Hermione instantly stopped dancing and backed away from the stranger. No, he’s not the stranger anymore, she thought. He’s Draco Malfoy.
Everything was coming together at the speed of light in her mind. He’s a pureblood Slytherin, she thought frantically. Hates Muggles and Muggle-borns, usually. The smirk, the voice, the hair, they all fit in like they were pieces of one big puzzle.
“Malfoy…can’t be…what have I done?” she managed to choke out, stuttering and sobbing.
For once in her life, Hermione had no idea what to do, so she simply turned to flee the Great Hall as quickly as her legs could carry her, her white dress flowing behind her.
Draco could not remember being more shocked in his entire life. Moments ago he had been dancing with the girl of his dreams. A girl that hadn’t cared that he was a Slytherin, and he had not cared that she was a mudblood. She hated him enough that even though she had managed to see past so much, she hated Draco Malfoy enough to run from him sobbing? He didn’t even know her name!
Draco quickly ran out of the Great Hall and into the corridor. He was not going to let this girl go.
Hermione couldn’t believe she had actually had feelings for that slimy, arrogant git, if only for a brief period of time. What had she been thinking, dancing with a Slytherin pureblood? They were all the same. What made her think she had gotten lucky and found a nice one? These thoughts circled menacingly in her head as she made her way, as quickly as her legs would carry her, to the Gryffindor common room.
Suddenly her shoe slid on the polished floor, causing her to topple into the wall. The next thing she knew, she was on the floor with no harm done except a rather sore leg.
Hermione tried to stand, but before she could finish she saw a hand being lowered to her.
She looked up into the eyes of Draco Malfoy.
Draco knew he had gotten lucky. If she hadn’t slipped, he might have never known who she was.
“Are you all right?” he asked in concern. It might have been lucky, but it was very possible that she had broken a bone.
“I would be fine if it weren’t for you,” she said, voice dripping in hatred. “So, was your little joke fun?” she asked sarcastically. She refused his hand, and instead pulled herself upright.
“Joke?” Draco was truly puzzled. “What joke?” His mask was getting annoying and was rather pointless now, so he pulled it off. Somehow that ended his spell, and his hair turned its original light blond.
“Oh, you know, the one where you decided to convince a girl that you might have feelings for her, even if she was a mudblood. I know you better than that, Malfoy,” she said, glaring at him and brushing the dust from the floor off of her dress.
“I wouldn’t do that!” he cried, looking hurt. He instantly wanted the words back. Yes, he would have. A few hours ago, he would have done that very thing just to hurt a mudblood. But that was before he had met this mud, er, Muggle-born. It was as if she brought out a part of him that he never knew existed.
“Oh, you wouldn’t?” she asked sarcastically. “Want to know how I knew that smirk, Malfoy? It’s been directed at me millions of times. Directed at me in mockery and hate!”
“Well, what can I do about that? I can’t change the past! I don’t even know who you are!” he said, trying not to get angry with her. She probably had every reason to get angry, but he wouldn’t know until she told him who she was.
Hermione began to cry again. This night had been so perfect.
“You really want to know who I am, Draco?” she asked angrily. “I’ll show you who I am!”
Hermione ripped off her mask, exposing her true identity.
“How do you like me now?”
Draco’s head felt as if it was whirling, only partially attached to his body. It’s Granger, he thought, more amazed than anything. But I suppose it makes sense. She’s a mudblood Gryffindor, and quite intelligent. She hated Slytherins, having been made fun of by them on many occasions.
Made fun of by him.
Merlin, he was daft. He should have seen this coming. What was he supposed to do now?
He wished he had never been stupid enough to give hints to his identity. Old Dumbledore had been right for once. Sometimes secrecy is the best policy. He wished he was still dancing in the Great Hall with that beautiful mystery girl…
Wait! He now knew that she was Granger! The hated, know-it-all mudblood Granger! He still wanted to dance with her? Why?
Draco recalled the feelings he had had while dancing with her, how he had known that he was falling for her? He hadn’t cared that she was a Muggle-born Gryffindor, why did he care that she was Hermione? She really hadn’t ever done anything to him that he didn’t deserve. Not that he could say so much about her friends. Still, would it be any more fair for him to hold a grudge against her for what Harry had done as for her to hold one against him for what Pansy had done? Not that Pansy was his friend, mind you.
But she was certain to reject him now, so what did all of that matter?
Hermione was breathing heavily from anger. Amazingly, the anger did not seem to be directed at Draco. It was directed at herself.
It was almost as if a tiny part of her wanted to be back on that dance floor with the boy she didn’t know, and she wished she hadn’t messed it up. So what if he’s Malfoy, she thought. Don’t you believe in second chances? And that people aren’t to be taken at face value? All of that is your lifestyle, your core, Hermione! You have to give him a chance!
Yet, this was Malfoy! Did someone that sickeningly vile deserve a second chance? She campaigned for the rights of poor, unfortunate creatures like house-elves. Malfoy was neither poor nor unfortunate, unless you counted that his father was in Azkaban. His father deserved that, anyway.
Still, what if he said it didn’t matter that she was Hermione? He hadn’t cared that she was a Muggle-born, after all. Would she accept him if he accepted her? After all, the boy on the dance floor had to have come from somewhere. She highly doubted that Draco was such a great actor that he needed no true emotion to back up what he was saying.
But he was certain to reject her now, so what did all of that matter?
All of this calculating and musing somehow occurred in a manner of seconds. When these seconds were over, Draco knew what he had to do.
“Hermione,” he said. “I don’t care. I didn’t care that you were mud…Muggle-born, did I? This whole thing, it wasn’t a joke. I really felt something out there.”
With this, Draco took a deep breath, and said quickly, “If you want to forget that this ever happened I’ll understand.”
Hermione was stunned. She thought of something her mother used to say whenever Hermione did something that was unlike her, such as ignore homework. “Who are you and what have you done with Hermione?”
Hermione thought this fitted the situation perfectly, but it seemed rather immature to yell out “Who are you and what have you done with Malfoy?” so she kept the awkward silence.
She had not expected that, not in the least bit. Malfoy was one to hold a grudge for stupid things. Who did she think she was that he’d change for her?
But there he stood, awaiting her decision.
Suddenly she remembered a piece of advice her mother had given her so many years before. “If you’re unsure about a boy’s feelings for you or your feelings for him, think of what it feels like when he kisses you. All kisses are good, but only from one person will they be magical.” Of course, Hermione had been ten at the time, so this had seemed like rather disgusting advice to be shoved in the back of one’s mind and never used.
It was worth a try though, wasn’t it?
Hermione tilted her head slightly, relaxed her lips and pulled her head towards his.
Draco felt a jolt. She was going to kiss him. To his own amazement, he found his own lips moving towards hers until they brushed together. The word mudblood could not be found in his mind at that moment. Yet again in one evening, Draco was not thinking of Pansy Parkinson in the least bit as he began to deepen the kiss.
Hermione’s heart was doing flips in her chest. She knew she would remember this moment forever.
After all, just like her mother had promised, it was magical.
Draco was panting as he pulled away from Hermione. “I suppose that meant you felt something, too?”
Hermione laughed lightly. Merlin, he had thought that the laugh was so beautiful hearing it across the Great Hall, and it was no different now. He wondered how he had not noticed all of this before. I’ve probably never seen her laugh before, he thought rather sadly.
Suddenly Draco realized that she might be expecting him to pay this kind of attention to her all the time. “Hermione,” he began cautiously. “We do have very different groups of friends, and they might not…understand if…well…”
“If we started snogging in public?” Hermione said with a tiny smirk. “Harry would have a heart attack or two, Ron would try to use an Unforgivable on you, Neville would probably fall off a balcony…” she joked, ticking them off on her fingers. “Need I go on?”
“Er, no,” Draco said, smirking from visions of the weasel trying to use the Cruciatus curse on him. He’d probably miss and hurt Hermione, though he was sure that it wouldn’t hurt her much. Maybe his wand would even backfire again and he’d hurt himself…
He’d have to remember that idea for when he needed a laugh. For now there were more serious matters at hand. “My friends are even worse. Most of them would try to beat me up for even talking kindly to a mud…er, Muggle-born. And Pansy…well, I wouldn’t put it past Pansy to try to kill you. I’m very serious,” he added, seeing the look of doubt on Hermione’s face.
“It just seems a bit extreme, even for Parkinson,” she said, but knowing he was about to object she continued. “I’ll be careful, don’t worry. We can’t go around broadcasting this, and I know that.”
Hermione must have begun to worry all of a sudden, because she then said, “You do want to continue this, right?”
Draco wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “Of course I do,” he said. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone before.”
That was one of the truest things Draco had ever said.
Hermione was still trying to take all of this in.
“What’s wrong?” Draco asked, somehow sensing her standoffishness.
“I don’t know, it’s just like we kissed before we had our first civilized conversation. We’re doing things backward,” Hermione fretted.
“It’s all right. We’ll get to know each other,” Draco assured her.
“How? We can’t be seen together!” Hermione exclaimed.
“Well…” Draco said, thinking. “We could meet secretly. By the lake or something.”
Deception was not something Hermione liked. For once, however, it seemed the only choice. “Well, all right,” she agreed.
Just then Dumbledore’s voice, amplified by the Sonorous charm, came booming out of the Great Hall. “Students, please gather in a circle. The mask removing is about to begin,” his voice called out.
“We’d better go in,” Hermione said quickly, donning her shimmering mask once more. “Tomorrow, half an hour after our last class ends, on the East end of the lake by the big oak tree?” she asked quickly.
Draco nodded, putting his own mask on and restoring his hair to the black it had been earlier in the evening as they hurried back into the Hall. “And Hermione?” he asked. “Don’t get upset if I act like a git again when the Slytherins are around, all right? I won’t try to, but…” he shrugged. “Nothing I can do.”
“I understand.” Hermione said quickly as they entered the Great Hall again. No one seemed to have noticed they were gone in the first place, much less that they were returning now. Students were still milling into the circle, so they were not out of place.
“You go to the left, I’ll go to the right,” Hermione whispered. “We can’t be near each other.”
Draco nodded and quickly walked to join the circle to their left, and Hermione did the same to the right.
There was one person Hermione had forgotten about.
Ginny Weasley had good observational skills, unlike what she could say about many others. This was how, while no one else had noticed Hermione and her mysterious dancing partner leaving the Great Hall, she had.
Just as much as she noticed them returning.
Ginny had wanted to follow them when they had left, but what was a polite excuse to make to your dancing partner when you had to pursue a friend in tears when you weren’t even supposed to know who that friend was? So Ginny had relied on her own logic to figure out what was wrong with Hermione. So far, the best reason she could think of was that her dancing partner had insulted her somehow. This didn’t seem extremely likely, however. Maybe her dancing partner had been Ron playing a joke? It didn’t seem like Ron to hurt Hermione like that, though…
Dumbledore asking the students to all take their masks off together interrupted Ginny’s thoughts. She pulled her mask off quickly and looked around. It was Harry she had been dancing with, as she had suspected. After all, though his mask hid the telltale lightning bolt, it did not hide his practically patented emerald eyes and unruly mop of black hair. Ginny smiled brightly at him, trying to let him know wordlessly that she'd talk to him in a moment. She had to find out what was bothering her friend first.
Looking around she saw Hermione, looking lovely in her white dress. She was standing by Parvati and Lavender, both chattering away about how they never would have guessed who they were dancing with.
Hermione, strangely, appeared out of this discussion. It was if as she didn't care at all who her partner was. Ginny quickly looked over to where he was standing. The person she saw caused her to quite literally yank herself back as if she'd been punched.
Then everything became painstakingly clear.
A/N: See, I did have a reason for all of the students removing their masks, even if Draco and Hermione did find out about each other beforehand. Anyway, big thanks to all my reviewers. Please review this chapter, too.