Love's Potion [Dramione]

Chapter 16

"What's the truth?" asked Harry as he entered the room as well.

"That Hermione is pretty," Ginny replied. "Don't you think she's pretty, Harry?"

Hermione suddenly wished the floor would open up and swallow her.

"Of course," Harry said without hesitation, only he managed not to blush when he said it.

"That's it," Hermione muttered. She jumped up from the couch. "I have to get to class."

"No you don't," Ginny said. "We haven't even gone to breakfast yet."

"I know that," Hermione snapped. "I meant to say breakfast."

"Well, we're almost ready to leave. Why don't you wait for us to go with you?"

"Because!" Hermione exclaimed. "You're embarrassing me!"

Ginny grinned. "If you think you're embarrassed," she muttered, "my brother just told a girl she was pretty. He's going to be red all day."

Hermione laughed. She looked over at Ron, who appeared to be discussing something with Harry; the pink tint still visible in his cheeks.

Ginny grabbed Hermione's arm and laced hers through it, and began to lead her toward the portrait hole. "You know, Hermione, you don't give yourself enough credit. I know you're thinking that Draco Malfoy is too good for you, when in reality I'm kind of wondering why you like him."

Hermione opened her mouth to argue that she does not like Draco Malfoy, but she knew it was a lost cause. She knew Ginny no longer believed her when she said it. Instead, she kept silent and thought to herself, I'm kind of wondering why, too...
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Draco's biggest regret from the past weekend was apologizing to Hermione Granger.

All he could do was keep asking himself over and over why he'd done it, yet he still could not come up with an acceptable answer. First, he blamed it on too many butterbeers, but since he'd only had one, that wasn't much of an excuse. Next, he blamed it on the incredibly boring date he'd been having with that Fifth Year girl Sadie. The girl had driven him to the brink of insanity, and being driven to the brink of insanity can do crazy things to a person. For instance, it could make him apologize to a girl he hates with all his heart and soul.

So Monday morning arrived, and Draco was still busy thinking about that stupid apology, and silently berating himself for being such a dolt. He was so busy silently berating, in fact, that he hadn't even noticed that Blaise had sauntered into the common room. That is, until the boy spoke.

"Hey," Blaise said. "A cute girl was looking for you yesterday."

Draco smacked the palm of his hand against his forehead. "Damn. Sadie. I left her all alone at the pub, didn't I? I forgot all about her."

"Well, yeah, you did," Blaise agreed. "But I wasn't talking about Sadie."

"Oh," Draco said distantly as he began to pile books into his bag. "Pansy, then?"

Blaise gave Draco a look of complete and utter shock. "You consider Pansy to be a cute girl?"

"Yeah, sure. You know, if she's in a good light and you're squinting and you kind of tilt your head a little to the right..."

Blaise was absolutely astonished by this information, and made a mental note to try that trick out later. In the meantime, he said, "Right. Well, I wasn't talking about Pansy, either."

Frustrated by this little guessing game, Draco sighed and said, "Was it Marietta?"

"Who?" Blaise, now equally annoyed as Draco, gave up and said, "No, geez. I was talking about Hermione."