Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition

Team: Holyhead Harpies

Position: Keeper

Prompt: A Date (i.e. First, Blind, Fake)

W/C: 2,415

Summary: When Hermione comes home in a bad mood, Draco draws the short straw, or rather the black rune, to go see what has caused it. He makes a snap decision to take her drinking and secrets are shared between drinks...

A/N: Bit of an AU in that Draco would be part of the friendship group after enough time had passed. I will die on this hill.

I will follow you way down

The front door of Grimmauld Place slammed and it seemed to rattle every brick of the entire building. It was followed by a long, loud guttural scream. Then heavy footsteps up the wooden staircase that made it sound like the walker was doing their best to step through the stairs.

Draco sighed as he put the newspaper down on his lap. Harry, Ron, Ginny and Luna, who'd been in the middle of some odd game of Exploding Snap, moved to him as he held his hand out. He pointed his wand at his open palm and a small, green velvet bag appeared in it.

It was time to pick the sacrificial lamb who would speak to Hermione. A game they had come up with in the last year for when one of them had a bad day rather than crowd around them.

"Names in alphabetical order?" Ginny suggested.

They all murmured their agreements. Draco put his hand in the bag and groaned when he pulled out the black rune.

"Well that was fast," Harry said, relief in his voice.

Draco threw the rune back into the bag with more force than was necessary. It rattled against the rest of the runes, all of them white. One black rune and five white runes, one for each of the small group of friends, and he had to pick the black one this particular time. Hermione was going to kill him the moment he walked into her room. He could feel it in his bones.

Luna patted his shoulder. "It was good to have you in the group for a little while."

He took a deep breath, kept his wand in his hand, and walked up to Hermione's room like a man walking to the gallows.

When he reached outside her door, he could hear her muttering. He put his ear closer, but her words were intelligible. Straightening up, he pulled his shoulders back and stormed in.

"Right, Granger. I don't care what's happened, we're going out!" he announced, his hand still on the doorknob in case he needed to pull the door back for protection.

Hermione had been in the middle of pacing the small space in front of the single window of her bedroom. She stopped to look at him, her eyes narrowed, hands on her hips with her left forefinger tapping.

"Where were you thinking?" she asked, a hint of danger in her voice if he picked the wrong thing.

Draco matched her narrow eyes. "I know you're itching to argue with someone, but it won't be with me. Just put on a sensible pair of shoes and I'll meet you in the kitchen in one minute."

With that, he closed the door. Then he let out a slow breath as he walked away from Hermione's door.

Less than ten minutes later, Draco and Hermione could be found standing at the entrance of a small pub. It would only take ten strides to walk across the room, it was that small, and it had a stale smell to the air, a smell of one too many drinks spilt and never cleaned up. Draco shoved Hermione towards a small table by the door. "Not a word," he instructed firmly as he went to the bar.

When he appeared at the table with their drinks, he found Hermione ripping apart a crumpled looking beermat. He put her whisky in front of her, the ice clinking against the glass. He loathed to put any kind of water in whisky, but he had to make sure she didn't try to down it in one, like she was prone to do when in this mood.

"You know that never stops me," she said, as if reading his thoughts.

"If this tenuous friendship of ours means anything to you, you'll humour me," Draco said, finally taking his seat on the rickety stool opposite her. "Spit it out then."

She sighed heavily. "I'm glad it was you who pulled the black rune."

Draco smiled with a quiet laugh. "Because you'd like a legitimate reason to curse me?"

She shook her head, returning her focus to shredding the last large chunk of the beermat. "You just seem to understand when I'm this frustrated. You don't even need to say anything. You just understand."

"If I had known that a dingy Muggle pub was all it would take, I should've done this sooner."

She threw a piece of the beermat at him. If it wasn't for a small flick of his fingers, it would've landed in his whisky. When her eyes landed on his drink, free of ice, she swiftly swapped them and downed the drink in one.

"What is your plan with this outing? To get me drunk enough to cry on your shoulder?" she asked. He smirked at the time it took her to ask the question, knowing how much the liquid would've burnt going down, her eyes watering as proof. "Stop judging the way I drink your precious bloody whisky."

"Maybe that's my secret; I watch you drink your frustrations away and then I can have my wicked way with you at the end of the night. How does that sound?"

Hermione's cheeks getting a pink tinge to them was enough of an answer for him. Draco knew from experience it wasn't the drink. Not yet. He'd seen Hermione when she'd been Angry Drinking, and she didn't go pink until her fourth one. He opened his mouth to tease her further, but paused a moment when he realised she hadn't actually said anything to his proposition. Not even a refusal or a derisive laugh.

Interesting.

"Here's the plan," he started, handing her the drink he'd originally given her. He was not drinking that now that the ice had started to melt. "We keep moving, one drink in every pub we pass until you don't feel like ripping my eyes out. How does that sound?"

"I always want to rip your eyes out," she said wryly. She pushed the drink back to him. "As I've already had my one in here…"

"You're a cruel woman, Granger."

"So I've been told."

XXX

"Should we be mixing drinks?" she asked in the second pub as a glass of red wine was set down in front of her.

"The plan is to have a hangover so severe tomorrow it will be all you can think about," Draco said proudly.

"I know you hate me, Malfoy, but you could at least pretend you don't," she said with a small laugh.

Sitting at the bar of the busy pub, Draco turned in his seat to look at her properly, his knee nudging into hers forcefully. She frowned at his movement but kept her knee in place. "How about a secret shared in every new place we visit this evening?"

"Such as?"

Draco put his hand on her upper back, feeling the heat of her body come through the thin scarlet red shirt she wore. "I don't hate you." He leant close and whispered in her ear. "I never have."

She turned her head, her hair brushing gently against his cheek. She gave him a smile that lit up her eyes. "I've never hated you either."

Draco sat back with a smile playing on his own lips. He felt like his chest had expanded after years of a restrictive belt tied around it had finally been released. He clinked his glass against hers still sitting on the bar. "Cheers to that."

XXX

At the third pub, they had to cram themselves into a corner, Draco's chest pushed up against Hermione's arm. They both held their vodkas like they were about to explode for fear of someone knocking into them.

"We could've gone to the next one," she grumbled when someone did manage to bump into Draco and spill some of his drink on her arm.

"That wasn't the plan, but drink up and let's get going."

They chinked their glass together and drank in unison.

When they reached the door, Hermione grabbed onto his wrist, her hand sticky from her own spilt drink lingering on her palm. "We haven't shared a secret."

Draco got bumped by the door, annoyance flaring inside of him when it forced Hermione to let go of him so that yet more people could enter the already full pub. "I wish we could've been friends in school," he said loudly over the head of a passing woman.

Her eyes widened, his words having not missed their mark. "I always wanted to know what it was like to feel your kindness," she called back to him.

They stared at each other, the room suddenly quiet and empty, or so it felt for a brief moment. The door bumped into Draco again and Hermione was caught in traffic taking her outside.

XXX

The fourth pub had a calmer environment. Full but with no one standing, you were only allowed in if there were tables available. Hermione and Draco arrived as one became free and a waitress took their order almost immediately; gin brambles.

They sat quietly, looking at each other with some unasked questions lingering. It wasn't until the waitress had deposited their drinks that anything was finally said.

"I'm glad I picked the rune… well, I wasn't initially… but I am now."

Hermione frowned. "Why initially?"

"Your jinxes have a bite that the others don't quite have in theirs. I was sure you'd get me before I could say a word," he admitted, the heat of embarrassment at his admission flooding his cheeks. "I don't admit that lightly."

"Does that class as two secrets?" she asked with a grin. Draco shrugged. "When was the last time I actually jinxed you?"

Draco was ready with an answer, but it stuck in his throat as he thought about how long ago it was. "Oh," he said instead, the memory of her in the shower always stuck in his mind when he was alone. It had been over a year ago and Hermione was always ready with a jinx. Just the other day she'd jinxed Ginny for stealing her book away.

"And I only did it because I thought it was Harry at first," she said quietly, her eyes firmly on her drink as she stirred the straw through it.

Draco shifted in his seat, taking a sip of the ridiculously sweet drink she had ordered for them. He itched to say more, to move forward with something he had been hoping for in the last few months, but it didn't feel right. She had to take the lead. "Are you ready to talk about today?"

Hermione frowned deeply, her eyes darkening as she looked at him. "Politics. It's always politics. One step forward, two steps back."

"Don't you mean—"

"I know what I mean, Draco," she said sharply.

Her tone may have held an edge, but her words… Draco smirked.

"What?" she asked with a scowl.

"Your bad mood is still lingering. I'll tell you when you've lost it," he told her truthfully. "Drink up, it's time to move on."

XXX

The fifth pub was filled to the brim. The Friday evening mood was contagious and in full swing for everyone around them. Draco took Hermione's hand as he led her to the bar, feeling that, if he lost her, that would be the end of the evening. Even if his head was starting to swim with the various alcohol, he wasn't ready to let it end.

He ordered them brandies and they remained at the bar, with no room to move anywhere else. He placed one of the snifters in her hand and leant in to talk in her ear. "I actually like Muggle pubs. No one knows me. I can't be judged if they don't know me."

When he pulled back, she had an odd look in her eyes. A mixture of sorrow and regret. Her hand found his again, giving it a tight squeeze. She pulled a little, forcing him to come down so that she could now whisper in his ear. "I never feel like I belong to either world – Magical or Muggle."

Before Draco lifted his head, Hermione had clinked his glass and drank the brandy in one large gulp. This time her eyes didn't water but the pink in her cheeks started to deepen its colour.

XXX

As they reached the sixth pub, their hands still connected, Hermione pulled him to a stop. She put her free hand on his forearm. "Did this become a date?" she asked bluntly.

Draco shifted to face her. There was a softness to his feelings from the drinks. Enough to know he could keep it to himself if he chose to, but brave enough to feel like he might want to try. Her eyes seemed to search his while he thought about his answer.

"Would that be okay?" he asked quietly, now clasping her hand with both of his.

Hermione looked back at the pub entrance before them, smokers milling nearby, chatting happily. "How long?" she asked simply.

She didn't need to elaborate. He knew what she was truly asking. He gently put a finger on her chin to force her gaze back to him. "Long enough to know that this is not what I had planned for a first date."

"What changed for this to become a first date?"

"You said my name," he told her truthfully.

"I always say your name."

"Not my first name."

"And that's all it took?" she asked in disbelief. "Draco, I—"

That was all he needed to pull her to him. She didn't push him away as he met her lips eagerly, an electric thrill pulsing through his body as she kissed him back, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Wahey!" a chorus of male voices called at them as they passed, pulling them back to reality.

They watched each other, ignoring the continuing comments being hailed at them, gauging if this was worth risking their friendship for.

Hermione took the lead he'd been looking for in recent months…

"If I had known using your first name was all it took to make you this easy, I'd have said it weeks ago!" she said with a teasing tone, humour in her eyes.

"Hermione Granger!" he declared in mock horror. "Have you lost your sensibilities!"

She slapped his bicep as he laughed. "I should never have introduced you to Jane Austen."