Chapter 34: The Spring Ball

“So, this is the last dance of the year. I’m not sure whether to be excited or exhausted.” Hermione stood in front of the mirror in her room, while Draco leaned against the doorframe, waiting for her to finish getting ready.

“I know. These things are a lot of work. More for you than for me, but still. A part of me is glad this is the last one. You look great, by the way.”

“Better than a green, wart-covered witch?” Hermione smiled.

Draco walked over and hugged Hermione from behind. “Much better.”

Hermione had on a short, sleeveless red dress that was full and fluffy on the bottom, but fit her nicely on the top. She wouldn’t call it sexy, necessarily, but it was pretty and fun. She had on the charm bracelet Draco had given her for Christmas as well; it was the first time she had worn it.

“Look, Draco, I don’t want any public displays of affection tonight. This is not a date.”

“You’re going to at least dance with me, aren’t you? More than just the official opening dance? It's my birthday!”

“Yes, well, that’s fine.” Hermione smiled at the thought, then continued, “But we can’t hang all over each other or act like we fancy each other. You are not my date to the dance.”

“Fine,” Draco said, but he shook his head in frustration.

“Come on, you know what people will say! It will get back to Ron faster than the fastest owl! He and I have only been broken up a couple months. And my going on a date with you would be the ultimate slap in the face, to him, to all our friends…”

“To all Gryffindors, past and present, to all Muggle-borns and half bloods, to the entire wizarding community...” Draco added, smirking sarcastically.

“Yes, well, it’s not as if our dating would make your Pureblood friends proud of you. You didn’t exactly introduce me to your mother as your girlfriend.”

“I didn’t know that I could! Are you admitting you’re my girlfriend, then?”

“You missed the main point there, genius.”

“I don’t care what anyone thinks. My friendships are superficial at best and the standards I was raised with have been shown to be complete bollocks many times over.”

“Yes, but mine have not,” Hermione said softly. Draco looked at her sadly. It didn’t feel good to be beneath her standards.

After the opening dance together as Head Boy and Head Girl, Draco and Hermione separated silently. Hermione immediately looked for someone else to dance with, but without success. Harry and Ginny were nowhere to be found. Either they hadn’t arrived yet or had already left; either way, Hermione knew exactly what they were up to.

Draco was dancing with a Slytherin fifth year, who was shyly looking up at him, with a sparkle in her eye. ‘Poor thing,’ Hermione thought, ‘another girl with an unrequited crush on Draco.’

Not finding anyone she wanted to dance with, Hermione made her way over to a festively decorated table and sat down. People came and left; Hermione made small talk with a few of them. After about twenty minutes, Draco came over and sat next to her, bringing two glasses of punch with him.

“I suppose it wouldn’t do for the Head Boy to spike the punch,” he joked. Hermione took the drink tentatively, glancing around the room to see whether anyone was watching them. “Come on,” Draco whispered. “I danced out there with four different girls before coming over here.”

Hermione smiled. “All right, I guess it’s fine for us to talk now.”

“Talk? Come on, let’s dance. It’s a slow song, we can pretend to be surprised and upset about having to touch each other.” Draco waggled his eyebrows at Hermione. She smiled and let him lead her to the dance floor.

At some point, Harry and Ginny made it down to the dance. Hermione sat alone with Ginny while Harry went to fetch some punch for them both. Hermione thought that Harry was most likely feeling sorry for her, because she did not have a date for the dance, now that she and Ron had broken up. Hermione thought it would be expected of her to ask Ginny how Ron was doing. Best to get it over with early on.

“So, is Ron doing well these days?” she asked.

“Oh, yes, he’s fine,” Ginny responded nervously.

“You’ve been acting strange every time I ask you about Ron. Why don’t you tell me whatever is bothering you. I hope you know I didn’t intend to hurt Ron.” Hermione was still a bit worried that she had somehow harmed her friendship with Ginny by breaking up with her brother.

“No, no, it’s not that. It’s not you at all.”

“Please, tell me.”

“Well, it’s just, well…” Ginny appeared to be searching for the right words. “Ron’s dating Lavender again,” Ginny nervously blurted out.

“So, she broke it off with the Quidditch star?” Hermione wasn’t sure how she felt about this turn of events. On the one hand, she felt slighted by the fact that it seemed awfully fast for Ron to have a new girlfriend already, but on the other hand, didn’t she already fancy Draco? In a sense it was reassuring to know Ron had moved on, although there was a part of her that felt nostalgic about the past when she, Ron, and Harry were inseparable. And she still didn’t feel she was ready to go public with her relationship with Draco Malfoy, former Death Eater. Not yet anyway.

“Yes, well, that wasn’t going to work out now, was it? With him off boffing a different girl after every away match, and Ron consoling Lavender a little too much, in my opinion,” Ginny added.

“Do you mean? Do you think…?” Hermione sputtered over her words. Was it possible that Ron had cheated on her with Lavender Brown?

Ginny took hold of Hermione’s hand. “I don’t know for certain, but when you two finally broke it off, I was relieved more than anything. This last thing I want is for you to be hurt.” Ginny smiled sympathetically at Hermione.

Hermione, rather than feeling hurt, felt a wave of relief. She had tormented herself over each kiss she had shared with Draco while technically still dating Ron. If Ron had been cheating on her with Lavender all this time, then she felt as if she were off the hook somehow.

“It’s all right, Ginny, really.” Hermione patted their joined hands with her free one. “I’ll always care about Ron, but as a friend. Whatever romantic feelings I had for him faded almost as soon as I finally acted upon them.”

“If you say so, but I think Ron deserves a good hex or two,” Ginny smiled tentatively, obviously relieved by Hermione’s easy acceptance of Ron’s suspected misbehavior.

“Draco, slow down. I’m not ready for this.” Hermione interrupted their heated kissing on the sofa in front of the fireplace. They had practically run back to the room after the dance had ended, and had fallen into each other on the couch. “We’re moving too fast.”

“But, I thought, well, you’ve been split up from the Weasel for almost three months now and I thought that after everything we’ve been through, and everything we’ve already done, well, I thought we would be together now.”

Draco’s fringe had fallen over his eyes again and Hermione found him irresistible. She kissed him again, quickly, then answered, “Yes, about that…”

“What?”

“It’s just, don’t be mad, but I don’t want anyone to know that we are seeing each other.”

“So the hands-off pronouncement for tonight’s dance is a permanent thing? It’s not just until we leave Hogwarts?”

“Well, eventually I’ll be willing to tell people we’re together. Just not yet. It’s too big of a shock.”

“I don’t think we’re going to be able to fool people for long. Especially Ginny.”

“Maybe not, but she is Ron’s brother and all the Weasleys hate you Malfoys and the Weasleys are like an adopted family to me. And Harry, Harry’s going to kill me.”

“I thought after what happened with my father that Ron and Harry wouldn’t hate me anymore,” Draco said seriously. “Besides, you told me Won-Won was dating Lavender Brown already,” he added sarcastically.

“There’s a big difference between not hating you and liking the idea that you are dating someone they think of as a sister, even if Ron may not have romantic feelings for me anymore.”

“Well, at least your parents seem to like me,” Draco said optimistically.

“Yes, well, you’ve got three things going for you there. First, you are well-mannered. Second, you are going to university after Hogwarts and are encouraging me to go too. And third, they don’t know you were a Death Eater in the war.”

“So, I should just pretend my arm has a botched tattoo removal scar, due to a youthful indiscretion?” Draco joked.

“I’m just worried that Molly Weasley will contact my mother when she learns we’re dating,” Hermione replied sadly.

“So the longer we keep this quiet, the better chance I have to win over your parents, before they learn I am an evil son-of-a-bitch.”

“That’s the idea.”

“But in the meantime, you are willing to be my secret girlfriend?”

Hermione nodded shyly.

Draco thought for a moment. “I’m all right with that,” he said, as he leaned in to kiss her again. He pulled her on top of him when he lay back on the sofa and continued to kiss her. When he had the zipper of her dress half way down her back, Hermione pushed up away from him again.

“And, I want to move forward slowly,” she said.

“Yes, I promise I’ll take it slow,” Draco replied. He pulled her back to him and started kissing her again. After a few moments, he had the top of her dress pulled down and was attempting to deal with the complicated clasps on the back of her strapless bra. He had inched one finger into one cup on the front and was just reaching her nipple when Hermione pulled back again.

“I think we need to clarify what taking it slowly means,” she said, slightly out of breath.

“You want me to outline my process for slowly seducing you?” Draco answered, surprised and confused.

“No, but what I mean is I’m not ready to have sex with you. I’m not some slag who moves from one guy to the next in the blink of an eye.” By this time, Hermione had separated from Draco and instead of lying on top of him, was sitting next to him on the sofa. She had also pulled her dress back into position.

“All right, I’m fine with that, too. I’ll wait.” Draco sighed. “But let me ask you this, how long did you date Ron before you had sex with him?” Draco held her hand loosely in his, lightly tracing patterns along her forearm.

Hermione quickly calculated in her head. “All right, from the first kiss until we had sex, it was three months, but that’s completely unfair, because I had been crazy about him for years. I had spent seven years of my life with him. He was my best friend.”

“You may have spent those seven years with the Weasel, but you’ve spent this last year with me.”

“Yes, but up until this year, you’ve been my sworn enemy. I’ve hated you, despised everything about you.”

“Yes, well, hopefully I’ve grown in your estimation a bit since then.”

“Or you’ve been faking it for a few months to exact some evil break-up Ron and Hermione plan.”

“Yes, that’s it. The Death Eaters failed to take over the world, so now I plot to foil teenage romances.”

Hermione had to smile. “All right, maybe not.”

“Hermione, I care about you, oh hell, I’m crazy about you, and I’m perfectly happy to wait, a while, before we sleep together.”

“Well, technically, we’ve already slept together,” Hermione said, smiling. “But what if it’s more than three months? I’m serious about taking it slow.”

“I’ll wait, but my next evil plan is to make you so hot for me that you can’t wait three weeks, let alone three months.” Draco leaned in and kissed her again.

The next morning, Hermione was up early, despite staying up late the night before. She, Draco, and Ginny were going to study Transfigurations together in their suite a bit later and she had some revising to do before they got started studying together. When she exited her room, she found Draco already up, and reading a Floo-Ash letter, ostensibly from his mother. He smiled when he saw Hermione.

“So, Hermione, what are your plans for July?” he asked.

The question puzzled Hermione; Draco already knew she was going home to stay with her parents after the school year ended.

“I’ll be with my mum and dad, I suppose. I don’t think we have any fixed plans.”

Hermione thought briefly of past summers spent with Ron and Harry at the Burrow. She felt a bit melancholy, thinking about how her life had taken an unexpected change in direction. At the same time, she also felt a strange loneliness at the thought of not being with Draco on a daily basis, even though she was presently standing right next to him.

“Well,” Draco began, “my mother and I would like to invite you to join us on holiday at our beach house in Menorca. There’s a wizarding village there called Platja de ses Bruixes. Have you heard of it?”

“No, I haven’t,” Hermione answered, always surprised by things she was unfamiliar with, due to her Muggle upbringing. Such a village should have been mentioned in some form, either in a book she’d read or in a History of Magic class, perhaps.

“It’s a fantastic place, with secluded beaches, warm sunshine. You’ll love it.”

“When would this be, exactly?” Hermione asked. She felt nervous about vacationing with Draco and his mum. Somehow it felt like a serious commitment she wasn’t sure she was ready for.

“The first two weeks of July. You could stay for as long or as little as you like,” Draco replied, as if sensing her hesitation.

“Do lots of people we know summer there?” Hermione asked, imagining a town full of Slytherin families, just waiting to spread gossip about Draco and her.

“Well, there might be a few people we know there, but we could avoid the village and stick to the pool at our home and the private beach we have access to. You could remain incognito,” Draco said, attempting to sound mysterious.

“It sounds wonderful,” Hermione said, smiling at Draco. It was easy to be lured into such a holiday. She could imagine walking on the beach, hand in hand with Draco. “But I’ll have to make sure my parents haven’t made any plans for the three of us during those weeks in July.”

“Brilliant!” Draco said, smiling broadly. “I can’t wait to get you out skinny dipping in the moonlight,” he added. Hermione started to reply, but at that moment, Ginny knocked at their door, ready to start revising for NEWTs.