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It was raining outside. This would be a noteworthy occasion, except for the fact that it was April and it was perpetually raining. In fact, it's unclear why it's even being mentioned as the author could clearly have found a better way to begin this story.
Inside the Great Hall, the ceiling reflected the rain. The only thing this did was make people eating their breakfast grumble and complain about it, as they would have to go outside and get soaked.
At the Gryffindor table, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were sitting together, eating their breakfast. As the owls came in with the news, Hermione caught her usual morning copy of the Daily Prophet and began reading the front page, her eyes narrowing.
"Hogwarts announces ball to be held!" she exclaimed. "What?"
Harry choked on his food and reached for the paper. "What's this about a ball?" he muttered, scanning the article. Sure enough, there was a ball to be held at Hogwarts in May.
"Wow!" Ron exclaimed, "it sure is convenient that we have the Daily Prophet to tell us of these things! It's not like we could expect Dumbledore to tell us."
"Yeah, it's April and he hasn't even been at the school since Christmas," Harry agreed. Why was he throwing his mentor under the bus? Who knows.
As they finished their breakfasts and headed to class, they each thought about the ball. Harry was wondering who he was going to have to take to the dance. Ron was wondering why there had to be a ball in the first place. Hermione, apparently the only one with a brain, was wondering what blithering idiot would put a ball in May in the first place.
Right after breakfast was Transfiguration,, which they had with the Slytherins, mainly for dramatic purposes to stir up tension.
As they walked in, Professor McGonagall gave them instructions about what they were doing that day. For reasons unknown to everybody except himself, Draco Malfoy chose to ignore the lesson completely and instead wrote two notes out on two pieces of parchment. One he threw at Ron; the other he tossed to Hermione.
Ron opened his parchment and glared at it, turning bright red and fuming. Hermione, on the other hand, opened her note and, to the bemusement of her two friends, let a small smile slip through her face. She held the note closer to her chest, confusing Harry and Ron even more. If this story had been a cartoon, there would have been question marks appearing over their heads with a boing sound.
After Transfiguration, Hermione went to the library to work on her essay for Defence Against the Dark Arts. In a plot twist that will surprise everybody, she had schoolwork to do in a story that takes place in a school.
Harry and Ron did not want to do their essay, so they disappeared. Where did they go? Who knows - the important thing is that they were conveniently gone.
Hermione sat in the library, copying down notes for her essay. As she sat at one of the tables, Draco Malfoy popped in to sit down at her table.
"So, Granger," he said, smirking, "what did you think of my note?"
"Loved it," Hermione said, grinning back at him. Neither of them bothered to comment on why on earth Malfoy would be at her table, why she wasn't telling him to bugger off, or why she wasn't mad at him for interrupting her work.
"We should definitely go to the ball together, Granger," Malfoy continued. "It doesn't matter that this is the first time I've shown any kind of emotion towards you other than disdain, but we should go together."
"I'd love to!" Hermione exclaimed. "While we're talking about this, let's completely ignore how completely different from my actual personality this is! I would never actually agree to go to a ball with you, and you would never actually have asked me in the first place! Instead, you would throw insults about how I would never find a date."
Malfoy nodded. "I'll see you later, Hermione," he said, getting up from his chair and pushing it in. Why was he calling her by her first name? Again, another mystery that will forever remain unsolved.
At the end of the period, Hermione went back to the common room to get her books for her next class. As she walked in she saw Harry and Ron at the main table playing Exploding Snap.
"Guys, guess what!" she said as she ran up to them. "I have a date to the ball!"
Both boys looked up at her as their game finished. "Who is it?" said Ron suspiciously.
"It's Malfoy," Hermione said.
"What!" Ron exploded. "How could you go with Malfoy! I'm extremely protective over you and you shouldn't go with him! If you do I'm going to treat him like garbage and hurt him, even though that completely goes against my entire character!"
"Ronald!" Hermione scolded. "You're just being unreasonable! Draco's changed, even though I have absolutely no evidence to prove it and he only started treating me like a person half an hour ago!"
"Harry, what do you think?" Ron asked, turning to his friend.
Harry turned bright red. "I - um - I think I need to go to Potions," he said extremely quickly, gathering up his bag and bolting out of the common room.
Hermione turned and watched him go, confused. "We don't even have Potions until Thursday!" she muttered. "Where does he think he's going?"
Ron shrugged and gathered up his own stuff to follow Harry.
By the time the ball arrived, almost everybody had found dates. Professor Dumbledore and the other staff had worked hard to transform the Great Hall into a ballroom perfect for dancing. At the beginning, he stood up in front of everybody and made a speech that, while nice, made it perfectly clear that this ball was nothing more than a cheap plot gimmick thought of to bring Draco and Hermione together instead of writing a slow burn that would actually be realistic.
As Draco led Hermione onto the dance floor, the band began playing a slow song, conveniently in time for them to start slow dancing together.
"Draco," Hermione said as they spun around, "I have something to tell you."
"What is it?" Malfoy asked.
"I'm actually a pureblood," she announced. "I found out this morning. My parents, for some reason, decided to conceal it from me for sixteen years. Isn't that nifty!"
"It means that we can actually start a relationship!" Draco said. "Oh, by the way I have an enormous crush on you even though I've never actually said anything about it or treated you civilly. You should definitely date me. If you don't, my father will hear about this, even though I don't think I actually ever said that line."
Hermione nodded. "We definitely should! I'm just going to forget how horribly you've treated me since we started Hogwarts, even though that doesn't make any sense at all."
As the slow song ended, they walked off the floor and left the ball entirely. Why? They were going to go off to Draco's dorm. Teenage pregnancy. You know, because nobody at Hogwarts knows what contraception is.
Instead, a meteor hit the earth and everyone died. The end.
