Getting along with her was equally as infuriating as pretending he hated her. Their new pact had encouraged him and the year was finally going more smoothly, but somehow along the way, hope had weaseled its way in. He found it more and more difficult to push aside how he felt about her.
Since they had gotten past hating each other, a part of him had suddenly decided to get optimistic. When his mind would wander, he would often catch himself thinking that he might actually have a chance with her. It usually wasn't long before his rational side would step in and resolve the lapse in better judgement and he could return to attempting, seemingly in vain, to exile his feelings.
Because, obviously, it was a total heap of rubbish. He was Draco Malfoy and she was Hermione Granger. Pure-blood and muggle-born. A Slytherin and a Gryffindor. Damaged and whole. Opposites. It would never work out. Sure, they were getting along now, as co-workers. But she would never be able to forgive him enough to open up to him as anything more.
Besides, he was more than well aware of her relationship with the Weasley. It had been an item of gossip that the two had feelings for each other for quite some time, elevated further when the Daily Prophet caught wind of it over the summer. The writers at the paper had had a field day when they found out that two thirds of the golden trio were involved romantically, with each other no less.
While Draco had never seen the Weasel's appeal, he couldn't help but admit that the boy deserved her affections far more than he did. And for that reason, it was entirely useless for him to hold onto his feelings. Yet they clung to him mercilessly. He despised them more than he did himself. Heart palpitations and missed breaths were of no consequence to his daily life.
Fortunately, he had a good enough excuse to keep busy between his classes and his duties as head boy that he often didn't have time to anguish over his impractical emotions for long periods of time. As the year went on, he was increasingly more thankful that he'd made the decision to turn down the opportunity as quidditch captain. His schedule was packed enough as it was.
As head boy, Halloween was coming up fast and he and Hermione were entirely in charge of decorating the school for the occasion. As for the academic side of things, he was still managing to stay a couple steps ahead in his classes but only just. The school year was beginning to wear on him bit by bit.
Conversely, he was growing more confident in his role as head boy as the days went by. At their most recent prefects meeting he had tried his best to be his most helpful self. The pair of them had discussed the meeting ahead of time and organized a rough outline for the flow of topics and who would present each one. It seemed to have done a fair bit of good because the meeting ran smoothly and everyone was let out well-before it's expected duration.
One of the dedicated topics of discussion was the McMillan triplets of Hufflepuff. As it had turned out, the three were troublemakers through and through. Everyone was made aware of the siblings' antics and were told to take extra care to reprimand any suspicious behavior. Hogwarts wasn't particularly in need of another bathroom demolition. The Hufflepuff prefects assured the group that they were doing their best to keep a handle on their rowdy first years, but at the same time stressed the trio's uncanny predisposition to sneaky behavior.
The month of November snuck past and soon the leaves were all but gone from the trees. Late fall brought with it frosty mornings and the occasional snow-dusted afternoon. It had been a particularly busy month for the seventh years. Everyone was convinced that their professors were conspiring against them because it seemed like they'd had a test nearly every other day for two weeks.
Draco continued to work hard and was rewarded with top marks on each one of them. He was especially enjoying his potions class more and more as they began to delve deeply into all sorts of difficult potions. Slughorn had most recently started the class on a potion that would cause the drinker to grow in size, a brewing process that would take until Christmas.
With the amount of studying Draco had to do, he often found himself in the prefects' study room with his fellow head girl. It was a fairly cozy with several cushy armchairs and study tables throughout the room. But the most important characteristic it possessed was that it remained noticeably more quiet than the library outside. Though it was an ideal place to study, few prefects, it seemed, found an interest in taking advantage of this fact. Every now and then there would be another student sitting at one of the tables, but generally it was just Hermione and himself.
However, as time went by and he spent more and more days alone with her in the room, he encountered a formidable problem. As he would work, he couldn't help but steal glances in her direction. And in spite of purposely trying to avoid looking at her, he would still pick up on the most subtle of her mannerisms. Like the way she always knit her brows tightly together when she concentrated. How she would bite her lip slightly on the right side every now and then when she wrote papers. Or when she would brush the end of her quill's feather lightly against the tip of her nose when she paused to read over her work.
Eventually it got the point where he couldn't focus when he tried to study with her in the room. Though he regretted it, he had to move his usual study space back into the library. It was addicting, observing her and cataloging her little quirks. Though as much as he enjoyed the captivation, he scolded himself regularly for succumbing to the temptation. Habits like those were guilty pleasures that only made his suffering worse.
Soon enough, fall wore away to snow-filled wintry days and the Christmas season came upon them. And Draco was dreading every second of it. It wasn't that he hated Christmas. In fact, some of his best memories were of past Christmas holidays. But he knew that a professor would be coming around all too soon to inquire as to whether he would be staying or going home for the holidays. Either choice seemed miserable. While it would probably be a good thing to go see his mother, he hated the idea of going back that house. Just the same, he wouldn't have any more fun at Hogwarts, cooped up in his room, avoiding people's watchful eyes.
He wouldn't have anyone here to spend it with. He'd already checked in with Daphne to see what her plans were. Both Daphne and her sister were going home for Christmas.
Draco gave the issue some more thought and finally decided that, for the sake of his mother, he would go home and see her.
McGonagall was already hinting at new projects for them to tackle when they got back from break, but insisted that at the present moment she wanted them to be focused on Christmas preparations. It was Hogwarts' largest holiday. Whether a student was staying or going, all would participate in a grand feast on the evening before break started. The great hall was both the most important room to decorate and also the one that took the most effort.
Both the head boy and girl and the prefects team were in charge of decorating not just the great hall, but the entire school for Christmas. They had many things to accomplish in a fairly short period of time. It was generally expected that they finish it in no more than a couple days' time.
It was tradition to enchant the suits of armor to sing carols, so they organized a couple of prefects to tackle that side of things. The grand staircase was usually decorated with icicles so another few prefects were assigned to do so. Several students got to work on the gift bags that needed to be filled for each of the students that were staying at Hogwarts over Christmas break. And on top everything else, each of the individual house common rooms was decorated with a large Christmas tree, ribbons, candles, and wreaths.
They saved the biggest project for last. It was all hands on deck for the great hall. Though already difficult to decorate due to its sheer size, the biggest part of the project by far was the traditional twelve towering Christmas trees that were brought in every year. They had enough prefects for roughly two people per tree but that was only if everyone worked. During the two days they had planned to get it done in, they were unfortunate enough to lose a few hands for a couple of hours to a conflicting quidditch practice along with an additional prefect who was sick in the hospital wing.
Everyone got to work quickly on an early Sunday morning two weeks from Christmas. The plan was to get it done all in one day after the house common rooms and the halls of the school had been attended to, and so far they were on schedule.
The prefects team worked pretty much from sunup to sundown. The morning passed rather sluggishly, as everyone was still a little slow from their early start, but as the afternoon rolled around things were running much more efficiently. After a short break for lunch, Draco and Hermione started to enchant the great halls towering ceilings with a snow charm that McGonagall had taught them. The prefects spent most of the day getting the monstrous Christmas trees decorated and hanging other Christmas-y items around the walls of the hall. It wasn't physically strenuous work, but it required focus. Since only the very bottoms of the tall trees could be decorated by hand, their prefects needed to a great deal of concentration to perform the levitation charms necessary for a completely decorated tree.
Luckily, they had a very skilled group of students working with them that year and as the evening wore on into night, nearly everything had been accomplished. When the Christmas trees had all been fully decorated, the two heads called everyone together shortly before midnight to praise their hard work and send them back to their houses for, hopefully, a good evenings' rest before classes the next morning. He and Hermione would stay to put on any remaining finishing touches.
Fortunately the only thing left to do was to place the fairies around the great hall. McGonagall had specified that only the two of them were to handle the task. Fairies were feisty little creatures and needed a team of at least two skilled wizards to be safely managed. So he and Hermione went tree to tree with a bewitched jar full of them. Each fairy had to be enchanted to stay within a few feet of their assigned tree. It took them the better part of two hours to get it done, but finally the last fairy had been stationed.
They sat in the deserted hall looking proudly at their work. Even though it was just the two of them sitting there, Draco thought that it felt less empty than it would have without all of the bright decorations. The fairies flitted about the trees, ephemeral snowflakes fell from high above, vanishing instantly when they touched down, and the numerous candles hanging above them cast flickering shadows about, altogether making the room look even more magical than usual.
"Well, I don't know about you, but I could really use a butterbeer right about now," Hermione said, holding a hand up to her forehead.
"Sounds good, " he said, plopping tiredly onto a nearby bench.
She left the great hall for a moment and returned shortly with two foaming glasses. He almost inquired as to where she had gotten it from, but realized that he didn't actually care. He took a large swig from his glass when she had handed it to him and then lowered it with a satisfied sigh. When he glanced at her from across the table, he was shocked to see that she was nearly through chugging her drink.
Right before she finished, she paused to take a breath, cast a refilling charm on the cup, and returned to chug yet another full glass. He stared at her with a mix of awe and slight disgust as she downed another two. When she finished, she slammed the cup down on the table, causing him to jump slightly. He grabbed at his drink, tried to sip casually, and took an interest in a nearby Christmas tree, pretending that he hadn't just observed her throw back four whole glasses of butterbeer.
"I just love Christmas, don't you? I mean, it's just so wonderful," she said, her voice slightly higher than usual. He resisted the urge to laugh. She'd gone and gotten herself sloshed on a couple glasses of butterbeer? Four glasses wasn't that much alcohol. He quickly realized, however, that she wasn't drunk, just a tad tipsy. Enough to make her a little more silly than usual.
"I'm so glad I'm going home this Christmas. I can't wait to see Harry and Ron and all the rest of the Weasleys. Not that you'd understand," she added wryly.
Though he didn't tell her so, he did understand. He almost wished he was visiting the Weasleys for Christmas. It would probably be more fun than where he was going.
"I can't wait to get there. It'll be my first official Christmas with them. It's a shame that I can't spend the holidays with my parents, but it wouldn't be very fun since they don't know who I am anymore."
He was taken aback both by what she had said and the causality with which she'd said it. And then it hit him suddenly, for the first time that, as muggles, her parents would have been in great danger with the dark lord rampaging about the country. He realized, in turn, that she must have done something to protect them during the wizarding war. If what she was saying were true, that something would have involved removing herself from their memory. His heart sank and he looked at her sadly.
"But that doesn't mean I won't have fun with the Weasleys. We'll eat tons of good food and give presents and sing Christmas carols." Upon this statement, her eyes lit up. "Oh, Ginny and I always have the best time around Christmas. We sing and dance together."
Rising from table with a slightly dazed look on her face, she threw an arm out dramatically and broke into song. Though initially greatly amused, he was surprised when a near-angelic voice sounded from her mouth. He sat, mesmerized, as she danced about in circles while singing powerfully in a dulcet alto range.
Not long into her ballad, she became a little too excited and decided that dancing on the table would be a good idea. As Hermione tiptoed precariously around the tabletop, Draco stood abruptly and tried to figure out the best way to keep her from falling headfirst off the side. She giggled, dodging his attempts to grab onto her and twirling about the tabletop. Eventually, he managed to get a hold on her wrist.
"Oh, I'm sorry, did you want to dance too?"
Still giggling, he helped her down of the table. As soon as she was on the floor, she grabbed at his wrist and pulled at his arms, urging him to follow her motions. Captivated though he was with her ditzy behavior, he had no desire to dance. He attempted to break free of her grip but she pulled him still closer.
Suddenly he became acutely aware of just how close they were. They stood only inches apart from each other, engulfed by the encompassing silence of the great hall. Deep brown eyes froze him to the spot. His pulse quickened at points were her fingers met with his skin and he shivered where her warm breath spread across his neck. The faint pumping of blood roared in his ears as his heart worked overtime to compensate for his inability to draw breath. She smiled up at him, alcohol-kissed cheeks rosy behind her wild hair.
He didn't know who initiated it, but suddenly it happened. His heart skipped a beat as their lips touched. It was a soft and gentle kiss so delicate that it almost couldn't exist. The soft skin of her lips latched to his and the tip of her nose grazed his cheek. His eyes fluttered shut and everything around him faded away until he was only aware of the point where their lips met. His stomach twisted wildly and his heart raced. But before he could remember how to think or move, the soft lips vanished.
He opened his eyes and watched the regret cross her features, as if broken from a trance, and she turned to run. The butterflies in his stomach turned to molten rock and solidified, leaving him sick. His gaze followed her retreating figure from the great hall and up the staircase out of sight, each footstep thundering in his head, threatening to stop his heart beating. The light tinkling of the fairies was the only sound to be heard as he stood unmoving for what seemed like hours, the ghost of her lips tormenting him.
That night, he lay on his bed, cursing himself.
What have I done?
A/N: If you haven't reviewed yet, now is the time to do it! Did this happen too soon? Not soon enough? Or is everything moving okay? If you've got an opinion, I WANNA HEAR IT! :)
As always, thank you for reading.