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Swirling her champagne glass slowly, Hermione’s eyes narrowed as she scanned the ballroom from one end to the other. Taking a small sip as she tugged at her gold earring, Hermione murmured, “Harry, are you sure I’m in the right place? I don’t really sense anything magical. It’s just… a boring fundraising party so far.”
The magic on her earring tingled as it made it seem like Harry was speaking directly into her ear. “We got solid intel that something magical would be happening tonight, but our informant couldn’t tell us what exactly. Only that someone needed to be there that could move in both the Wizarding and Muggle worlds.”
Hermione huffed under her breath as a curl escaped her carefully crafted updo and fell into her face. “And tell me why that person couldn’t have been you? Or one of the other Muggleborns in the Auror Department?” she groused as she tapped her finger against her glass.
Harry went silent, and Hermione’s eyebrows furrowed as she waited for her best friend to explain himself. After a minute, his heavy sigh came through crystal clear, and Hermione almost began to frown though she quickly hid her lips with her champagne flute.
“None of the current aurors or trainees that are familiar with the Muggle World have the sensitivity to magic necessary for this,” Harry admitted, and Hermione’s grip tightened on her glass. “And I was deemed too recognizable after I ended up saving the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge just a few months ago. Your magical sensitivity is off the charts, and you have experience with combat even if you’ve tried to put it all behind you,” Harry continued, and Hermione cleared her throat delicately as she forced herself to release her stranglehold on her champagne. “And I trust you more than anyone else,” Harry stated finally, and Hermione’s glare softened at her friend’s confidence in her.
Tipping the rest of her champagne down her throat, Hermione let the corner of her lips tilt up in a smile. “You’re lucky I love you like the annoying brother I never had, Harry James Potter. You owe me.”
Harry’s chuckle was music to her ears as the magical humming dimmed, the communication spell once more going dormant. Sighing, Hermione turned back to the ballroom at large, fidgeting with the fabric of her gown as she twitched the skirt infinitesimally, making it lie perfectly in sweeping layers. Shutting her coffee-colored eyes and breathing deeply, Hermione dove inward to her magical core. Immersing herself in the warm pulse, Hermione felt her magic fizz along her senses as she opened her eyes once more, scanning this time not just visually but magically as well.
At first, nothing seemed to be amiss. It was just a Muggle School’s Charity auction aimed at helping pay the tuition of students from low-income families so they could gain the best education possible. Hermione even put a few bids down to drive up the prices of a few items, intent on helping the school gain as much money as possible.
Hermione couldn’t think of a nobler cause than pursuing education for all people.
It was as she was walking away from placing a bid on box seats to the Opera (she could care less about the music, probably wouldn’t have time to go anyway with how her job in the Department of Mysteries consumed her time, but she really wanted to make the older gentleman she was bidding against part with more money than he had planned for the night), that she sensed it: magic in the air.
Tentatively, Hermione stretched her awareness, allowing her magic to search out the alien magical presence. A few moments later, her magic returned to curl around her in satisfaction, drawing her eye to a man across the room.
The man’s dark hair seemed to glow in the soft light of the ballroom, and the golden candlelight from the table softened his masculine features to something warm and inviting, slate grey eyes just nearly looking kind, looking human.
But only nearly. Hermione couldn’t put her finger on exactly what the difference was, but there was something...not quite right about them.
The smile dropped from Hermione’s face as the...man’s? being’s? eyes locked with her own, an easy smile quirking his lips as he stared back at her curiously.
Hermione widened her eyes innocently, forcing a blush to her cheeks as she quickly looked away, feigning shyness at being caught staring. Extending her magic around her as an alert system, Hermione’s hand drifted toward the wand strapped to her thigh as she felt the being leave his table and approach her own.
Keeping up the facade of nervousness, Hermione quickly glanced over at the being again to see that he was just ten feet away from her own table. Her breath hitched in her throat at his proximity; he should not have been able to get here so fast, his table had been on the complete other side of the ballroom! Fingers trembling as she slipped her hand through the hidden slit in her skirt, Hermione exhaled softly as she felt the familiar wood of her wand on her grip.
“Hello,” the being’s voice floated smoothly over the light instrumental music in the background. “I couldn’t help but notice you were over here alone. And, I thought, for a stunning woman like yourself that was an absolute tragedy.”
A nervous giggle escaped Hermione as her eyes tracked up...and up...and up to the man’s smiling grey ones, his muscled frame looming over her rather petite one. Running the tip of her finger nervously over her wand, Hermione smiled shyly at the man, for lack of a better word, and tucked her unruly curl behind her ear.
“And people say chivalry is dead,” Hermione demurred, and the man’s eyes twinkled in response.
“Those who do just haven’t met me yet,” he chuckled. “Cedric Diggory. And you are?”
Hermione felt her mind go blank at the man’s name, her heart stuttering to a stop before starting back up again at triple time.
“No, you can’t…It’s not possible,” she breathed incredulously, and the man’s — Cedric’s — brow furrowed in confusion.
“I’m sorry? I missed that,” he stated, and Hermione felt her mouth go dry.
“I — I’m H-Hermione G-Granger,” Hermione stuttered, frantically tugging at her earring as she did so.
Something lit in Cedric’s gaze, but Hermione was too panicked to try to dissect it in more detail. The charming smile slipped into something more neutral and polite as Cedric asked, “Have we met before? Because you seem familiar, but I’m not sure from where. Are you an alum of the school?”
“Hermione, what’s wrong?” Harry’s voice frantically sounded in her ear. “Are you in danger? Did you find the source of the magic?”
Hermione lightly hummed a three note tune in the back of her throat, and Harry immediately fell silent, their wordless tune for “stay quiet, observe” ingrained within them even so many years after the war.
Hermione forced a shaky smile to her face as she shook her head lightly. “I don’t believe so,” she squeaked out. Clamping her eyes shut in embarrassment, Hermione forced herself to calm down, taking a deep breath in and out before turning back to an incredibly confused and wary and apparently alive Cedric Diggory. “I can’t say that we’ve met before, but you do remind me of someone I went to school with,” Hermione continued much more calmly, and she saw some of the tension Cedric had been holding in his shoulders melt away at her explanation. “I didn’t go here, I’m afraid. I went to a boarding school in Scotland, but my parents attended and now that they’ve passed I felt it my duty to continue supporting the school,” she lied, altering her cover story as she slipped in mentions of Hogwarts.
Charming smile firmly back in place, the man purported to be Cedric nodded at her and replied, “I’ve been told I just have one of those faces, not a problem. And as an alum of this school, I want to thank you for continuing your parents’ generous legacy.”
Hermione tapped a finger on her empty glass as she nodded in reply, racking her brain for something, anything , that would keep the supposed Cedric close to her. Unable to come up with anything, she simply stared back over the dancing that had started, the tall form of Cedric a warm wall to her right.
Harry hummed impatiently in her ear as the silence between her and Cedric grew, but thankfully she was saved from a lecture about paranoia when the man next to her cleared his throat. Turning to him with a sheepish smile, Hermione was surprised to see the man extending a hand to her with a winning smile on his face.
“Now, I may not be who you thought I was, Miss Granger, but I stand by my earlier statement: no woman as beautiful as you should be left alone when there are people able to do something about it. So, what do you say, Miss Hermione Granger: would you care to dance?”
Smiling nervously at the man who she was more and more certain was actually Cedric Diggory for all that he didn’t remember her and should be dead , Hermione nodded as she relinquished her champagne flute and extricated her other hand from its tight grip around her wand. Placing her hand in his. “Mr. Cedric Diggory,” she replied clearly and heard Harry choke at the name, “I would love to.”
Cedric grinned at her brightly as he swept her onto the floor, and Hermione felt certainty diffuse through her. This man, being, not-quite-human something, had to be Cedric Diggory. The only question left was how.
“Fuck,” Harry breathed, and Hermione giggled a bit hysterically as Cedric spun her away from him and then back in.
Fuck, indeed. What was Hermione supposed to do with a not-quite-human amnesiac assumed-martyr? Tonight definitely wasn’t what she signed up for, and Harry was so going to owe her for this.