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Chapter Text

Draco Malfoy followed Professor Snape along the corridor. He trotted behind the billowing black robes wondering why it never got any easier to trail Snape. No matter how much taller Draco grew, he still had to nearly jog to keep up. Now, in fourth year, Draco was almost as tall as his father, but all the adults close to him seemed to be going even faster than they used to, racing ahead of him, just like Snape, flying headlong into -- something that might be more menacing than a bit of flashy mischief at the Quidditch World Cup.

That night had been something else. It would have been a good time if he hadn’t run into Granger in the trees, standing there like a stupid doe, where anyone could spot her. Bloody Potter, couldn’t he take care of anything? The whole point was for everyone like her to lighten up and back off and stop taking all the very best of everything. No one had to get hurt over it. Why didn’t anyone seem to get that?

Snape spun around so quickly Draco almost kissed him on the lips. “Wait,” he said as Draco recoiled, “here. Be agreeable. Do you un-der-stand?”

“Yes, sir.”

He leaned against the stone wall as Snape sailed away. More strange requests, more alone time with Snape. Never a good sign.

A tall black hat was moving toward him now, Professor McGonagall. “Mr. Malfoy, thank you for meeting us,” she said, though she appeared to have come alone. “We are looking for some help.”

He promised nothing, but followed her into an empty classroom. The desks had been pushed aside, clearing the centre of the room.

“As you know,” she began, “the Yule Ball is coming. The centrepiece of the evening will be a dance by our Tri-wizarding Tournament champions and their chosen partners.”

He nodded. Fine then, whatever this was all about, it couldn’t have much to do with him. Maybe they wanted a truce between himself and Potter, at least until the tournament was over. Boring, but doable. He braced himself.

“Our Durmstrang champion,” McGonagall went on, “has chosen as his partner an exemplary Hogwarts student from my house who is, unfortunately, completely at a loss when it comes to ballroom dancing. Truly enough, it is a dying art, especially among our male students, and so we find ourselves entreating you, Mr. Malfoy, to aid us as a tutor.”

He was both flattered and dismayed. “With respect, professor, is there no one in Gryffindor house who can help?”

He didn’t think it was possible for McGonagall to stand any straighter, but she did. “During an international tournament, Hogwarts houses put differences aside and band together for the honour of the school. And furthermore, the young lady tells me that, for personal reasons, she does not wish her housemates to know she is a champion’s partner at this time.” She turned to speak over her shoulder. “But I am assured she will get ahold of herself and let it be known before long.”

McGonagall faced him again. “What do you say, Mr. Malfoy?”

He shifted from foot to foot. “If it’s all the same to you, professor -- “

“It is not all the same, as a matter of fact,” she said. “Your head of house has not yet disciplined you for a hex cast on the teeth of a Gryffindor student, but the headmaster may still administer discipline beginning with revoking your invitation to the Yule Ball and sending you home. Since the student you hexed required medical attention, the consequences may extend beyond that. It’s completely up to Professor Dumbledore. But he has agreed you may make amends by serving as a dance tutor. Of course, the choice is yours.”

He sighed. Choice his arse. “Right then. I can help.”

She nodded her thanks, turning away from him again, raising her wand and coiling it in a circle, counterclockwise, un-disillusioning the student who had been standing beside her all along.

Granger.

She appeared with her face twisted into a grimace. “Professor, is there no one else?”

“Miss Granger, we have already done you a favour by not simply sending you to the Weasley twins for dance lessons. We will do no more. Besides, the headmaster handpicked Mr. Malfoy, in the hopes that cooperation between two influential students like yourselves may inspire some badly needed school unity. Of course, the choice is yours. Say the word and I will summon the Weasleys.”

“Perhaps I could study dancing on my own -- “

“Out of the question. Not everything is best found in the library, Miss Granger.”

She swallowed hard. “Very well, Professor. I’ll do my best with -- him.”

McGonagall flicked her wand, transfiguring a chair into a machine topped by a large cone, like a bell with no clapper. “You may use this phono-blast to play practice music. Run a wand along this groove to hear the music for the champions’ dance. The standard Epicruvean Waltz, Mr. Malfoy. No need for anything fancy,” she eyed both of them, “or dangerous. Understood?”

They muttered agreement and she swooped out of the room. There was silence for a moment after the door banged shut.

“Krum asked you?” Malfoy spat. “How’d you pull that one off?”

She groaned. “This is exactly why I don’t want anyone to know. Go on, accuse me of lying, or of bewitching him.”

He scoffed. “Don’t flatter yourself that anyone would think you’re powerful enough to bewitch the Durmstrang champion. No one is going to assume that. You might not have realized, but not all the champions are dough-headed as Potter.”

She was scoffing now. “Jealous of the dough-head much, Malfoy?”

It was a weak, childish reply -- perfectly excusable in a fifteen-year-old, and easy enough for Draco to ignore. He turned his back and stormed toward the phono-blast. The sooner they got started, the sooner he could leave.

“And why,” she was calling after him, “why are you the school’s de facto dance tutor?”

“Because I was raised right,” he said. “And it’s not like I asked for it. But it is important, actually. Dancing is a fine art, like any other. And art isn’t optional -- though you wouldn’t know it to look at the curriculum of this bloody school.”

“Raised right?” she echoed. “What is that supposed to mean? My parents put me in dance lessons when I was little.”

He waved his arm across the empty classroom. “Yet here you are, getting teachers to bully people into tutoring you.”

She rolled her eyes. “I was raised right even without being taught this kind of stuffy dancing. I was in ballet.”

He raised both his eyebrows. “Muggles have ballet?”

“Of course they do. Loads of it.” She was proving it now, spewing evidence. “I was five and I had a pink tutu and slippers. We called our teacher Mademoiselle and she wore her hair in a tight bun leaking hairpins everywhere. The night before our recital, Mum put my hair in curlers, to force it into ringlets, just like Shirley Temple. And we did the cutest routine, about all the fish under the sea.”

She started to sing, elbows bent, fingers splayed, hands waving, stepping toward him and the phono-blast in a funny, rhythmic heel-toe walk. “Come along and follow me,” she sang, “to the bottom of the sea. We’ll join in the jamboree, at the codfish ball…”

He gaped, naturally stupefied, coming to his senses to lunge toward her, to catch her and hold her still. “Stop it, Granger. That is not ballet. Not even Muggle ballet.”

She dodged with an abrupt but effective turn on the ball of one foot. “...Lobsters dancing in a row, shuffle off to Buffalo…”

“For the love of the stars, Granger -- stop.”

“You know, you’re right, Malfoy,” she said, stomping her foot before shuffling it and hopping onto the other one. “The fish number was from Mademoiselle’s tap dancing class. It was right after ballet, hard to keep them straight.”

“Tap dancing?” he said, but only to distract her so he could lunge at her again.

“Is there no tap dancing in wizarding Britain?” she said, reversing direction and returning to her song and her jazz hands. “The catfish is a dancing man, but he can’t can-can like the sardine can -- hey!”

He had caught her, both of his arms clamped around her and his hands locked in the small of her back, pinning her arms to her sides. She blinked into his face, straining against him but still talking, “Do you reckon wizards tap dance in America? They must.”

He didn’t answer. It was the first time they’d been in physical contact with each other since she hit him in third year. Maybe that was why his blood surged -- a learned reaction to her touch, something like anger, or at least self-defense. The light through the windows was oblique and dim, hiding the flush of colour in his cheeks.

“Fine, Malfoy, I’ll dance your way,” she said, pushing against him again. “Get off me.”

He unclasped his hands and stood back. “We’re going to have to touch each other, pretty much constantly, in order to do this,” he said. “It can’t be helped. But I need to know I can trust you not to up and hit me again.”

She lifted her chin. “If I can trust you to give me no reason to hit you, then you can trust me.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means,” she said, crossing her arms, widening her stance, “no name-calling. And that extends beyond me to my friends, and to outside of this room as well as inside it.”

“That’s going to have to go both ways then,” he said, standing taller. “No more mentions of ferrets.”

He was standing close enough that she could have reached up and scratched him under his chin, just like a pet ferret. Instead she resisted, nodding. “I can accept those terms.”

He spun away, back to the phono-blast, starting the music. It was light and lilting chamber music set in 3-4 time.

“Now,” he began, speaking louder to be heard over the violins. “Krum obviously doesn’t know you very well, so he will be expecting to lead.”

“Lead,” she repeated.

“Yes, lead, Granger,” he said, snatching her right hand in his left, pressing his right hand against her waist. He didn’t have to tell her to put her free hand on his shoulder. Honestly, couldn’t they have found someone shorter for her? “Leading means you move where this hand,” he tapped his palm against her flank, “steers you. And -- this is important -- to start, you walk backwards, he walks forward.”

“What? Why?” she said, pulling her hand out of his.

He shook his head. “I don’t make the rules here. Neither do you. This is traditional, just how it works. If you try to take over, you’re going to tread on his feet.”

“Fine, fine,” she said, taking his hand again. “All I want is to get through this without embarrassing Viktor, or the school. Backwards it is.”

The Epicruvean Waltz, though standard in wizard ballroom dance, is not danced in the Muggle world. This is probably because it is worse in every way -- faster, more complicated, needlessly ornate. The first step to learning it is the same as learning a Muggle waltz, a simple box step. And all Muggles can box step...

“You can’t do it?” Malfoy raved when Hermione admitted she couldn’t. He sighed hard enough to stir the hair on her crown with his breath. “Right, so we’re going even more basic. Granger, do tell me you can count to three.”

She nodded. “Like a house on fire.”

“Right. On a count of one, I step forward with my left foot while you step back -- no, back.” Their chests crashed together. “Step back with your right -- not yet, wait for me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m leading.”

“Then lead, already…”

They stomped and squabbled for the rest of the hour, the music looping and looping, their voices chanting “1-2-3, 1-2-3…”, their jumpers tossed on the floor in a pile, their hands growing hot against each other’s shirts. She stopped to rub her palms against her skirt. He stretched his arms and rolled his shoulders, kneading his neck. Between McGonagall’s threats and his body’s lingering stress reaction to Granger, the tension was exhausting.

“I swear you get worse the longer we go on,” he said.

“How inspirational,” she snapped. “Did you learn your teaching manners from Snape?”

“There is no way Snape would put up with this. He’d have you sat somewhere by yourself writing metres of parchment with ‘I will not be a clumsy, overbearing, toe-stomping --’”

“Oh, give over, Malfoy.”

“Honestly, I’m going to have to send home for a pair of steel-toed boots at this rate,” he said. “What are you wearing on your feet right now, anyways? Breeze blocks?”

She pointed her toe between them, showing him her shiny black school loafers. “Just my uniform shoes.”

He scoffed. “You should be practicing in the shoes you’ll be dancing in.”

“Well, they’re not here yet, are they,” she answered. “Mum put them in the post yesterday. They should get here by Christmas Eve.”

He frowned. “That long?”

“From London to the highlands by Royal Mail? Of course that long.”

Draco sneered. “Unacceptable. I’ll send home to have something owled here for you to practice in by tomorrow morning. There’s no point in you doing anymore clomping around in those.”

The phono-blast wound down, the music wavering to a stop. Malfoy twitched. “Time’s up,” he chirped, and fled the room.

-------------------------------------------

They were back the next afternoon. The goal for the day was to be able to do the box step without counting out loud and with Hermione’s head held high, not staring at their feet.

“Look up -- up,” he said. “No, not at the ceiling.”

“At what then? At the knot of your tie?”

“Only if you plan on spending the night staring Krum in the throat,” he said. “Dancing isn’t just a physical maneuvre. It’s a social exchange, an opportunity. Don’t make it weird. Practice looking at my face, like normal people would do.”

She tried it, raising her chin, tracking her eyes up his neck, over his chin and mouth, his nose, and into his eyes. It was impossible. They hadn’t been eye-to-eye a full second before she broke away, laughing. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Yes, aren’t you always,” he answered, toes still smarting.

“Does it hurt any less when I tread on you in these pretty shoes?” She looked down on purpose this time, peeking at the shoes Madam Malfoy had sent for an anonymous (and completely fictitious) female Slytherin student her noble Draco was helping out of the kindness of his heart. “Are they charmed to never harm the Malfoy heirs?”

Enchanted or not, the shoes were beautiful, heels just high enough to be interesting, light leather soles for gliding and turning, and their uppers formed from a clear material with the shine and lustre of glass but somehow comfortable and form-fitting on the inside. Malfoy was sure to tell her that the clear uppers would make the shoes easier to clean thoroughly once she returned them. The Malfoy family had never heard the Muggle fairy tale of Cinderella and didn’t realize they had lent a Muggle-born girl a pair of princess shoes. Hermione certainly wasn’t going to say anything to ruin it.

Draco flexed his toes inside his own sleek, shiny dress shoes. She had improved since yesterday. But he couldn’t tell her that. “Still hurts,” he said. “I started off annoyed that you weren’t taller but at the rate you keep walking on me, I’m glad you’re not any bigger.”

Dammit -- too much like a compliment.

He coughed, returning to the subject of where she should look. “Right, so if you’re too immature to maintain eye-contact, try looking over my shoulder instead,” he said. “Krum might prefer you coy, anyways. Wait -- ouch -- Granger, you’ve lost the beat, 1-2-3…”

Eventually, his counting trailed off. “Listen, Granger, if you make it to the end of the song without any incidents, I am prepared to declare you a competent box-stepper,” he announced.

She nodded, her eyes trained above his shoulder, not breaking her concentration to speak until the song ended. As the music began to loop again, she let go of him, raising her arms in the air and cheering. “I did it! I’m ready for the Yule Ball!”

“That’s what you’re not,” he answered, drying the palms of his hands on his trousers. “You have the basic step and now you're ready to move on to the rest of the Epicruvean waltz.”

She groaned. “There's more? No, Malfoy, not today. We did so well already. Can we leave it on a good note? I've got other work to do.”

He gestured toward the phono-blast with his head. “You can try to go, but I don’t think the door will open until the music runs out its hour.”

She sighed. “Can we at least sit down while it plays out. You’re extra sweaty today and I’d rather not be mashed against you anymore.”

“Sit down and shut it, Granger.”

They sat on the cool stone floor. She was right. He was sweating far too much today, still tense to be touching her. She didn't seem bothered by him, sitting next to him, digging through her school bag as if he wasn't there anymore. He rolled his eyes and folded his jumper into a pillow, stretching out on his back. The floor was cool through the cotton of his shirt and he felt his nerves calming. Was something animal and instinctive in him still afraid she'd hit him, or was there something else making him his blood rush all through these lessons. Maybe it was just the fear of having his feet stepped on. Whatever it was, he'd better get used to her soon so it could stop. He glanced at her where she sat over her book. Maybe he should try talking to her, the way he might talk to a friend -- someone who didn't beat him in every class and then publicly accuse him of bribing his way onto the quidditch team.

He was still trying to think of something normal to say to her when she spoke to him, “I’ve been wondering, Malfoy. What do you know about ballet? Why so offended when I mistook my tap dancing routine for ballet?”

He blinked at the ceiling. “Why do think? Because ballet has been part of my dance education too.”

She yelled a laugh. “I knew it. You dance ballet.”

There was no making fun of him when he admitted it so freely. He smoothed his hair as he owned it. “Yes, when I was younger, when we summered in France every year, I did ballet with all of my cousins. Father was forced to learn it as a child too, so he assumed I must hate it like he did, and he quit on my behalf as soon as my great-grandmother would let us. I didn’t mind it though. The sense of timing and the flexibility are useful in quidditch.”

“Can you still do it?” she pressed.

He shrugged against the floor. “I’ve kept up a few of the moves, yeah.”

"Show me."

"No."

"Show me! Do a -- a pirouette.”

He laughed. "Haven't tried in years."

"Probably fall flat on your face, yeah?"

"Please, Granger, I'm not that easily manipulated. You can’t goad me into it like that."

She shoved his arm where he lay beside her. "Sure, I can, Malfoy. Get up and do it."

He glanced at his watch. "Oh, go on then."

She sat up on her knees as he stood and walked to the centre of the room.

"Don't expect too much," he said.

"From you, Malfoy? Never."

He shook out his hands, considered his feet, repositioned them, extended his arms, and looked up one more time to see she was watching. Then he pushed off, rising onto the ball of one foot, spinning with the momentum of his arms, shoulders, hips, even his head. He went 'round once, twice and again before he dropped to the flats of his feet, catching himself with a step to keep from falling over.

Hermione was cheering, clapping her hands. "Malfoy! That is by far the coolest thing you have ever done."

He clicked his heels together and took a bow.

Chapter Text

On the third day, the tempo of the steps doubled, and between steps they had to switch their hold from one side to the other.

“Who decided this is at all elegant? This is awful," Hermione said, grappling with Draco's hand just to have to let it go again. At least it was drier today.

"It's a traditional dance. No one decided. It just -- is what it is. Oh, and here's the spin.” He pulled her closer all at once, turning her with him in a circle, the pleats of her school skirt fanning out behind her.

The sudden spinning dizzied her head and left her cringing against his chest. "A bit more warning would've been nice," she said as she caught her breath.

He grinned and gave her no warning at all as he put both of his hands under her arms and lifted her straight up, taller than his head. She screeched and listed forward, scrabbling to brace her hands on his shoulders, knocking Draco down in the scuffle. He landed hard on his back beneath their combined weight, coughing and groaning, but also laughing.

"Serves you right!" she said, her face still against his neck now as she disentangled their limbs, sitting up as fast as she could.

He rolled onto his side, rubbing one elbow, still laughing. "The lift is part of the dance. It can't be helped."

She batted his arm. "Honestly, Malfoy, what is the matter with you?"

He fought to speak through his laughter. "Granger, that scream. That was perfect. I've been trying to get you to wail like that since first year."

She hit him again. "Well, nicely done you -- you -- ”

He stopped laughing, rising to sit, pointing a finger into her face. “Now, no name-calling. Remember the terms of our agreement. And I'm sorry but the lift truly is part of the Epicruvean waltz. A brilliant part, I might add. Very informative. What do you weigh, Granger? About eight stone?”

She let out a strangled yell. “I am not doing that in front of everyone with a man I hardly know. It’s ticklish and embarrassing all at the same time.”

Draco leaned back on the palms of his hands. “Great. Call McGonagall and tell her we’re done. Then go dump Krum and try to find yourself a new partner.”

She sighed. “Fine, I’ll give the lift another go. But count us in properly next time or, so help me Malfoy, I'll beat you on the goose-egg you must have on the back of your head by now.”

At the mention of it he felt gingerly at the back of his skull, hissing and swearing as he found the lump. “Is it bleeding?" he asked, turning so she could check.

She couldn’t find it without combing through his hair with her fingers, an awkward but not unpleasant task. "No, not bleeding, unfortunately," she reported, dismissing him with a tousling of the silky white hair on top of his head. "But I assume you'll want the hospital wing anyway. Always enjoyed a good injury drama, didn't you Malfoy?"

"Not when we're locked in here for the next hour," he said, trying to smooth his hair back into place.

She was marching toward the window. "McGonagall's a teacher, not a jailer. I'm sure she won't mind if we knock off early for a trumped-up medical emergency. There’s her office window. If I signal from here -- “

“Don‘t bother,” he said. “I don't want the hospital. Let's just finish up for today.”

She sighed. “Well, if you're sure. But take a minute before we start again. And no more lifting today. We’ll still have time to work on it tomorrow.” She came back to sit where they'd fallen on the classroom floor.

“So what else don't you know about the Yule Ball?” he asked.

“How can I possibly answer that, Malfoy?"

"Well, do you have something formal to wear?” He eyed her school clothing as if there was something inferior about it. “Something suitable?"

"Of course," she answered, leaning forward to flick one last stray lock of his hair back into place. "I mean, I assume so. I haven't seen it yet. But Mum’s posted me something."

"With the shoes?"

"With the shoes."

He shifted where he sat. “My mother has loads of gowns, you know. She's famous for it. Seldom wears them more than once. I could have something sent from the manor for you, in case your Royal Mail doesn’t arrive in time.”

She nearly smiled. “Thank you, but I really don’t think that’s necessary. The offer is, however, very -- what would you call that, Malfoy -- kind? Is that kindness? Or is this all some crafty Malfoy way of transmitting a curse?”

He smirked. “When it comes to making a show of yourself at this ball, you don’t need any further cursing. No, I mean the offer as a simple investment. After all this time and suffering, I’m a bit invested in your grand appearance with Krum not being a disaster. Think, Granger, if you were to make a mess of it and then people found out I had anything to do with it -- I can’t let you do that to my good name.”

She rolled her eyes and got to her feet.

He extended his hand. "Help me up. Slowly. I agree, no more lifting today. But I'm sure we can make do with practicing the switching and spinning until I vomit."

“Which will be justice for Ron Weasley for the second year slug incident,” she said as she hefted him to his feet.

He swore. “Enough about Weasley. I'm sick already."

—--------------

The fourth day of dance lessons was the first day of Christmas holidays, and the first time Draco got to the room before Hermione. As soon as she crossed the threshold, he was in front of her, even closer than when they danced, and angrier than ever.

"What was that? What did you call me out there? Not just a ferret, but twitchy and little? You broke the terms,” he said through his teeth.

She backed up, flattening against the locked door. “Yes, I suppose I did,” she snapped. “But not until after you started it.”

He came into the space she'd vacated, close again, loud. “I started it?”

“Yes!" she said, holding her ground, shouting over him. "You called me a long-molared Mudblood. Everyone heard you.”

“I -- I did not.”

“Yes, you did.”

He held his head in both hands and turned in a circle. “Well, I didn’t mean to. I just heard Weasley badgering you to tell him who your date to the ball was, and I know you hate that, so I moved to distract him, and then I just -- old habits took over, or something. But I went in trying to help. And then you turned around and pretended Moody was closing in to assault me with another unauthorized ferret transfiguration and you made a complete arse out of me.”

She scoffed. “No, Malfoy, you are not going to stand here and tell me that awful name-calling was you innocently fumbling being a gentleman. Try that on someone else. I have been here, in this room with you, for an hour every day this week, being lectured by you on genteel manners. You know how to behave, but you choose to misbehave instead. At this point, there is no way you can tell me you made the molar comment purely by accident.”

He clenched his eyes closed. “But I am telling you the truth.”

She shook her head. “No, no you're not. And it actually breaks my heart a little -- ”

He yelled a laugh, interrupting, sarcastic. “Yes, you seemed properly heart-broken, quipping on in front of your fawning boyfriends about Moody and ferrets without missing a beat. Such a quick wit. So superior -- Hermione Granger, not bothered at all.”

She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “ -- because I was beginning to think we might be friends. That's what it was like for me, anyway. I haven't hated being here all week, even though it's been with you. And I thought that even if you could never consider me a friend, at least you could get over actually wishing harm on me -- “

He tossed his head, incredulous. “I have never wanted you harmed. That word -- the name I called you -- it’s just stupid politics, empty talk like between opposing teams at a quidditch match. It's not real. I’m not a monster.”

She was gasping for breath. “Oh, it's real enough. And maybe you‘re not a monster yet, Malfoy, but how about a snake? You, commanding such smooth manners for some people but not able to stop yourself from casually hurling slurs at me.” She paused, her chest heaving. “Now you’re here making excuses, but you’re not sorry at all.”

“I am!” he burst.

“No you’re not, I’m just filthy and worthless to you. That will never change and I don't know how I let myself forgot so quickly."

“Granger,” he growled, one hand against the door, beside her head, “would I be in here, with my hands all over you every afternoon, if I took that ‘mud’ talk seriously? Would I spend my evenings knowing everyone can smell you on my clothes and just feel proud of it, smugly refusing to tell anyone who it is, definitely not rushing back disgusted to change into a clean shirt?" His voice was low but still tense, suffering. "No, if I really believed you were filthy, I wouldn’t be here, I’d be at home right now, having Christmas with my family, accepting my punishment for hexing you like a badge of honour, listening to my parents and their creepy friends congratulating me on upholding their principles.”

She was speechless, half-collapsed against the door.

He dropped his hand from the door. “Look, I am sorry. You’re right. I do treat you differently than other people. My manners slip and I’m all instinct with you -- my very worst, most basic instincts. I don’t know why, but I don’t feel like it’s all about you being close to Potter. It’s about you, not him. Maybe because you literally hit me in the face -- I don’t know. I’m tense and wrong all the time when you’re close to me.”

He took a step back, unnerved by her uncharacteristic silence, not realizing it was all that was keeping her from crying. Still, he was unable to stop talking himself. "And I'm glad I hexed your teeth. They're pretty now. I'll apologize for a lot, but not for that.”

He left her standing against the door, turning to walk toward the phono-blast as she reeled with the onslaught of words and feelings. Hermione had noticed it too -- his scent clinging to her clothes after their lessons. And she had never rushed back to her room to change either.

She gulped back the knot of emotion in her throat. “Since we’ve both broken the terms, should we just quit? Maybe no one will notice if Viktor doesn’t lift me. I’ve got the rest of the dance down well enough.”

Draco tugged his jumper up over his head, dropping it on the floor, rolling up his sleeves, as he always did, baring long white clean arms. “We can't quit today anyway. The door is enchanted shut until the music runs for an hour. Remember?”

He wasn’t looking at her, but she nodded anyway. “Of course. Then we may as well begin.”

The music came on, clear and different, slow and pleading. The song was familiar to Hermione, Bach’s air “On the G String,” music so old and beautiful it was a bit of a cliche in the Muggle world. Maybe wizards didn’t know that. Draco smirked at the sound. "Stupid enchanted machine can tell we're fighting. McGonagall must have left its ambient empathy meters engaged."

Hermione left off slouching against the door. She planted her hands on her hips. "What are you saying? Its magic wants us to dance and make up?"

He caught her by the hand, walking her backward into the centre of the floor as he pulled her into a dance hold, one as different from what they had been practicing all week as the tone of today's music was different from the champions' waltz. Instead of their usual springlike tautness, his arms were bent, heavy at the elbows, bringing her close. Instead of pressing their palms together, he clasped his fingers around hers and held her hand between them, resting on his sternum. His heart beat against her knuckles. She hadn’t changed out of her jumper or school shoes yet and in the low heels, she was short enough that the position invited her to rest her head against his chest. She couldn’t let herself do it.

"As I said, I am sorry," he told her over the weeping strings of the music.

She sniffed. "Are you? Sorry means you won't ever do it again."

"What do you want, Granger?" he asked. "What can I say so we can go back to how it was yesterday? So we can finish the lessons and -- go?”

She honestly did not know. She shook her head. She would overthink it all later, but she would answer him for now with, “You and me -- we don’t need a long-term solution. Just come back tomorrow and act like nothing happened. It's the best we can do.”

He couldn’t hold her much closer but he could hold her tighter, and he did as he turned her with him across the floor. She still wasn't used to these changes in pressure, the sudden motion, and she pressed her face into him, sucked her breath in, her eyes shutting as she heard him say, “We can do that.” His voice was close, as if he‘d bent his head toward hers. Her pulse quickened in her throat, and she looked up to see what he wanted now.

It was then that the fireplace at the far end of the classroom flashed green and Professor McGonagall stepped through the Floo.

They sprang apart.

“Miss Granger!" she was calling. "Are you alright, my dear? It took me a moment to notice the peacemaking music had come on. The two of you haven’t been fighting, have you?"

"Just arguing," Hermione said. "A schoolyard squabble, as usual. You needn’t trouble yourself with it, Professor."

McGonagall beat the soot from her heavy skirts. The music was changing, the phono-blast bending the Bach back into the champions’ waltz again. McGonagall crossed the floor to survey their splotchy pink faces. “Be that as it may, I say you call it a day,” she ruled. “Each of you go back to your houses, rest, calm yourselves, meditate on your pride in the school, and work doubly hard tomorrow.”

—----------

That evening, Hermione stood over the sink in her dorm room’s lavatory, elbow to elbow with Lavender and Parvati as they each cleaned their teeth. Lavender spat out her mouthful of suds first, straightening up and turning to sniff in Hermione's direction.

"Oh, I see," Lavender said. "That's why you've got your jumper on over your pajamas. It smells like boy. Good on ya, Granger."

Hermione spat. "Hardly surprising, considering the company I keep," she said, not lying in the least. “And it’s December. Don’t you find it cold in here?"

Parvati spat into the sink herself, grabbing a handful of the jumper and holding it to her own nose. "It's not Harry. McGonagall's had me practicing dancing with Harry all week so we don’t humiliate the school at the ball, and that's not him. Harry’s smell is more like -- fluffy cute but panicked animal."

Lavender stood in front of the door, keeping Hermione from leaving, sniffing her again. “It‘s not Ron Weasley either. His smell is more like -- sweets.”

Parvati elbowed her. “How would you know?"

"I just do, alright?"

As they needled each other, Hermione ducked past them and out of the lavatory, but they hadn't given up the chase.

"Are we to assume you picked up boy-smell practicing for the ball with your date?" Lavender said.

"If she is, then you owe me a shekel, Lav. I told you Hermione's secret dance partner was real."

Lavender was shaking her head. "Could still be nothing but a bottle of cologne." She sniffed Hermione again. "Expensive cologne. Definitely not food. Maybe a bit animal though."

"Oh, really?" said Parvati. "Would a bottle of cologne, no matter how expensive, have sent this?" She threw back her bed curtains to expose a large box wrapped in vellum paper. "Sorry Hermione. I stashed it here so you'd have to open it in front of us."

"Well done, you daft thing," Hermione told her. "This will be the package from my mum with my ball gown and shoes, finally."

Parvati batted her eyelashes. "Well, in that case there’s no harm in you opening it right here, right now."

Hermione squared her shoulders but obeyed anyway. Things would just get worse if she didn't. But the dress inside the box was not the one her mum had bought at Debenhams. It was like no dress Hermione had ever seen before, silky periwinkle blue like an early morning sky, beaded with tiny crystals. It was as light as nothing, like an optical illusion, when she held it in her hand.

Her roommates gasped. "That is not a Muggle dress," said Lavender. "That is definitely from your mystery date -- your stinking rich mystery date.”

Parvati elbowed her again. “Hey, one of the few things we’ve established is that he doesn't stink.”

Lavender snapped her fingers. “It’s Theodore Nott, from Slytherin.”

“No, it isn't Nott," Parvati was saying, sounding strangely territorial. "It's got to be one of the Beauxbatons boys. This gown is in a French style. Come on, Hermione. Give it up.”

But she wouldn't. She rolled Madam Malfoy’s dressed into her trunk, drew her bed curtains, and buried her face in the jumper she still wore. Its scent was indeed that of a nice cologne, but for her, stronger than the designer smell was that animal Lavender had sensed -- the one full of instincts that fought against what he believed, what he thought he knew until he was alone with her. The animal smell had transferred to her clothing from Malfoy's hands and arms, his chest and abdomen when he had held her so close today. It wasn't a sweaty body odour, but something more like a pheromone. This was chemistry, a science from her parents' Muggle world, one that overlapped with magic. Whatever it was, it spoke directly to her feelings -- her raucous, confused feelings.

No more feelings. It was time to THINK.

No one she knew was as good at thinking as she was. Even when the subject was something as stupid and pointless and passing as dance lessons with Malfoy, she should be able to think through it. And she was thinking, about his hand curled around hers, pressed against his chest, feeling the racing thud of his heart as he asked her forgiveness, with his voice, not haughty and mocking, but low and pained at hurting her -- at hurting them.

Them -- what was that? The two of them holding onto each other in that room, spinning together like a single planet, uninhabitable by anyone else. Oh, he was awful, a planet with a toxic atmosphere, acid rain, too cold in the daytime, too hot at night, nothing to nourish her, no future, but she was there anyway.

If McGonagall hadn't arrived when she did...

Oh, but it was good that she did. Of course, her friends hated him. But even that thought was getting ahead of herself. The fact had always been that she hated him herself, and with excellent reason. But who cares who you like when you’re only fifteen? All adults shake their heads and tut at the feelings of people her age. It’s just that, if anything ever really happened between herself and Draco, all those adults would be right. It could never be more than a gloriously messy waste of time and angst. Especially, since he hated her too, and on principle -- a vile, wicked principle.

What was it he’d said to her, right before he did the pirouette?

“Don’t expect too much, Granger.”

And she had answered. “From you, Malfoy? Never.”

There it was. She’d done it. She’d thought the whole thing through -- miserably clever girl. Beneath her bed linens, she found the hem of her jumper, dragged it over her head, filled her face with its smell one last time, and dropped it outside her curtains, onto the floor.

—-----------

The fifth day was quiet. Hermione held on to Draco with a stiffness she hoped seemed serious and formal, unrecognizable as the suffering it actually was. It made him unnaturally clumsy, tripping over her feet on the spins. Halfway through the hour, he still hadn’t tried to lift her.

“Stop avoiding it,” she said, startling him a little with the sudden sound of speech over the music. “We’ll never be done until we work on the lift.”

“We’ll get to it,” he said. “I’m just waiting for you to loosen up. You’re moving like you’ve been petrified again. Feels like I’m waltzing a doll around an empty room.”

She flexed her fingers, rolled her shoulders. “There. What do I do?”

"Granger, it's not that simple. You need to trust me. I need to be able to trust you -- "

She scoffed. "No, I am not to be trusted."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Just talk me through the lift, Malfoy," she said.

He clenched his jaw, as if he wanted to say something, but wasn't sure what. “Fine, pay attention," he said.

She nodded.

"By which I mean," he said, two fingers on the bottom of her chin, tipping her head upward, "look at me. Now, when I let go of your hand -- Granger, look at me."

"I don't want to look at you," she said, her face turned away from him. "I'm listening all the same. Go on."

He sighed, giving in. "When I let go of your hand, bring both of yours to my shoulders to hold yourself, and spring up, from your knees. I’ll do the rest. I have to hold you under your arms, but don’t panic. Ready? On three…”

There was no panicking, but very little of anything else either as she bobbed straight up and then down between his hands, as if she was trying to see over a high fence. Bossing her was no good so he decided to approach the problem diplomatically, with the dance babble his teachers used to use. “You’re doing a good job of keeping your muscles active, but I need you to let your body yield a bit, to have a bit of flight.”

“I hate flying.” Her voice was fast but flat.

His hands closed over her stiff, rigid shoulders. “If you’re always this tense when you’re flying, I can imagine why.”

Beneath his hands, she shrugged but didn’t even try to clap back at him.

He sighed again. “Come on, Granger. You said you'd let it go."

"Let what go? There's nothing to let go."

"Right then. What's your usual trick for when you need to relax? There’s no time for us to organize getting you drunk.” He smirked, waiting for her to laugh or scold him or -- anything.

She tossed her head. “I don’t drink and I don’t relax. That’s how I get so much done.”

He took her hands. “Granger -- help us out. Think about -- I don’t know -- your childhood. How did your parents handle you if you never relaxed? You can’t have been this tense every waking second or you would have made them insane.”

She withdrew her hands from his. “My parents appreciate my ability to engage and to focus. But Mum did have a trick she’d use when she needed to reset me so I’d calm down in public.” The memory made her smile, the first smile of hers he’d seen all day. She tapped her finger against her face. Then she jumped back into her tension, hurrying to finish with, “But it won’t work for us.”

“Suit yourself,” he said. “But out of curiosity, what was it? You seem like you’re loosening up just thinking about it.”

She gave a small laugh, through just her nose. “Mum would kiss me on the cheek. That’s it. I’d laugh and melt and everything would be fine.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, now that you’ve enjoyed reminiscing about it, let’s try the lift.”

She nodded, but as soon as he took her hand and nestled his palm into the curve of her waist, as soon as the chemistry began to snap and fume, her arms and legs stiffened . “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m trying, Malfoy. I’m trying to think about the school and about Viktor and how disappointed he’ll be and -- “

She should have seen it coming. Maybe she did. She should have known Malfoy would now have to kiss her. And he had kissed her, quickly, chastely, but not on the cheek. Draco Malfoy had kissed her full on the mouth.

She choked out a quiet scream. “What did you do?”

“I did -- the thing. Your mum’s thing. That’s why you brought it up, wasn’t it? Because you wished I'd do it?”

She punched his arm hard enough for him to yelp. “On the cheek, Malfoy. I distinctly told you she kissed me on the cheek! Who kisses their kids on the mouth?”

“I don't know. I don't have any kids. Why are you freaking out?”

She yelled again. “My first kiss! You took my first kiss. I kept it safe this long and then you -- just -- took -- it!” She slapped at his chest and arms with each syllable. “It’s gone now and I can never get it back and it belongs to you, forever! Of all the people I could have -- “

“All the people -- like who? Like Krum?” Draco said, catching her wrists to stop the hitting. “Was that kiss supposed to be for Krum?”

She yelled a very unhappy laugh into his face. “Oh, so my first kiss isn’t even about me. It’s about you having one over on top tier seeker, Viktor Krum.” She was twisting her wrists in his grip. “Next time you want to get in a pissing match with an international quidditch star, leave me out of it!”

“Right,” he said, flipping her around so her back was braced against his chest, still holding her wrists crossed in front of her, panting over her shoulder, into her ear. “I give it back, alright? That stupid little peck of a kiss -- I give it back to you. It doesn’t count. It never happened. Your first kiss is yours again. I didn’t take it.”

“It is not yours to take or to give,” she said. “You can’t give it back to me. Only I can take it back from you.” She craned her neck to where his face hung over her shoulder, found his bottom lip and nipped it between both of her own lips. He gasped and stooped closer to her, filling her with a kiss in return, taking control, more experienced, more restrained as she flung herself into him. He let go of her wrists, holding her by the shoulders, guiding as she spun around to face him properly, neither of them breaking the contact between their mouths, as if each of them knew this might only happen once, and it had to last.

Because it was a bad idea -- terrible, and perfect. He held her face to his, plunging his hands into the hair at her temples, tilting her head to show her how to best fit into him. This, now, was indeed her first kiss, but so deep. And though she was new to it, all the dancing had made their bodies familiar, a blend of comfortable but also dangerously starved for each other. He left his hands in her hair, as if it was a protective net that kept him from touching her in the few places left that would still be new to him. Gentleman, son, at long last be a gentleman. She was more naive, less disciplined, dragging her hands up and down his lean back, over his chest and shoulders, into his hair, as if driven to touch all of him -- at least, from the waist up -- all at once.

But she was also first to notice that the music on the phono-blast had begun to change. She spoke into his mouth, “Mm-the music. It played making up music yesterday. What if this is its making out music?”

He laughed against her lips.

“I’m serious. What if the change brings McGonagall running through the Floo again?”

He stopped, smoothing her hair, drawing back but leaning his forehead against hers, brushing their noses together. “We should be working on the lift anyway. Tomorrow,” he swallowed. “Tomorrow is the last day.”

Chapter Text

Hermione arrived in her room to find another parcel, this one crushed on one side, its brown paper torn, its front stamped by the Royal Mail and marked with her mother’s unmistakable rushed handwriting. Parvati hadn’t bothered to intercept this one. Inside the box was her true Yule Ball gown. In was three kinds of pink, satiny in the bodice, and layered to the floor in shaggy ruffles. The shoes at the bottom of the box were pink too, the darkest shade from the skirt, with high-heels pointy enough to have been responsible for ripping the paper wrapping. They arrived a day earlier than expected, in enough time for her to practice dancing in them during tomorrow’s lesson, the final one. She hung the gown in her wardrobe, glancing a little wistfully at her trunk as she stepped past it.

Parvati and Lavender were standing over the sink, experimenting with fancy up-dos in the mirror, pins and long strands shed all over the floor. Lavender spun around to face her, almost forgetting Parvati’s long, thick hair still coiled around her fingers. “You’ve come back,” she said. “Good ‘cause -- blimey, Hermione, what’s happened?”

Parvati turned to look too. “Your hair -- even for you it’s a bit, um...”

They parted to let Hermione see herself in the glass. What had Malfoy done to her hair? How could he have let her leave the room with it all pulled and twisted into this kind of mess. She ducked out of the mirror, battling her hair back into place as she rushed to find a book to hide behind.

“Been at the library all day, have you Hermione?” Lavender sang.

“Us too,” Parvati said before she could answer, moving to her desk. “Yes, you’re not the only one who can do research, Hermione. And even if we didn’t find you at the library, we did flip through two whole years of Witch Weekly back issues before we finally found this.”

She slapped an open magazine next to where Hermione sat on her bed pretending to read. There on the glossy, full-colour page stood a woman wearing a dress exactly like the one rumpled in Hermione’s trunk at that moment. She stood with one hand on the shoulder of a very serious man with a set of flashing silver shears dangling lazily in his long, brown hands. He was a French celebrity dressmaker, and the woman standing over him with her gleaming blond hair and a gown the caption described as the only one of its kind, was the wealthy patron who had discovered him and made him famous. Her name was Narcissa Black Malfoy.

“So the secret identity of your mystery date is solved,” Lavender grinned. “Draco Malfoy! I’ll admit you surprised us, Hermione. We don’t see how it's going to come off as anything but betrayal once Harry sees the two of you together.”

The girls were both snickering as Hermione flicked the magazine closed. “He won’t see us together because Malfoy is not my date. Obviously the dress was one of a kind when this photograph was taken two years ago, but it must not be anymore.”

“Oh, please,” said Parvati. “Far as we’re concerned, your date is Malfoy until you prove otherwise.”

Lavender folded her arms in solidarity.

“It is not Malfoy and that’s the last I’ll say about it.”

Parvati smiled and linked her arm through Lavender's. “Have it your own way, Hermione. I’ll try not to mention my Malfoy theory to Harry during our last dance lesson with McGonagall tomorrow.”

She expected to be pleaded with not to talk to Harry about it, but instead Hermione raised one eyebrow and asked, “McGonagall stays with you the entire hour you’re with Harry?”

Parvati blinked. “Who else is going to teach us the flaming Epicruvean waltz? We can’t very well teach each other.”

“Who cares?” Lavender cut in.

“Yeah, who?” Parvati resumed. “Do you not care if I ask Harry what he thinks about you dressing up as Madam Malfoy and strutting around with Draco in front of the whole school?”

“I am not going with Malfoy. Listen to yourselves, if this ball nonsense was a Cinderella story, you know which characters you'd be right now, don't you?”

The girls raised on wizard fairy tales just shrugged.

Hermione had been nearly shouting. But why? There were only two days until the Yule Ball, and based on the way all the Durmstrang boys had taken to bowing slightly every time one of them passed her, Viktor wasn’t keeping the identity of his date undisclosed among his friends. And he didn’t wait for something big like the need to keep a secret snog with his best friend’s loathed enemy hidden before he told them either.

She looked from Parvati to Lavender and back to Parvati. “Fine, if the pair of you will promise not to tell anyone else -- least of all Harry and Ron-- I’ll tell you who my real date for the ball is.”

Parvati rolled her eyes dramatically enough to bend her body sideways at the waist. “Right. We promise not to tell.”

“My partner is Viktor.”

They both frowned. “Victor who?” Parvati asked.

“Krum -- it’s Viktor Krum.”

“No it’s not.”

They went back and forth for nearly two minutes before Hermione convinced them to even consider the possibility of Krum taking her to the ball. She knew she was getting through to them when Lavender started to muse on how to fix Hermione’s hair for it.

“Sleekeazy’s,” she said. “It’s your only hope. We’ll help.”

They had been sitting in front of the mirror for nearly an hour, testing the effects of Sleekeazy on Hermione’s hair, when Lavender twisted a ringlet along the side of Hermione’s neck, curving into the hollow of her throat, and said, “Leave this bit of hair trailing down, in case he wants to kiss your neck and leaves a mark. Then you can use a little hair to hide it from the teachers. Can you imagine, Parvati? Your first kiss being with someone famous?”

Parvati huffed. “Harry’s famous.”

“Yeah, but for being a baby, not for being a big, strong world-class athlete.”

“Didn’t realize you were a Bulgaria fan, Lav,” Parvati said.

“Wait,” Hermione said. “How does kissing come into this? Are you going to try to kiss Harry at the ball, Parvati? Because you should know -- “

“No, of course not. He’s just a laugh -- and not much of one, frankly,” she sighed. “But if I did fancy him, the Yule Ball would be the night. You wait, Granger. The ball is going to be a complete snog-fest, and if Krum is as keen as you make it sound, you’ll be caught up in it. They're going to have the courtyard lit all dim and romantic. That‘ll be where it happens, in private. Just don't forget to watch out for Snape.”

Lavender squealed and hugged Hermione’s arm. “Lucky girl! And Viktor won’t be some sloppy little boy slobbering and slurping all over you. He’s older and he’s been all around the world.”

Hermione was wriggling out of Lavender’s grip. “When did I say Viktor was keen? And he is taking me in the interest of fostering inter-school friendship, nothing more,” she finished as primly as she could with her heart hammering in her throat.

It had to be true. Viktor wasn’t keen and he was a friend -- hardly even a friend. She couldn’t kiss him. Maybe not ever, but especially not since the last snog-fest she’d been caught up in. What about Malfoy, anyway? Was he going to be skulking around the courtyard kissing Pansy Parkinson? He’d already told her Pansy was his partner for the night. Partner in dancing, but what about the rest?

“Look at her blushing!” Lavender squealed again. “Friends my Aunt Funicula.”

-------------------------------------

With her hair successfully slicked down and tied up in its experimental hairdo, and her nerves raw from her roommates' speculation on her chances of snogging Viktor Krum, Hermione left the dormitory for the library. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, so after Madam Pince locked the doors later that night, the library wouldn't be open again until after Boxing Day. The deprivation would be awful. She needed a book-fix to tide her over.

The stacks and tables and armchairs were all nearly deserted, which meant she was even more annoyed than usual when the only other people in the library sat at a table on the opposite side of the bookcase at her back, and carried on a conversation as loudly as if they had the whole place to themselves.

"She deserves an explanation."

"Why? She's not my girlfriend."

"Not right now but -- come on. You're taking her to the ball, and all. She's been knocking herself out to look good for it too. You’d be the picture perfect couple if you didn’t come slinking back to the common room looking like you’d been hit in the mouth with a deflected stinging charm. Who else here is worth snogging anyways?”

“Shut it, Theo. Pansy knows we aren’t together like that.”

“And you know you were raised better than this, Draco. Shift your sidepiece and show Pansy Parkinson some respect.”

There was a rustle of books and robes as one of them stood. Hermione froze. Footfalls beat along the stone floors to the entrance, and she could tell from their weight and rhythm alone that they weren’t Malfoy’s. She took a deep breath, stood, and stepped around the end of the bookcase that kept him hidden from her view. She moved quietly, slipping into the chair Theodore Nott had left. From the corner of his eye, with her hair flattened, Hermione didn’t look like anyone Malfoy would need to concern himself with, and he ignored her until she tapped her foot against his under the table. He looked up from the awful mathematical section of his astronomy assignment, his face already forming a sneer before he recognized her and jumped in his chair.

“Granger! What’s with the wig?”

“It’s my own hair,” she protested, smoothing her hand along her crown. “My roommates did it up. I mean, they had to do something with it after you -- “

He raised an eyebrow, his chin propped on his hand, his face slanted as he listened to her.

She coughed. “At any rate, they think I should wear it this way, to the ball, with Viktor.”

He acted as if he couldn’t hear the V-word, leaning over the arm of his chair to lift the swath of hair Lavender had left hanging against her neck. “Why not tuck this bit up with the rest?” he said. “So your whole neck shows. Might be a nice effect, in a dress, without the uniform collar and tie, I mean.”

“About the dress, the one you sent,” she said, “it’s the most beautiful article of clothing I’ve ever seen in real life. Nicer than my mother’s wedding dress, though she was married in the late 1970s so of course -- well, never mind. I have two points: first, the dress is too fine for a school dance -- “

“It’s an international event, Granger. The Minister is expected to be there -- “

“AND,” she finished instead of being diverted into an argument, “Your mother was photographed in it, so if I wore it, someone might connect me to you.”

He scoffed. “No one our age watches my mother more closely than I do and even I can’t remember what all her gowns look like.” He picked up the lock of dangling hair again, almost sulking as he said, “I requested she send that one especially.”

“Well, Parvati and Lavender have already gone and dug up the issue of Witch Weekly where she’s modeling it with the designer.”

He swore. “Nosy, idle, unbelievable -- “

“And also my friends. No name-calling. The terms?”

He was now trying to tuck the hair into the mass piled at the top of her head. “What is this stuff smeared all over your head anyway. It doesn’t smell like you.” Just as he thought he’d got the hair secured well enough to let go of it, it proved itself so slick it immediately tumbled back against her neck. He batted it back and forth.

“Stop,” she said, snatching his hand away. “You’re acting just like my cat.”

“I like looking at your neck.”

“Malfoy, we look with our eyes, not with our -- “ Her voice failed as he kissed her lightly, lingeringly on the neck. She sucked in a breath. “You can’t do that.”

He sat back. “Sorry.”

“I mean,” she said, recovering. “You can’t do that here. This is the library. Madam Pince, she trusts me -- trusts me not to…”

He had taken her hand in both of his. “What? People hold hands in the library all the time. Especially when no one’s watching and no one cares.”

She looked over her shoulder anyway. “Alright but be quiet. Don’t attract attention.”

“You want a disillusionment charm?”

She tossed her head, forgetting that her hair wouldn’t move. “As if you could do one.”

He smirked. “Basic entry-level spell in Slytherin. Even Crabbe and Goyle can disillusion themselves. Amazing what you can pick up when you don’t have an invisibility cloak lying around, making you lazy.”

“I am not lazy.”

He liked this new game they had of provoking the other into an argument and then curving away from it, distracting them at the last minute with something else. His distraction this time was to start sliding the pins out of her hair. “If you’re not going to let me at your neck, take this down,” he said, her hair falling around her shoulders again. He frowned at it, scrunching it in his fists, trying to get it to spring into its usual curls. “What have you done?”

“My roommates did it. They thought Viktor would like it.”

His hands were already in her hair, and he leaned over the arm of his chair again to kiss her properly on the mouth. It was different than the first time -- not frantic, but sweet, gentler and slower, feeling each other, the curves and textures of their mouths, not just the energy driving them. It was all of that yet still prompted by something like anger. For the second time since her arrival, she had spoken Krum’s name, and he had to get it out of her mouth, pressing his lips against hers until she opened them to him, even if it was just to remind him they were still in the library.

“Malfoy,” she said in a high, almost sad voice as he pulled away, his hand still in her hair.

He nodded. “You heard Nott going on about Pansy and it’s bothering you.”

“Well -- yes. I mean -- sidepiece?”

He smirked, wiping his thumb against the lip gloss he’d smeared onto her chin. “You said we didn’t need a long-term solution.”

“You told me not to expect too much.”

“And you said you wouldn’t.” He moved his thumb from her chin to her lower lip. “But then I did it, the pirouette you wanted. Not just one turn, three.”

“What does that mean?”

He dropped his hands from her face, running his fingers through his own hair instead. “I don’t know. But don’t worry about Pansy. She’s knows she’s not my girl.”

She was getting ridiculous. At the mere sound of him saying the words “my girl” her cheeks flushed red all over again. But he didn’t see it -- not when Madam Pince had just flicked out all the lights.

Both of them jumped to their feet, calling out to Madam Pince as they ran through the dark library, stumbling toward the entrance. But she was already gone, the doors locked. Hermione stood beating on them with her fists. Draco rifled through the front desk for an emergency key by the light of his wand but found nothing. Giving up, he draped an arm over Hermione’s shoulders and pulled her back from the doors.

“What are the odds we’ll starve together in here before Boxing Day?” he drawled.

“Slim to none,” she said. “As soon as they notice I’m missing, Harry will know right where I am, and with whom.”

Malfoy frowned. “How?”

“He has his ways,” was all she said, turning her face out of the glow of the wand. Would she ever be able to trust him enough to let him know about the Marauder’s Map -- or about anything to do with the Order?

He sensed her withholding, and her sadness at it -- the unwanted long-term problems insisting on solutions neither of them had. “I say we eat this, anyway,” he said. “Can you see it? It’s an apple I found on Pince’s desk.”

“You can’t steal her apple.”

“I’ll replace it later. It’s her fault for knocking off early and not properly checking the place was empty. She knows what you’re like. And now we’ve missed dinner.” Without further negotiation, he bit into the apple.

“Malfoy!”

He bit it again. “Not bad. Here, have some, before it goes brown.”

He held the apple toward her. By the light of his wand, it was ghostly and blue. She was still looking at it when he stooped and kissed her, quickly and wetly so she’d taste the apple on his mouth. “Just eat it, Granger.”

She took it from him, turned it away from the side with his teeth-marks in it before biting it herself.

He smirked. “Have the rest of it. Now,” he said. “How shall we spend the time between now and when Potter gets here to try to hex me into next Samhain?”

“Dancing,” she answered so quickly she nearly choked on the apple.

Malfoy groaned. “We’ve still got an hour tomorrow.”

“No, not the Epicruvean waltz. Teach me to pirouette.”

He laughed. “We can try, but -- “

She rang the apple core into the bin and took him by both hands, walking backward like a good partner, leading him into the open centre of the library, to the largest table, its broad teak top clear of books, like a stage. With her wand, she relit the chandelier overhead, then kicked off her shoes and climbed onto the tabletop, standing with her feet and arms in first position, exactly as her ballet Mademoiselle had taught her. “Come teach me. It doesn’t matter if I ever get it or not. Just teach me.”

With his shoes off, he stood on the table beside her. “Not first position,” he said. “You need fourth.”

She blinked. “Mademoiselle never taught us past third.”

“For the love of Boggarts, Granger…”

With nothing but time, the lesson was slow and patient, Draco forcing himself to find words to explain what came naturally to him to someone for whom nothing came naturally until it was spelled out in fine detail.

“Look,” he finally told her, “there comes a time in dancing when we stop counting and our take our eyes off our feet and just -- spin. You’ve done it before, with our waltz.”

“But that was with you,” she said, stepping forward to take him in the dance hold they knew best. “That was with my hand in yours and your movement bringing me back to the rhythm whenever I started to get lost.”

How could awful Granger secretly be so sweet? He rolled his forehead against hers. “I can show you the pirouette again but I can’t help you move through it. I’ll just be in the way. Partner dancing is advanced in ballet and you’re -- well, apologies to your Mademoiselle, but you are still very much a beginner. All you can do to master it is practice, hack away at it. But no one’s making us do this. We can always just quit and snog for the rest of the night. ”

She laughed, though he hadn’t been joking nearly as much as she thought. “Fine, I’ll practice.”

He stood back. “Right. Fourth position, find your spot, prepare, and…”

She pushed as hard as she could against the table, started to turn on one foot, bending her leg, completing half of the turn before breaking out of it, scrambling to get back on both feet, her sock sliding against the worn wood, falling. She lay on the table groaning and laughing as Draco knelt beside her.

“There, that’s as bad as it will get,” he said. “You won’t fall every time. And you’re not even hurt, are you?”

“No, I’m not hurt,” she said. “But I am finished. So ends my brilliant ballet career.”

“I’ve failed as a teacher.”

“Yes, abysmally.”

His mouth curved into a smile anyway. “You’re quitting. So does that mean, for the rest of our time here, we can -- “

There was a loud sound of old metal grinding past more old metal -- the sound of a key in the library’s lock. Hermione gasped, bounding off the table, fighting to get her feet back into her shoes, scandalized that Madam Pince might come through the door to find her desecrating the library with sock feet. When the doors swung open and Pince stepped aside to let Hermione’s rescuers into the library, the worried face that pushed through first wasn’t Harry’s or Ron’s or even Parvati’s or Lavender’s. It was Viktor Krum’s, world-class seeker, here to find and save her.

Unlike Harry and Ron, he didn’t know to stand back, wand out, sickened and a bit scared at the sight of her and Malfoy together and alone in the library somehow.

No, Viktor ignored Malfoy completely, striding toward Hermione with his hands outstretched, calling her name as best he could, saying, “You are safe? You are safe!” as he crushed her in his arms.

A gasp went up from the assembled crowd of Hogwarts students, everyone coming at once to the realization of who Krum would be taking to the ball. Ron Weasley swore loudly enough for no one but Hermione to be able to hear the same word being spoken by Malfoy.

Chapter Text

"Mr. Nott!" Madam Pince shrilled as she swooped into her library. "I asked if you were last in the library. I distinctly asked you, and you told me there was no one else."

Theo shrugged, his tone flat as he replied. "My mistake."

"Miss Granger - oh, if you please, Mr. Krum," Pince said, pulling Hermione free from where she'd been engulfed in Viktor's robes, liberating her from his grip. "I do apologize for the mix-up, Miss Granger. And Mr. Malfoy - where has Mr. Malfoy gone?"

As soon as Krum had grabbed Hermione, Malfoy had stormed back to the table where they'd left their books. He was only now returning, his bag slung over his shoulder, eyes front, glaring a path through the small crowd in the doorway. As he passed Krum, he threw Hermione's bag at his feet. Krum, of course, caught it millimetres before it hit the ground.

Nott smirked as Malfoy shouldered past him, inhaling deeply, as if preparing to say something, maybe gloating about getting Draco locked in as vengeance for Pansy Parkinson. Malfoy almost wished he had spoken so he could tell Nott how badly that scheme had backfired. Or at least, how it might have backfired if Krum hadn't come along.

He growled to himself as he walked the corridor. Everyone gawking back at the library seemed to think he owed them an explanation. Let them try to get one out of him. Let them try to punish him for minding his own business and getting locked up in a common area when it closed early without notice.

He was lying in bed, alone in his room, tossing a snitch at the ceiling and catching it, over and over again, when Nott came and sat on Crabbe's empty unmade bed.

"Sidepiece is Granger." Nott made the declaration with no ceremony at all.

Malfoy swore at him.

"Not going to argue?" Nott said. "Just as well. You both smelled of the same horrid hair tonic tonight. You haven't used hair tonic since second year, but Granger's hair was so flat she must have been dripping with it just now. It was reeking from Krum by the time he left too, but that's to be expected with him mauling Granger like that. Still odd to me though. Never reckoned I'd see you settling for being a sidepiece yourself, even if it is to Krum."

Malfoy was up, his hands clenched into fists in the fabric of Nott's shirt, roughing him against the wall. "What do you want, Nott?" he yelled in his face.

"Stop toying with Pansy. Either convince her to move on for good, or throw Granger over and treat Pansy right," Nott yelled in return. "I knew you must be meddling with someone grimy and disgraceful. But this is worse than I thought. None other than the long-molared - "

"Shut up!" Draco yelled louder than ever, twisting to drop Nott onto the rug, landing at Pansy's feet as she and her gang of girls came running to the door.

"Oh my stars, they're fighting. They're fighting over Pansy."

Pansy gaped down at Nott, who was pushing himself up to sitting on the floor, and then at Malfoy. "Draco, what's going on?"

She sounded slightly scared and it softened his tone. "Just - take Theo and go, please. I've had a terrible night and I need to sleep. He never should have come in here."

"But you haven't eaten anything yet. You were locked up over dinner. Go wash up for bed and I'll bring you something."

With a disgusted grunt Nott hefted himself to his feet and pushed through the girls in the doorway. "Go with him," Pansy told the other future pureblood good wives.

They left her alone with Malfoy. "Now what's going on with you and Theo?" she asked.

Malfoy sighed. "He's in love with you."

"Stop it."

"He is. And he's frustrated I don't seem more grateful for the attention you give me. Doesn't think I deserve it. And he's not wrong." Draco threw himself onto his bed.

Pansy sat beside him. Girl Slytherin self-preservation develops with even greater cunning than that of boys. In this house, Pansy was like a chess master, always a few moves ahead, and she knew the best way to keep Malfoy on her arm for the ball was to act like he had every other choice in the world. "Draco, is there someone else you'd rather take to the ball than me? We agreed to this ages ago, and if things have changed, I can - I don't know - ask Goyle?"

He grimaced but laughed quietly through his nose. "Goyle? What kind of friend would do that to you the day before the ball? No, of all the available girls at this school, there's no one I'd rather go with than you."

Available - she did not fail to notice the modifier. But she got him a sandwich anyway.

-----------------

In the Gryffindor dormitory, Hermione was having her own troubles. Viktor himself had walked her all the way back to the tower. He might have been a little embarrassed about his outburst in the library. Outside his native language, he was sometimes too effusive, using his body and the nonverbal powers of his voice to communicate where his English failed him. Hermione couldn't tell for sure if he'd intended to go so far. As they walked, he carried her bag but didn't attempt to make her take his arm, or anything else particularly protective. She did get to ask him how he liked her hair smoothed down with Sleekeazy. He said he liked her hair any way she did it - not at all like Malfoy, with his strong opinions and his fussing, preening hands. She held a lock of it beneath her nose as they walked, and decided not to ask Viktor what he thought of Sleekeazy's smell.

Ron was stomping behind them, his wand still clenched in his fist from when he got it out in case they had to subdue Malfoy the moment the library doors burst open. The ratty old map had been glitching, making their footprints overlap, like they were fighting already.

The moment the portrait hole closed behind them, Ron laid into an argument with Hermione. "It's fraternising with the enemy, that's what it is," he finally managed to say.

Hermione crossed her arms, laughing darkly. "Yes, Ronald, how else could anyone explain a boy being interested in me. Krum must be hatching some elaborate scheme, and he's so brave he's sacrificing himself to his cause, taking me to the ball to serve the greater good." She wasn't screaming at him but speaking smugly, not with bitterness but as if something amused her.

Ron didn't like getting screamed at, but he liked this even less, though he wasn't sure why. "Krum's not a boy, he's a full-grown man. And those are the worst kinds of schemers. But that's not what I said, Hermione, and you know it. You're plenty - interesting."

She smirked. "Not interesting enough for you to think of taking me to the ball as anything but a last resort."

Ron was sputtering. "What - no - you didn't - you couldn't - you wanted to go with me?"

The girl who had gone to bed every night in November slightly heartbroken that Ron Weasley hadn't asked her to the ball yet was now the girl who had boys hurling book bags at each other over her, and she couldn't help laughing again. "A month ago? Yes, I did want to go with you, very much. It would have been safer and less complicated in every way than going with Krum. I wouldn't have had to learn the Epicruvean waltz, for one thing."

Harry shuddered from his seat on the sofa.

"But at this late stage," she went on, "it's as you say, Ronald. Now, fraternising with an enemy sounds rather nice. Well done."

"Speaking of the enemy," Harry cut in, desperate to change the subject to anything at all, "what about Malfoy? Did he have a go at you in the library?"

Hermione's face flushed but she managed to say something largely truthful about Malfoy spending most of the lock-in busy with a special, urgent assignment from Snape. That was one way to describe their dance lessons. Harry accepted it. Malfoy did seem to relish his homework and, Harry reasoned, without his goons locked up with him, he was probably terrified of Hermione and eager to pretend she wasn't there.

Ron was still sitting on the sofa, gazing into the fire looking cheated and morose. It was adorably pathetic enough for Hermione to slap him on the shoulder in a jolly way as she headed to bed. "Cheer up, Ron. Next time there's a ball, ask me before someone else does. Simple as that. Goodnight."

The next morning, Christmas came a day early for the school gossips. Their biggest gift was a twisted story about Viktor Krum blasting through the library doors, magic sparking and flashing, to rescue Hermione Granger, and then pledging his love to her in eloquent Bulgarian right in front of everyone there. For gossips who preferred violence to romance, there was also the story about Draco Malfoy beating Theodore Nott to a bloody pulp, barehanded, like a Muggle, in order to win the privilege of taking Pansy Parkinson to the Yule Ball.

By the afternoon, Draco had made his way to the dance classroom, avoiding any more sensational stories with a disillusionment charm. He was fully visible, sitting on the floor with his knees folded up to his eye level when Hermione arrived. The disguise she'd come in was her longest, fullest robes, gathered tightly around herself, her hood raised as if she was cold. He bolted to his feet at the sight of her, but she held out one hand before he could come any closer.

"Stop. Wait for me right there."

With both hands, carefully, she lowered the hood. Sleekeazy washed away, all of her hair was puffed into a bun soft and loose enough to let her curls hold their shape. She unclasped her heavy black Hogwarts robe and before she could catch it, the whole thing slid down the length of her, onto the floor in a ring around her feet. It hadn't been elegant or sensual but it had taken Draco's breath away all the same. She was standing before him now in the dawn-coloured dress he'd had sent for her.

"Hermione…"

She looked up from the dropped robe, shy, not quite able to look him in the eye, even from across the room.

"By the stars, Granger..."

She stepped over the robe, her foot jutting out from beneath her floor-length skirts in her glassy dancing shoes. The dress was enchanted with self-tailoring magic so it fit well, the sleeves long and snug, the neckline, though not plunging, cut wide and curved almost to the shoulders, baring all of her neck.

"What? You like it?"

"I love it."

As she took a step toward him, Draco rushed to meet her, taking her around the waist and spinning her feet off the floor, the skirts flaring out around them. The fabric was finer, lighter than her usual school clothes, letting her feel his hands almost as if they were right against her skin. He must have felt it too.

He set her on her feet again and glanced down at his own clothes, smirking. "I'm not fit to be seen with you."

She looked him over. "You look exactly as I want you to."

He bent to kiss her cheek. "Thanks, for letting me see you like this."

She was suddenly sad, arms tight around his waist, cheek against his chest. "I'm sorry it has to be like this. I don't want poor old Krum."

He bowed his face into the top of her head, sighing.

"But without Krum," she went on. "I wouldn't have needed dance lessons, would I? Without Krum, I might never have touched you again." She looked up at him, caressing the side of his face where she'd hit him in third year.

He leaned into her palm. "It would have come around, some other way."

She wasn't sure. "What do we do now?" she said.

In answer he trailed his fingers from her ear to her shoulder, skin of hers he'd never touched before. His hand still cupped around her shoulder, he kissed her neck, warm lips against her flesh in a room that, frankly, was too cold for the pretty, weightless dress. She shivered against him, but not from the cold. At age fifteen, his mouth on her neck was the most pleasurable sensation anyone had ever given her, and she bit her lip to keep from doing something embarrassing like telling him so. But he must have sensed it in the way she tilted her head back, and let her hand rise into his hair.

He spoke against her skin, "I don't know what comes next. But I know I won't ever let anyone hurt you. Even if they threaten me and my family, take my wand away, it doesn't matter. In the end I'll find a way to save you. If it means I have to lie or pull a whole building down on myself - the roof and rafters and ceilings and chandeliers - everything, I'll find a way to wreck whatever what I have to, blame it on someone else, look like a coward - I don't care, as long as it saves you."

She guided his head away from her neck, to where she could look him in the face. "What's all this?" she said. "You're lovely but I'm not in danger. I don't need protection. The tournament looks frightening but - "

He kissed her mouth, no anger at all in it this time, but so much sadness. She rose onto her tiptoes, her heels lifting out of her shoes, inhaling the scent of him as he kissed her. She had to keep her mouth on him or she might make a speech like his, full of promises, full of the fear they had all carried with them since the riot after the Quidditch World Cup, when shadows from old nightmares started to take the forms of people they knew - people Draco loved and trusted, people who hated her. It made her sad enough to break away, just long enough to regret it, connecting to him the second time at the skin of his neck. He gasped and palmed the back of her head, laughing at himself a little, trying to catch his breath as she kissed down, toward his clavicle, tugging at his already disheveled tie and collar. It was only fair, but he had to wonder if she had any idea how it all made him feel.

He paused to sit down on the floor, careful not to reveal too much as he pulled her into his lap. She made a show of protesting, "Stand up, Malfoy. We're supposed to be dancing. And now the dress is trailing on the floor."

"Then don't move. Just sit with me until the time is up."

"Malfoy?" she said with that high, sweet sadness again. "Until we have to leave, just for here in this room, can I be your girl?"

"Obviously, Granger."

"Say it. Say I'm your girl."

She was destroying him, tearing his heart into smithereens. He crossed his arms behind her back, embracing her tightly as he said, "My girl."

No one was watching the time. They couldn't be sure how long they sat there touching, talking, kissing, staying warm before Hermione leaned away from him, blinked languidly and asked him to dance with her. "Not for practice," she said, "for real."

She stood, his hand trailing after her as she went. Her wand slid into the groove of the phono-blast for the last time. The music of the Epicruvean waltz began and Draco hung his head. In an hour it would run down completely.

"We can't stay too long anyway," she said. "It's Christmas Eve and everyone will be cross if they wind up searching for me two nights running, and then find us locked up together again."

He frowned but took her in a dance hold anyway. "So you're going to show up at the ball with Krum, go through your paces, that's your way of lying back and thinking of England?"

She blew at the tendril of hair that had fallen out of her hair pins, into her face. "It can't be helped. McGonagall has been acting like bad table manners will be an international incident at the ball, let alone leaving the most illustrious of the champions without the partner everyone's expecting. Maybe I could sprain my ankle."

"I'll do my best," he said, just as they went into the lift.

She landed unharmed. "No luck, you taught me too well."

"At least let the big oaf know he's being watched so he'd better behave, even if you can't tell him who's doing the watching."

She cocked her head. "Malfoy, why can't I tell him? I'm not scared, not even of telling Harry. I think it could help everyone here learn to get along. I think Dumbledore is right."

He turned her across the floor. "Of course you do. And that's because you don't know my parents. If they knew about you, I'd be torn out of Hogwarts and sent to finish my schooling in Bulgaria, at Durmstrang like Father wanted all along. They'd send me right after Christmas, wouldn't even wait for the ship. I'd be gone."

She stopped dancing, her jaw clenched, forehead furrowed.

"What?"

"I'm thinking, Malfoy."

"Right. But don't think too hard, it's hopeless."

"There's no such thing as hopeless."

"Granger - "

"Just let me THINK."

The Floo flamed to life and Draco and Hermione's final dance lesson was suddenly intruded upon by Professor McGonagall. She was still shaking her head from her last appointment, muttering to herself "...how a boy so talented in so many ways could struggle with a simple dance. It makes no - ah, Miss Granger, Mr. Malfoy. Do tell me everything is ready for the dance tomorrow. I could use some good news."

Draco nodded. "Yes, Professor. She's ready."

McGonagall looked at Hermione from head to toe. "She is indeed. Good thinking, having a dress rehearsal. You look lovely, Miss Granger. A little flushed and rumpled, so do be careful not to overexert yourself a the ball tomorrow."

She waved her wand at the phono-blast, cuing the waltz to the beginning. "Mr. Malfoy, if you please, lead your partner in a dance."

It felt oddly obscene for them to dance while their teacher watched. Hermione was stiff and clumsy again, kicking at his toes and stammering apologies.

"Relax," he said through his teeth, too low for McGonagall to hear.

"I'm trying."

"I can't do your mother's cheek kiss thing in front of McGonagall."

"I know that."

The longer she watched, the more McGonagall's prim smile was collapsing into a frown. When Hermione balked at the first lift, she clucked her tongue and began to pace.

Malfoy took a deep breath. "Come on, Granger. Show her what my girl can do."

It was like an incantation, magic. That was what it looked like to McGonagall when Hermione stepped out of a turn with her clunkiness replaced with fluidity, her tension transformed into flight. Minerva McGonagall had never bothered to study legilimency in a serious way, but after decades as a Hogwarts teacher and head of house, she didn't need magical abilities to understand students. She could see as keenly as a cat in the dark that Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy had become profoundly infatuated with one another.

The headmaster would be so pleased.

Chapter Text

MacGonagall sent them out of the classroom first. She told them she had to stay to tinker with the phono-blast, but what was more likely was that she knew how volatile a goodbye between them alone in this room on the last day of dance lessons might be.

In the empty corridor outside, Draco draped Hermione’s robes over her head and shoulders. “Keep it all covered,” he said. “No one else gets to see. It’s just for us.” He glanced over both his shoulders, meant to kiss her quickly but ended up in a crushing, breathless embrace somehow, and then set to winding up his disillusionment charm for his lonely walk back to the dungeons.

Dinner had already started by the time she got back to the tower. It meant her room was empty and she could look at herself in the glass one last time before taking off the dress. He had liked how she looked in it -- loved it, that was what he had actually said. That was one thing she could count on from Draco -- no false compliments. She examined her neck as best she could before letting her hair down. Lavender had warned her about it being prone to retaining traces of kisses. There was nothing. She was both relieved and a little sad.

In the Great Hall, the meal was Christmas fare. The boys gorged themselves while some of the girls remembered the fit of their gowns and only looked wistfully at the piles of roast potatoes and gravy. Hermione wasn’t bothered, eating as she usually did but laughing much more, nudging Ron and Harry on either side of her as she chattered at them.

“I forgot that Christmas-Hermione is brilliant. Good mood, no nagging, no fussing, not even a word about my table manners,” Ron said to Harry, talking across her plate, teasing by pretending she couldn’t hear them.

She laughed and pushed him out of her space. “Remind me, Ronald. Who is your date for tomorrow?”

“There,” he pointed across the hall. “The other half of your Parvati, Padma Patil.”

Hermione was pointing too. “Where? Right there? Sitting at the Ravenclaw table? Back to back with the Slytherin table? With all those Slytherins? I don’t see.”

“There,” he repeated more firmly, pointing again. “With all the black hair, looking exactly like your roommate.”

“That’s no help. Everyone’s hair looks dark by candlelight.”

“Honestly, Hermione. Right, you can see Malfoy’s brassy head there, can’t you? Padma’s behind and three down from him.”

“Malfoy -- yeah, there he is. Near Padma.”

“Stop -- what’re you doing, waving at him? Now he’s looking over here. And waving back. Look, no -- I take it back, Christmas-Hermione is barmy.”

“She’s just giddy about tomorrow, making her grand entrance with her champion,” Lavender said, leaning over the table, nearly dragging her hair through her plate of dry peas and carrots.

Ron was flushing red at the idea but Harry was nodding. “I, for one, am glad you’re going with Krum, Hermione,” he said. “It’ll be nice to have you out there with us, for that nightmare of a waltz.”

Parvati rolled her eyes, but Lavender was leaning over her plate again. “All the dance practices must have given you lots of chances to get to know him better, yeah Hermione? Is he any good?”

Hermione swallowed her punch in a gulp so big it hurt her throat. “Viktor is not the kind of student McGonagall can order around to dance practices. He and I haven’t danced at all.”

Harry jumped. “Hermione, the Epicur-, the Episke- -- er, whatever it’s called, it’s not a simple dance. You’ve got to practice.”

Ron was laughing. “Oh, I can’t wait to see this. Have you noticed the feet on Krum? Well spotted, Hermione. There’d be no point practicing at all, up against feet like that.”

Harry didn’t find it funny in the least. He was offering to practice with her after dinner but she kept declining, insisting there was nothing to worry about. “Right,” she said, standing up after the pudding, “I’m off to bed. Ron, let’s wave goodnight to your lovely lady behind the Slytherin table.” She was already waving before Ron could grab her hand and pull it back down to her side.

From the teachers’ table, elevated on the dais overseeing all, Professor McGonagall watched Hermione walking out of the hall. Once she was gone, McGonagall shifted her eyes to the Slytherin table. 3-2-1 and Draco Malfoy was suddenly finished his meal, making for the entrance as well. McGonagall turned her gaze to Professor Dumbledore, catching his eye, nodding gravely down the length of the table.

Draco must have cast a muffling spell on his shoes to keep Hermione from hearing his approach until his arms were already around her waist. She let out a little scream which he covered with his hand.

“What’re you playing at?” she scolded him.

He hushed her again, leading her into the empty niche of a statue sent out for restoration after an incident with a firecracker. “Me? What’re you doing, waving like that, calling me out in the Great Hall in front of everyone?”

“You didn’t have to wave back. And I had a perfectly reasonable explanation for that. No one was suspicious.”

He scoffed, still looking over his shoulders like her father trying to pull onto the motorway. “Right. A reasonable explanation you couldn’t very well offer all the people watching from the Slytherin table. I panicked and told them you were probably drunk.”

She batted his arm. “Malfoy! I am not. I’m just a bit -- reckless.”

“Which will be fun and games until I find myself wearing fur indoors and speaking Bulgarian.”

She linked her hands behind his neck. “I’m sorry, Malfoy. It’s just that you were right there and I missed you. It’s so sugary sweet I can hardly stomach it myself, but there you have it.”

He bobbed forward as if to kiss her. She smelled like cinnamon and he licked her lips. “You literally taste like pudding.”

She smiled. “Did you not stay at dinner long enough to have any yourself?”

“No, actually.” He was bending toward her again. “But this is how I’d prefer to take mine anyway.”

---------------------------

On Christmas Day, just hours before the ball, she went in early from where she’d been squinting into a book, trying to read outside in the bright snow. The cries of the boys pelting each other with snowballs was grating. Or maybe it was just that, by this time every day during the last week, she'd already spent an hour with Malfoy, and she was cross, almost achy without it.

Inside, Parvati was plaiting gold into her hair while Lavender stood beside her in the mirror, plucking her eyebrows into thin lines. Was this in solidarity with her date, Seamus, whose eyebrows were still growing back from another potions accident? Hermione didn’t ask, just sighed, screwed the lid off a jar of Sleekeazy, and set to work.

Turning in front of the mirror, the pink dress from her mother wasn't so bad. It looked less shaggy when she put it on. The shoes, she could already tell, were going to hurt before the night was over. Maybe if she hadn't got so used to Madam Malfoy's glass slippers it would have been easier to take.
Madam Malfoy, the lady who found her so distasteful she would rather send her son away to Bulgaria than let them -- let them what, exactly? At this point, Hermione wasn’t thinking of corrupting their bloodline -- not on purpose, anyway. What did she want? Maybe it was just to keep doing everything she normally did, but while in close contact with Draco -- touching him, fighting with him, flirting with him. With him, she was alert and alive. She was happy.

She sat on her bed, her hair straight and tied up, one lock hanging down, her pink dress flouncing around her arms and legs with every current of air, gloss on her lips making them sticky, perfume spritzed to cover the smell of the hair tonic. In one hand, she held a pink shoe, and in the other, a shoe that looked like crystal. This one thing, one small thing from him, the first thing he gave her, was what she would take with her tonight. Beneath her pink skirts, no one would know.

Ron and Harry were in the common room, properly stunned at the sight of her all done up and in a fancy dress. Ron rolled his lips inward, making his mouth into an unhappy trapezoidal shape and muttered the word “fraternising” to himself as he stormed off to find Padma in the Entrance Hall. Oddly enough, Harry’s robes were slightly green, and so was his complexion. It was Parvati who jarred everyone into motion, dragging her champion through the portrait hole and bringing Hermione along to find her own.

Viktor was impressive in his red coat and knee-high boots. (Did Malfoy have a pair of boots like that somewhere? He must.) The Durmstrang dress uniforms were all the same, buckled, and trimmed with an animal pelt of some kind. Hermione laid her hand on his arm, just as she saw Fleur and Cho had done with their dates in line ahead of her. They waited.

As they stood in line, watching for McGonagall’s signal, people were still rushing across the Entrance Hall, making their way into the ballroom as the professors scowled at them. Coming nearly last, perhaps hoping to miss the opening dance altogether, was Malfoy. Pansy had him by the hand, cajoling him to hurry, jogging ahead of him in perilously tall black stilettos and a slinky, satiny silver dress with a halter-top bodice that left her back completely bare. She couldn’t possibly wear underclothes with a dress like that. It was seduction clothing. Anyone could see it.

Hermione had to look away. She didn’t see Pansy gaping at her. Pansy had heard the story about Krum being smitten with Granger but hadn’t believed it any more than she believed the story about Malfoy beating Nott. But there she was, cleaned up, dressed up, and on Krum’s arm, poised to make a grand entrance. Pansy looked to Malfoy, keen for him to shatter the moment with some withering insult. He gave her nothing, though he stared at Granger as they hurried past. Inside Pansy’s head, a silent alarm was tripping, the same one that went off when he’d left dinner early last night.

Almost as if she’d been waiting for Pansy and Malfoy to arrive, McGonagall had the doors of the Great Hall thrown open moments after they passed. The orchestra struck up a march and the crowd of students, teachers, dignitaries, and even the press applauded as the champions took the floor. Faces blurred together in Hermione’s field of vision as she moved into position. Viktor said her name as best he could as he took her in a dance hold. She blinked the haze away and gave him the smile he deserved for being willing to share this with her, for starting it all.

The Epicruvean waltz began to play. By now it came naturally to her -- 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1,2, 3 switch...turn...lift. It was perfect -- perfect and so wrong. Viktor was inhumanly strong and coordinated, his timing flawless. He wasn’t graceful like a dancer, but had mastered meticulous, powerful control over his movements, like the elite athlete he was. Frankly, she could have stood on the tips of his toes and floated through this dance with no lessons, no practice at all. Her concentration was slipping. She was looking into the crowd. But by now everyone who could keep up was on the dancefloor with the champions.

Was he here now? Here with his hands on Pansy’s bare skin, guiding her, lifting her.

Viktor said her name again, asking if she was unwell. He didn’t deserve this -- his big moment at a historic tournament compromised by a teary-eyed fifteen-year-old. She smiled at him again, complimented his dancing, and nestled a little less stiffly against his shoulder.

From close by, navigating in the blind-spot where she couldn’t see him, Draco waltzed with Pansy, noticing the slight change in Hermione’s posture as she forced herself to warm to Viktor, trying to put something in her mind besides the fact that they weren’t together. She had to, of course. But it opened a distance between them, or rather, it highlighted the distance that had always been there, even when they were pressed together. It was a distance about to open wide enough to swallow him, and he didn’t know how to stop it.

The opening waltz ended and the banquet was served. Viktor was his own kind of charming and Hermione managed to smile and laugh with him. Malfoy glanced at her from his table, sitting back to let Pansy fuss over him like a good wife as they ate. It was nothing special. Nott, who was conspicuously not recovering from a beating, sat on the other side of her, finding reasons to pat her chummily on the back.

Dinner was cleared away and the band replaced the orchestra. Hermione danced with Viktor, until, alarmed that her energy level might be flagging, he vanished to find her something sickeningly sweet and slightly alcoholic to drink. She sat waiting for him on a settee when Malfoy took the chance of standing apart from the crowd, where she would have to see him across the width of the Great Hall. She folded her arms and sat back against the cushions, looking him in the eye without smiling.

He shrugged.

She tossed her head.

He was too far away from them to speak. His mouth didn’t move. But she swore she heard him say, Don’t expect too much, Granger.

From you Malfoy? Never.

And across the room, at the edge of the mob of dancers, he turned a single pirouette.

She was on her feet, moving toward the door leading to the courtyard.

He was behind her, trotting quickly.

In the fairy lights of the dark December night he caught her hand and turned her around to face him.

“How would you feel,” she began as if they were already in the middle of a conversation, “if I was in there with my hands all over Ron Weasley’s naked back?”

“What?”

“Pansy Parkinson!”

“Well, if touching him didn’t do a thing for you, if it left you completely cold, I reckon I wouldn’t care.”

“Oh, stop it.”

“What about it, Granger? Would you be feeling something, getting in trouble up against Weasley’s great soft freckled back?”

“Shut it, Malfoy.”

“You brought it up. I don’t want to be here with her. You know that. It was too late to dump her and you -- well, you’re unavailable, aren’t you?”

“I am just trying to get through this without embarrassing the school.”

“By storming out here to scream at me?”

“Leave her alone, Malfoy.” It was Harry, standing in the doorway with his wand drawn, ready to protect her.

Malfoy swore.

“Harry, don’t,” she was saying, hurrying toward him to lower his wand. “I promise, I’m not in any danger.”

Malfoy scrubbed his face with his hands. “Right. Think I’m done for the night.”

“Good,” Harry shouted, though it wasn’t a comment worth voicing.

Malfoy strode toward the door where Harry and Hermione stood. “Hermione,” he said, stopping when he reached them, taking her by the chin and kissing her mouth. She jumped in surprise but opened herself to it as Harry stood gobsmacked beside them. Malfoy broke the kiss before she was ready, telling her, “I’m leaving for home first thing in the morning. Parents have called me back rather abruptly. Think Nott might have given them some news about my social life. Thought you should know.”

He dropped his hand from her face. Looking at Potter, he said, “ Довиждане,” which no one had to tell Hermione was goodbye in Bulgarian.

“Draco,” Hermione was calling as she chased him back inside. “Draco wait, please don’t -- “

She was cut off by the sound of Dumbledore’s voice amplified over the noise of the crowd and the trailing finish of the music. “My dear students and friends,” he was saying, “if I could please have your attention for our final official event of the evening.”

He paused, waiting for the crowd to grow still, for the stragglers in the courtyard, corridors, and stairwells to return to the ballroom. Harry came back inside, looking stunned and sicker than ever. Pansy and Viktor took their places beside their partners, unknowingly holding them in place for Dumbledore’s announcement.

“Above all,” he began, “the Triwizard Tournament is a building of bridges between wizarding communities. As we do so, we reflect on schisms within our own community, our community here at Hogwarts. Some of you have come here tonight with partners different from yourselves, selected from outside your houses. Many of you have not. So in the interest of more and stronger bridges, every student will now please reach into your wand pocket. There you will find a slip of parchment on which is written the name of your dance partner for the next song. If you are from Beauxbatons or Durmstrang, it will be a student from the other visiting school. If you are a Hogwarts student, it will be a classmate from a different house.”

There was a murmur as people found their parchments, followed by groans and laughter. The bored society page reporters sat up and took notice.

“Yes, that’s it, let it out,” Dumbledore said. “Now take a moment to find your partner.”

Hermione checked her pocket to find it empty. When she looked up, searching for Draco, the crowd was in motion, and she’d lost sight of him.

Cho and Cedric were already standing together, hand in hand, perhaps a bit smug to already be paired exactly the way their parchments said they ought to be.

Fleur was paired with Viktor, of course, and an impressive couple they were indeed.

Harry’s parchment directed him to trade Parvati for her sister Padma -- not the Ravenclaw he would have hoped for but he was still wobbling from the trauma of what he’d seen in the courtyard and welcomed a moment to simply fade into the background.

Pansy, to her horror, was sent off to dance with Ron, who was now standing with his hands hovering over the flesh of her back with no idea what to do next.

Seamus was paired to dance with a rather dashing looking Goyle and seemed far less put out by it than anyone would have expected.

Lavender was with tall, handsome Blaise Zabini from Slytherin, and he was already holding her hand in both of his.

Parvati had been sent to dance with Nott, who was eyeing the headmaster with suspicion.

Neville was with a blond girl no one knew well from Ravenclaw -- Lula, or something like that.

So it went, all over ballroom. Even under-aged Ginny was caught up in it, looking ready to wrestle a troll, marching off to dance with Crabbe.

Dumbledore called for quiet again. “And to lead us in this dance of compassion, sympathy, and healing, we will call upon Miss Hermione Granger, and the tutor who so generously donated his time to help prepare our champions for this momentous evening, Draco Malfoy.”

Everyone was still reeling too wildly from their own partner assignment to think much of the pairing of Granger and Malfoy. It was audacious but not out of line with the rest of what Dumbledore had been up to that evening. What people did notice was that Malfoy did not appear when he was announced.

Dumbledore tried again. “Here, just below the orchestra, we have Miss Granger. Where is Mr. Malfoy? Mr. Malfoy -- Draco -- please come forward.”

An uneasy silence fell over the room. All eyes turned to Hermione, standing in her frilly pink finery, alone as the rest of the school and the international visitors paired off. He’d gone, she thought. It was too late, he was gone and she was here, abandoned for everyone to see. It might not have been so bad if she was still the person she was a few weeks ago -- the person who could roll her eyes at his bratty behaviour, clearly not caring at all, not hurt or even bothered. But she was not that person anymore, she was someone heartbroken by every little disappointment between them, and certainly by his parents sending him away to forget all about her. As her classmates watched, they knew something real had changed.

It was unbearable, but Dumbledore let it go on a moment more, long enough for the click of footsteps to sound from somewhere in the room. It was Draco, coming through the crowd toward Hermione in quick, controlled steps. Her face was changing, breaking into relief, into happiness. She was raising her left hand to take his shoulder in a dance hold but he stepped in closer than that, his arm around her waist scooping her up and toward him, his lips against hers as she closed her arms around his neck.

The Beauxbatons crowd was underwhelmed. The Durmstrang boys threw up their hands, laughing and pounding Viktor on the back. The Hogwarts crowd was gasping at the sight of goody-goody Granger letting Malfoy kiss her with that fine, filthy mouth of his.

“Enchanted!” Blaise called out as he pulled Lavender closer. “The parchments are enchanted with a love potion!” And with that, he kissed her deeply as she held his face.

Almost everyone was testing their parchments for enchantment. Some of the kisses -- like the one Crabbe intended for Ginny -- didn’t land any farther than the open palm of the hand held out to stop them.

Others, like the one between Padma and Harry were friendly kisses on cheeks and foreheads, followed by a helpless shrug at the lack of chemistry.

Pansy used hers for revenge, sneering at Ron as she pulled him in for a vicious snog, his hands connecting, at last, with her back.

Nott growled at the sight and turned to kiss Parvati hard, but just once, on the lips. “What was that?” she hollered. “If you’re going to be part of my first kiss, you’re going to do it right.” And she pulled him in again.

“Dear me, dear me, dear me,” Dumbledore said over the commotion. “No enchantment was intended, students. Please desist in snogging one another. My stars, we will indeed have an inquiry to see if the parchments have been tampered with. Unfortunate, truly. We will, however, proceed with the assigned dance. Now, if you please, Mr. Malfoy. Mr. Malfoy? Mr. Malfoy!”

Draco pulled out of his kiss and the music struck up. He wasn’t minding his steps, just turning slowly as he held Hermione tight, his forehead pressed to hers, grinning into her face.

“Dumbledore just covered for us,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Everyone’s parents are going to know about the mad, enchanted snogging at Hogwarts this Christmas.”

“Yes, the newspaper was even here to cover it.”

“And since everyone’s in trouble, then no one’s in trouble.”

He spun around, lifting her feet off the floor. “Yes.”

“So -- no Bulgaria?”

“I’ll still have to convince them, but I think we can safely hope for no Bulgaria.”

She squealed and hugged him around the neck, her face against his shoulder. “Your coat is fuzzy,” she said.

“Velvet. You know, for Christmas.”

She ran her hand along the opposite side of his chest, brushing the nap of the fabric up and back down, as if she was petting him.

“Here we go. You’re going to be comparing me to your cat again,” he smirked.

“Yes,” she said. “Draco Malfoy, my second favourite cat.”

“Only second?”

She nestled back into his chest. “You’ll understand once you meet Crookshanks.”

“What?”

Hermione smiled up at him. “Don’t be cross. He’s a better cat than you, but you’re a better boy than him.”

He accepted this, turning again on the dancefloor.

“A much better boy, and,” she said, “you’re mine.”