than one thing. Actually, now that I had taken the time to get to know him, it seemed he was like that in classes as well. Sometimes I would watch him, and he would be as focused as ever a lot of the time, especially if it was something he enjoyed, by which you could visibly tell by the look on his face and body language. I understood this of course, because I was the same way.

"Hi", I replied back, grabbing my pencil and notebook out of my bag. "Hard at work I see?"

He passed the blueprint to me, and grinned. "What do you think?"

I leaned in to pay attention to the details. It looked great so far, since Draco had been doing all of the drawings and I had been giving him the idea's and the direction. We were pretty good, in my opinion. There were table areas and a leveled stage with full decorations, ice sculptures and lights. There was also a food area and several small, secluded spaces where people could take breaks and just talk, these of which were covered by large, white, tent like drapes.

"It's amazing, honestly. I can't believe that you're this good at drawing." I told him in earnest, shaking my head in pleased disbelief.

He gave me a small smile. "Please, enough with the compliments. You know it wouldn't be as half as good without your artistic direction, like I could come up with all of these ideas. If this ball was up to me, then there would just be chairs and a band. Pretty lucky you're here."

I felt myself blush. I opened my mouth to thank him, but saw that my still shower-wet hair had been dripping onto the blueprint.

"Damn. I'm really sorry!" I exclaimed, pushing it away from me. Did I always have to ruin everything?

He chuckled and put the blueprint to the side. "You worry too much, which is weird since your hair is wet. I thought only your crazy dry hair made you act like that."

I glared at him, and he smirked.

"Shut it. We all already know I have mad hair! I look like a drowned rat right now, and you can't poke fun at me, because you probably look like a drowned ferret when your hair is wet."

Well, at least I used to have crazy hair. Since fourth year, my hair had actually begun to agree with me, and I had been maintaining it in full, soft curls now. Sometimes, it could still get crazy, but that was rare! One time, also in fourth year, Draco had made a comment on how rough my hair looked. He called me pubic head for a few days before I had hexed him, giving him green warts on his arse for a week. I held a lock of my hair, self conscious now.

"Be quiet Granger. You know you want me, wet hair and all."

"My hair isn't crazy all the time anymore! And it's soft, although not according to you. Care for a feel?" I retorted sarcastically. To my surprise, he reached out and grabbed the lock of hair from my fingers, stroking it for a moment and curling it around his finger. He let go, and it spiraled back into place, damper than it had been before. I couldn't look at him, and so I kept my eyes on the table. Somewhere inside, little fourteen year old Hermione re-emerged , giving me a surge of nostalgia that gripped my throat, making me remember how it felt to be called names like that by him.

I had hated him.

He cleared his throat, and out of the corner of my eye I could see him looking at me. I pretended to busy myself by looking at my notebook.

"You…you remember that?" He whispered.

I hadn't expected him to know what I was talking about. I didn't want him to. Strangely, I wanted to sit, alone, and wallow in my memories.

"Four years of malicious taunting doesn't really go away that quickly, you know." I replied. At least he had left me alone fifth and sixth year. He had been too wrapped up in his own problems, his father, the ministry, and Voldemort. Karma, no, life, had hit him hard.

"Right", he paused. "And I am sorry for that, you have to know that. I'm not the same person that I was three years ago. A lot of things that I never would've even imagined could happen to me have happened, and if I knew that beforehand, I would've never acted like such a prick."

I looked up at him, and in his eyes, I could see that he had really been heartfelt. I nodded.

"I know. Its okay, you know we've moved on from that. You don't have to apologize."

The look on his face told me different. After a moment of appreciated silence, he announced that we should go. We packed our little belongings, and he walked me to the doors of the Hall.

"Well at least we've got the rough draft of blueprint ready for Slughorn, whiny twat", Draco murmured darkly. He had never liked the man, and I suspected it was because he hadn't been invited to join the Slug Club. That's usually what people disliked him for.

I laughed. "Definitely. It looks amazing, so he should be pretty satisfied. If he doesn't like it, he can bloody well do it himself."

He flashed me a grin, and we stood at the doors for a bit longer, the smile slowly taking its time to leave his face. I took the moment to stare up at him, and recognize his features a bit more. Something in him was beginning to comfort me. Our bodies were close, and I could his hear his calm, smooth breaths.

"You know Malfoy, you should really try smiling more often. It suits you." I said quietly.

Caught by surprise he turned to me, his eyes shining with curiosity. I laughed.

"Yes ma'am", he replied, saluting me. I smiled and told him goodbye, and as I was walking away, he spoke again.

"And for the record, your hair is soft. It smells good too." He said admittedly, grinning a little. I turned and shook my head. He was so playful sometimes, it was weird. He had too many moods to count.

"Thanks. Its vanilla almond shampoo, if you're interested in using it." I replied, jokingly coy. He shook his head at me, waved slightly and walked towards the Slytherin Commons, using the exact opposite route I was.

I was really starting to believe in this whole friendship thing.

VVVVV

Breakfast the next day might as well have been hell. Almost all of the sixth and seventh Gryffindor girls were shooting me wary looks, as if they were expecting me to explode any moment. I wasn't a ticking time bomb! To make sure of my assumptions, which could clearly be proven correct, I sat next to Ginny and decided to ask her.

Harry looked up at my arrival, and began furiously munching on a piece of toast. I was surprised he wasn't he wasn't choking already. Ginny took a furtive sip of her pumpkin juice. What was wrong with everyone? And where was Ron? He never missed breakfast, ever. The boy couldn't function without a stomach full of calories in the morning.

"Hey you two, is it just me, or does everyone think I'm going to spontaneously combust? Because by the looks they're giving me, it seems so. For God's sakes, I smiled at a sixth year girl and she whispered to her friend about it looking so anxious she could've peed right then and there!"

Harry abruptly stood up, barely looking at me. "More toast….Seamus…" he murmured, and then he practically bolted, not before Ginny shot him dagger eyes. I caught on to that.

"What's going on?" I asked her firmly. She gave me a guilty look.

Something was definitely wrong.

As I waited for her to speak, I watched her face, and her eyes went wide, her jaw slack.

"Ginny?"

She did nothing but point in silent shock, towards the entrance of the Great Hall. I turned.

You've got to be kidding me.

Walking in with Sylvia Remsen hanging on his arm, was none other than Ron, with a smirk so big plastered on his face that he looked nearly deranged.

What the hell did he think he was doing?

I felt a vein in my forehead burn with heat as I watched them. Sylvia was clinging to him, small and petite next to his tall form, looking almost childlike with her extremely short skirt and girly accessories. She was the biggest attention whore in the school, and everyone knew it. She was worse than Pansy, because well, Pansy had some class.

Sylvia had quite the reputation with boys.

For one, she had slept with so many that the students had lost track. It was rumored that she had once seduced Travis Clarkes in the girl's lavatory, and I wasn't one to doubt that that rumor was true. At every school event we had ever had she had managed to find a new guy to sleep with. Ginny had even once heard her say that contraceptive charms were her best friends. The girls she hung out with weren't so good either, but she was by far the worst. She was so bad, even Pansy looked down on her.

So he was hanging around whores now, huh?

I hoped he was satisfied.

I turned to Ginny, my eyes burning with anger.

"I wanted to tell you. Really I did –"

"How long? How long have you known?" I inquired bitterly, all the while looking at the little slut crawl all over Ron, as he grinned stupidly at her.

"Harry only told me this morning. He says Ron said he asked her at Hogsmeade yesterday. I'm so sorry Hermione, I really am. He's being his usual prat self, and if he had any common sense he would've asked you the first chance he got!"

"Don't apologize." I snapped back, a bit too bitterly. Ginny tentatively rubbed my back.

"Harry didn't want to tell you at first, he didn't want to hurt you like this. But Hermione, you deserve to know. I've always told you you're too good for my brother. He needs to grow up."

That he did.

A few moments later, Ron appeared at our table. I could hear his voice beside me, and I didn't bother to look at him. Ginny went rigid.

"Have you seen Harry?" He asked, as if nothing was wrong at all.

Idiot.

Ginny didn't answer him, and I didn't wait for her to. I couldn't be around him without feeling my blood boil. I stood up abruptly and gave him the fiercest look I could managed as I grabbed the tray of toast a few inches away from me and slammed it onto Harry's plate. Ron flinched.

"Tell Harry I found more toast." I muttered bitterly at Ginny while giving Ron dagger eyes. I didn't wait for them to react but seized that moment to storm out of the Great Hall, happy that I had distressed Ron. He deserved it.

I would not be made a fool of.

As I exited the doors, I felt a strange pricking in my eyes and my vision began to blur. I was halfway down the corridor when out of nowhere I heard Draco call my name.

"Granger!"

"Not now! Just leave me alone alright?"

I kept tearing down the hall, but he pursued me.

"I said leave me alone!"

"No." He said calmly. I turned to him in indignation. He had chased me all the way to a dead end.

"What?"

"I said no. I'm not going to leave you." He replied, his voice as calm as ever. I probably would've been able to find comfort in that at any other time but now, but I was so angry I couldn't even think.

"And if I don't want you here?" I challenged him. I turned slightly to touch my face and sniffed. It was wet.

"Well then that's too bad for you I suppose. What happened?"

"That's none of your business." I insisted stubbornly. "I'm perfectly fine, thank you."

I saw him fight back the urge to smirk.

"Do you really think I'm that stupid Hermione? Fine then, don't tell me, I can figure it out. I saw Weasley with Sylvia Slutsen. He asked her to the ball? You're jealous and you shouldn't be because he didn't have the balls to ask you."

Something in his voice changed, it became severe, almost protective.

Of me?

I was imagining things. Anger did things like that to you.

"I'm not jealous." I muttered defiantly.

"Of course you are. You expected something of him and he let you down, mind you, he seems to do that a lot. If he wasn't an ungrateful and oblivious prat you would've been his girlfriend already –"

"You don't get to talk about him that way!" I told him sternly. "He's better than you could ever be!"

At my remark, a flicker of some strange emotion flashed through his eyes, and he went quiet for a moment.

"Is he really?" Draco said skeptically, his voice strong and somewhat acidic. He moved closer to me. "Because if I were him, you wouldn't be in this situation right now, you wouldn't be crying over a guy that's too dumb to realize what he has in front of him. If I were him, I would've taken care of this a long time ago. If I were him, you and I….we would've been together."

By the time he had finished talking, he was so close to me that our bodies were almost touching, his hovering slightly over mine. He stepped back and cleared his throat.

"If I were him, but I'm not. So I don't think it's very fair of you to compare us."

Although he hadn't really tried saying anything to make me feel better, in a way, he had.

Ron was a prat. In my head, as Draco and I stood there at the end of an empty corridor, I formulated a plan.

He wouldn't know what hit him at the dance.

Two could play at this game.

I turned to Draco again, and he looked disturbed.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked him. It was a rhetorical question that he didn't have to answer. He shrugged slightly.

"That's what friends are for I suppose. And it would be stupid of me to let you run around crying over a guy who's a –"

I stopped his statement by placing a hand tentatively on his arm. He looked down at the contact and then at my eyes again.

"Thank you", was all I said.

That was all he needed to hear.

VVVVV

Another chapter done and the ball is getting closer and closer! This one was a lot longer! I just wanted to thank all of you that have been reading and reviewing! You have no idea how happy it makes me to see that you guys like my story. Feel free to leave me reviews, constructive criticism or ideas! Keep it up lovelies! Love to all