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It started in September of eighth year.
After the war, Hogwarts reopened, and with its reopening came the return of those who fought in the war, on both sides. This included Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy.
As usual, the students rode the Hogwarts Express on September the first. Ginny Weasley, being made Head Girl, was walking through the train and checking in each compartment. She remembered how lost she felt as a first-year, and she wanted to make sure to become a friendly face to the new students as soon as possible. She greeted Neville and Luna in one compartment, found some first years in a few others, and to her surprise, Hermione in a compartment with Malfoy. Malfoy had been let off for his crimes, but she didn’t expect to see him on the train ride to Hogwarts, especially with Hermione. As she was about to open the door to say hello, she saw them share a kiss and quickly turned away. It was none of her business and she was determined to finish the remainder of the train ride minding said business, so she quickly walked away.
Hermione smacked Malfoy as hard as she could and he abruptly stopped kissing her.
“What was THAT?!”
Malfoy smirked. “Your ginger friend was at the window, figured I’d provide a show.”
“How dare you! I’m amazed that Ron didn’t run in and blast your head off!”
“Oh no, not that ginger friend. The other one.”
“Ginny?! Oh, this is awful. Get out of my compartment! For the last time, I will not give it up just for you and your friends to sit here!”
Malfoy rolled his eyes and walked out.
Once they were at the sorting ceremony, Hermione walked over to Ginny.
“Ginny, I swear, what you saw-“
Ginny grinned. “Don’t worry Hermione, I can keep my mouth shut. I understand what happened.”
“Oh, good! I was really worried you would hold it against me.”
They were certainly not on the same page.
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Halloween came around before the students knew it, but Harry had been dreading its arrival. He hoped that nothing would happen this year, but he had come to expect the unfortunate. He was enjoying wandering the halls, looking at the portraits while caught in his memories. He just wanted a peaceful evening and was putting off going to the Great Hall for dinner as long as possible. Sympathetic faces would likely greet him, but he wasn't ready for the extra attention. He thought he heard talking, but when he stopped walking, there was no sound to be heard. Content that he was alone, he rounded the corner, just to find Hermione laying on top of Malfoy. His eyes widened, and he turned right back around the way he came. Maybe wandering the hallways wouldn’t be as peaceful as he thought. It was time for him to get dinner and wash his eyes.
Hermione scrambled off Malfoy, glaring daggers at him.
“Why did you do that?!”
“It was just a trip, how was I supposed to know you’d tumble into ME?”
“You are incorrigible!”
“You’re lucky you even got to touch me!”
Hermione rolled her eyes at that. This prat was so full of himself. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to eat after this discussion.
“I’m done with this interaction, Malfoy.”
His mouth fell open at the obvious dismissal as Hermione rolled her eyes and walked away.
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Ron Weasley liked to think of himself as an easy-going guy. Sure, he had been hot-headed and aggressive at times, but he felt as though the war had changed him. He wanted to be a supportive friend, and that meant not reacting aggressively to everything. But of course, that was easier said than done.
"HARRY!" Ron yelled his friend's name, running into the common room. Harry and Ginny were sitting together, and both heads shot up when Ron burst in. They got up and followed him as he ran up to their dormitory, wondering what could be going on.
Ron was pacing when they got up there, and Harry grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.
"What happened?!"
"Mione.... she.... she.... she's fraternizing with the enemy!"
Both Ginny and Harry's eyes widened, worried about what Ron may have seen. "Woah, slow down. What happened?"
"I was walking out of the locker room after flying around on my broom for a bit, and I saw Malfoy flying around Hermione! I figured he was just being a prat, but then he smiled and waved his wand, and suddenly Hermione was holding flowers! I couldn't watch anymore, so I ran here to tell you!"
Harry gave Ron an awkward smile, and Ron's eyes widened considerably. "Why don't you seem surprised?"
"Well... I saw something awhile ago..." Harry proceeded to share with Ron and Ginny the events that occurred on Halloween. "I'm sorry I didn't say anything, I just wanted to respect Hermione's secret. I figured she would tell us when she's ready..."
Ginny went on to share what she saw on the train, and all three of them sat in contemplative silence for a bit.
Ron finally spoke up. "Should we... you know... say something? Let her know we're here for her... or whatever... not that I like this very much, but she's still my friend."
Harry and Ginny both nodded, and Ginny started to pace. "I wonder who else knows? We can't be the only ones who have seen something going on. Those two have not been very discreet!"
They agreed to keep an eye out in the Great Hall to see who else may be watching the pair to try to find allies.
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The next day in the Great Hall, the trio was ready. Hermione walked in and took her seat, smiling up at them. They smiled back, but she seemed to notice something was off.
“Is everything alright?” She asked, glancing between them.
“That’s what we’re wondering,” Harry began. “You know we’re here for you no matter what, right?”
She gave them a weird look, as the three continued smiling and stared at her. “Um, yes. I know that, but thank you for reaffirming it. I’ll be sure to come to you if I need to talk.” They kept smiling at her, so she opted to awkwardly look away and begin eating. She didn't want to ask why they were acting so odd.
Harry and Ginny shared a look, while Ron began to dig into his food as well. They should have known that he wouldn’t be able to focus on anything besides food right now. They looked up and watched Malfoy walk in and sit at the Slytherin table. As he did, both Parkinson and Nott looked as if they were interrogating him. Harry thought that was very interesting. As he continued watching them, suddenly Nott looked up at him. Harry lifted his eyebrows and glanced at Malfoy. Nott’s eyes widened, and he appeared to whisper something to Pansy before she looked up and smirked. The two of them got up from the table and started to walk out of the Great Hall, so Harry nudged Ginny and they got up as well.
Hermione looked up. “Where are you going?”
They shared a look before Ginny said, “it’s a surprise right now, we’ll tell you later!”
Hermione frowned but nodded and went back to eating. They quickly walked away before she could ask any more questions. When they stepped outside of the Great Hall, Parkinson and Nott were waiting for them.
Pansy walked up to them first. “Alright, what do you know?”
“What do YOU know?” Ginny retorted. She wasn’t about to reveal Hermione’s relationship to the Slytherins if they didn’t actually know about it.
Pansy rolled her eyes. “Please, we both know why we're here. Something is clearly going on with Draco and Granger, and we want to know what you’ve seen.”
Harry and Ginny shared a look as Parkinson and Nott stared them down. Finally, Harry relented.
“Alright, so I may have seen more than I wanted to see…”
He proceeded to tell them what happened on Halloween night. Parkinson actually laughed at his story. She said, “you think that’s traumatizing? Try being Theo, who saw those two emerge from a broom closet, clearly disheveled!” They saw Nott cringe in the background. “If that isn’t bad enough, I heard Draco in his room grunting, and he definitely said Granger’s name!”
To say they were shocked would be an understatement. Ginny shared what she saw, and the four of them agreed that Hermione and Draco were DEFINITELY secretly dating. No question about it. At that moment, Luna Lovegood walked out of the Great Hall. She smiled at them as they all went quiet.
“It’s alright, I already know about Draco and Hermione’s secret relationship. I’m surprised it took you this long to talk about it.”
Pansy snapped at her. “I don’t remember asking but humour me. What did you see, Lovegood?”
Luna smiled. “There have been so many Wrackspurts around those two, it clearly signifies that they have a secret.”
The other four glanced at each other in confusion but decided not to inquire into Luna’s ramblings. Harry decided it was time to do something about the situation.
“Alright, so there is a relationship happening with our respective friends that we all know about. What should we do?”
Pansy smirked. “I think an intervention would do wonders. It’s what they deserve for thinking they could hide this for months.”
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Hermione walked back to the common room alone after dinner. She wasn’t sure where Ron had gone as she was too absorbed in her book, but he must have left right after he finished eating. No matter, she didn’t want to be interrupted during her reading anyway. She gave the password to the portrait, and walked inside to find Ginny, Harry, Ron, and Luna sitting at the couch. She grinned and approached them.
“Hey! I haven’t seen you guys since you left the Great Hall in a hurry. What’s going on?”
Ginny smiled at her. “Well, actually, now that you mention it… our surprise was ready sooner than we expected it to be!”
“Oh, really? What is it?” Hermione glanced around the room, but nobody else seemed to be paying attention to their conversation, and there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.
The four of them stood up. “C’mon, Hermione,” Harry called, “we’re going to the History of Magic classroom.”
As they walked, Hermione was lost in thought. She wondered what the surprise could be. It seemed as though it was just for her, as Luna and Ron weren’t acting as excited as she was. Ron, especially, was not good with surprises, so she knew he had to be in on it. While she was busy thinking, Harry was hoping that Parkinson and Nott had done their part. They needed Malfoy and Hermione present for this intervention to be effective.
“Hermione,” Harry began, “I’m sorry but we’ll have to blindfold you for this next part.”
“Blindfold me? Why?”
“Just, trust me. We don’t want the surprise to be ruined. You should be sitting down before you see it…”
Hermione wasn’t happy about it, but she understood Harry’s logic. After Ginny placed the blindfold on Hermione, they led her inside the classroom, where Parkinson and Nott had Malfoy waiting. He was also blindfolded. Unfortunately, as soon as they got Hermione in the door, Malfoy opened his mouth.
“Okay, I’ve been sitting here far too long. Take this blindfold off so I can see who just came in here!”
Hermione reached her hands up and pulled the blindfold off. “Malfoy?!” She spun around and glared at Harry. “What is happening?”
“Hermione, please sit down! We need to talk to you about something important. Just hear us out, please.”
“I don't see what this has to do with me. Pansy, Theo, why am I here?”
“Shut up, Draco. You clearly weren’t going to talk to us, so we’re going to talk to you,” Pansy said, glaring at him. He rolled his eyes and waited.
Now that they were all here, nobody knew where to begin. Ginny spoke up.
“Hermione, you’re one of my closest friends. We have been through so much together, and I just want you to know that this doesn’t change our friendship.”
“Yeah, Hermione. Even I have decided to accept this, even though it really freaks me out and I feel like I should be mad about it, I want you to be happy,” Ron spoke up.
“I’m sorry, what is happening?” Hermione looked at everyone quizzically.
“Listen, we all know about your not-so-secret relationship. So you can cut the crap. I know you may not want everyone in the school to know, but you can at least be honest with us.” Pansy was never one for tiptoeing around the subject, and she wasn’t going to do so now.
Hermione and Draco both started laughing hysterically. Their friends looked at each other, confused. This went on for a few minutes because every time they looked up at their friends, they started laughing harder.
“What are you two laughing about?” Theo finally asked.
Hermione managed to stop laughing to ask, “have you all lost your minds?”
Ginny spoke up. “Listen, I saw your kiss on the Hogwarts express!”
Hermione turned and glared at Draco while he started laughing even harder. “Malfoy SAW you, Ginny. He kissed me to mess with you. If you’d watched longer than a second, you would’ve seen the slap he received!”
Ginny’s eyes widened. Harry butted in. “Okay, well that doesn’t explain why I saw you on top of Malfoy on Halloween night!”
“Harry, he tripped me and I fell on top of him. You guys clearly have awful timing because these instances didn’t last for more than a few seconds!”
“What about the flowers he gave you on the field?” Ron asked.
Hermione looked confused, so Draco answered. “Oh, that was brilliant. Granger came out to berate me for flying past her so quickly at Greenhouse 1 because the pollen made her sneeze, so I decided to really make her sneeze with a bouquet of those flowers. She couldn’t stop sneezing long enough to even yell at me before I flew away!” Draco was laughing again, and Hermione rolled her eyes.
“Yes, yes. Hilarious. Truly.”
Pansy chimed in. “I know for a fact that there’s no other explanation for what Theo and I experienced. Theo saw you two emerge from a broom closet looking very disheveled, and I heard Draco moaning Granger’s name in his room!”
Hermione’s eyes widened, and she looked at Malfoy weirdly. “I don’t have any explanation for the second one, but the broom closet was NOT what you’re thinking. Peeves locked us in! I was coming back from the library when Malfoy and I started arguing outside, and Peeves decided it would be great fun to push us in a broom closet and lock it! We were trying to open it, but couldn’t agree on how to do so, and kept fighting over the items in there. It must have messed up our appearances…”
“Also,” Draco said, “I was not MOANING Granger’s name. After that fight in the broom closet, I had quite a few bruises from where that crazy witch hit me with a broom handle. I was trying to heal the bruises, and they hurt. I was cursing Granger for doing that to me.” He rolled his eyes.
To say their friends were shocked would be an understatement.
“So… you aren’t secretly seeing each other?” Harry asked.
“Nope,” Hermione grimaced, “I can’t believe all of you assumed such a thing.”
“So much had happened, we thought there was no way it could be a coincidence,” Ginny said, “but, I suppose we were wrong…”
“That’s so lame,” Pansy lamented, “I just wanted something exciting to happen this year!”
Apologies were made and laughs were had about the entire situation. Everyone could admit how funny this was, and how wrong the theories were about what had been going on. It was getting close to curfew, so they all agreed it was time to go back to their common rooms.
“Are you coming, Mione?” Ron asked as he was walking out with Harry and the others.
Hermione glanced at Malfoy before saying “I’ll be there in a moment. I just need to sit and collect my thoughts.”
Ron smiled at her and closed the door.
After the others left, Hermione and Draco were alone, both feeling a bit awkward. As Hermione went to say something, Malfoy stood up. He started to walk toward the door but turned back to look at her.
“You know, it would be a great prank if we started sneaking around now that we’ve made them all feel crazy for thinking we were doing so. If you’re interested in messing with them, let me know.” He winked before walking out. Hermione’s eyes widened, and she couldn’t believe it, but she was actually considering it. The rest of the year was looking more interesting already…
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