Pride of a Granger & Prejudice of a Malfoy

Chapter 13: Much Anticipated Birthday Bash

"Sometimes it takes a good fall to really know where you stand" ― Hayley Williams

"Hermione, I don't think I've ever seen you this excited about a party before," Ginny commented as she fixed Hermione's hair before Blaise's birthday bash.

"I'm not excited about it," Hermione replied. "I'm just looking forward to it."

"And the only thing you usually look forward to are your book club meetings," Ginny snorted. "So I'd consider this as a pretty big deal."

Hermione grudgingly allowed the corners of her lips to turn up in a smile as she thought about the main attraction, at least to her, of the evening that was ahead of them: Harper Cunningham. Though she would never admit it out loud, he was the sole reason she was even attending the party.

"Do you think Harper will come?" Cho asked, almost as if she was reading Hermione's mind.

"Oh, that would explain why Hermione is so eager to attend this party!" Ginny exclaimed, causing Hermione to blush rather furiously.

She was saved from replying by Harry's timely arrival to announce that if they didn't leave soon, Ron might start eating their furniture.

With that threat looming over their heads, the ladies dressed quickly and began making their way to the apparition point, wondering what the night had in store for them.

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"Thank you for coming, especially on such short notice," Blaise told Hermione after he greeted the rest of the guests, "and for relaying the invitation to Cho."

"No problem," Hermione replied distractedly, her mind clearly on something else.

"Are you looking for someone?" Blaise asked as he observed Hermione frequently glancing around.

"Oh, no," Hermione replied. "No, no. I was just, uh, observing your mansion. It is really beautiful by the way."

"Thanks," Blaise replied, though not convinced by the lie but choosing to let it go. "My mother will be extremely pleased to know that. She has redecorated the entire place in honor of my birthday bash. Unfortunately she decided to do so in the middle of the night last night. So as you can imagine, it wasn't a good day to be a part of the Zabini Family. I can't even begin to imagine how much harder it would've been if we had to do it the muggle way."

After talking pointlessly about furniture for what is generally considered way too long to be talking about furniture, they parted ways gladly.

Hermione sighed in relief of not having to pretend to be interested in furniture anymore and turned around, only to find herself face to face with no other than one extremely annoying Cormac McLaggen.

"Hermione! I finally found you!" Cormac called out in an obnoxiously loud voice. "I've been looking for you for quite a while now!"

"Oh, have you?" Hermione replied, her eyes darting to find someone around her who might rescue her from this predicament. Unfortunately, the only one near her was Draco Malfoy, who was standing near the bar with a trademark smirk on his face as if he was aware of her predicament.

After shooting a deathly glare at the said blonde, Hermione checked back into Cormac's conversation.

"—so I was thinking that it would be good for our relationship to dance the majority of the dances tonight. Even though—"

"Wait. What 'relationship'?" Hermione asked.

Unfortunately for Hermione, Cormac was oblivious to her question and instead choose to continue with his own train of thought. "Oh look, a new song is starting. Let's dance!"

Before Hermione could make up an excuse to evade the situation, she found herself on the dance floor with Cormac's arms around her waist. Unfortunately for her, it was a slow song.

As they swayed to the music, Cormac once again initiated the conversation. "Even though we have known each other for quite a while, I think that spending the evening together will allow us to get to know each other better. Have I told you about the Chudley Cannons recruit? No? Well, it was the other day when I was just practicing my flying—,"

Hermione didn't know which was worse, having been seen with Cormac, something that Fred and George will never let her live down, or actually spending an entire dance with him and being forced to listen to his bragging.

As soon as the song ended, not nearly soon enough in Hermione's opinion, she made an excuse about the powder room and fled the scene. As she turned the corner, she ran into a wall.

Or so she thought.

As she was about to fall from the force of the impact, a strong pair of hands seemed to shoot out from what she had thought was the wall and grasp her elbows. She looked up to find a pair of mesmerizing eyes staring back at her.

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Hey! I hope you enjoyed that. Any guesses as to who Hermione ran into? It's an easy one =)

This was your slightly late Christmas Gift. The next update will be DEC 31. 

Until then, Happy Holidays, Eat tons of Chocolate Frogs, Listen to One Direction & Keep on loving Harry Potter.

Amazingness xx