You're going to the ball with me.
Draco didn't even glance towards Pansy Parkinson's direction as he dropped the note on her lap as he passed by her in the Slytherin's table in The Great Hall. He didn't want his lack of sleep to lessen his swagger so he sat at his usual spot beside Viktor Krum and the other Durmstrang students.
Maybe he should bring Hermione up. Just a joke. Face the wrath of an older Triwizard champion if he has to. Possibly get punched in the face by a professional Quidditch player.
Would be worth it.
"Krum?"
The Durmstrang boys stopped their foreign chatter and looked at him. He didn't notice that he was standing now.
"Yes?" Krum said, he looked up through thick eyebrows. He looked more formidable than usual.
Draco feared that maybe Krum saw him in the library the other day and perhaps right now he could read Draco's thoughts. And just the mere glimpse would be more than enough to send him spiraling out of the Great Hall with a single punch and a hex.
"About..."
Everybody was looking at him in expectation.
"Can you svek a bit louder?" It was a low grumble. An indication that Krum might be getting impatient with the pale faced fourth year wizard.
And Draco knew then with certainty that he didn't stood a chance.
"Er- can you pass the marmalade?"
Krum reached for the jar beside one of his friends and placed it beside Draco. He was shaking as he watched Krum's veiny arms, to think that he would have been into oblivion if he said another word out of line. Krum didn't even look at Draco. He was looking over at the Gryffindor's table on the bushy haired witch with the twinkling eyes.
And he knew then and there that to sit in the same table as her is to battle things worse than dragons.
And Draco was never the brave sort.
"Too bad," he heard Krum said from beside him. "Took a whole lottov 'eart."
He swore then and there that the Durmstrang students must be practicers of a whole other level of Dark Magic.
Because he never had that much heart but even he would never admit it.
He stood up again without as much as touching the marmalade. "Parkinson, don't be late. Or I'm taking someone else." Pansy Parkinson looked down but didn't say a word.
He signaled for Crabbe and Goyle to follow him out. They took their food with them.
It was suffocating in there anyway.
---------------------------------------------
The night of the Yule Ball came and Draco felt the instant need to make everyone feel like stepped on horse manure.
"Beautiful dress. Never seen anything quite like it..." He approached a Hufflepuff girl. "Oh wait, I had. My dead grandmother's drapes! Cannot beat the classics."
The Hufflepuff girl looked like she was about to burst into tears before her friends led her away from the guffawing Slytherins.
"Great choice of a dress robe, mate. Matches your eyes. Both colored like shit," Draco was on a roll. He positioned himself on the entrance of the hall so he could jeer at all of the students.
"Stupid git. Must have thought that this was a pajama party," he sneered as a lanky Ravenclaw wearing a blue pinstripe suit walked passed them.
Pansy was getting uneasy beside him, she had both her hands clinging on his arm but he doesn't seem to notice her. "Draco, I think we should enter. It's about to start."
For the first time that evening he looked at Pansy. She had glitter on her eyelids and she was wearing a pink dress. Fat chance of him taking anyone with sparkles on their eyes seriously. "Why don't you go ahead. We boys still have things to sort out. Be a good girl, won't you?" he whispered all this in her ear.
She was blushing when their faces met again and she did as she was told. Draco smirked, it was easy, way to easy. Girls are so uncomplicated.
"Bitch must be thinking herself a prefect. All concerned about punctuality," he laughed at Crabbe and Goyle who just handed him a silver flask. It was Firewhisky. Had it smuggled from Hogsmeade. He took a swig and it burned his throat. There's always a first time for everything but his face will not let it show. "And she looks like a fairy pig's underbelly. Oh for crying-"
The corridor beside the grand staircase fell silent.
"She's beautiful," he heard someone whisper and he looked the way everybody seemed to be turned to.
Hermione descended the staircase.
Draco was speechless and for the first time even he didn't have a single insult to throw her way.
"Perfection," he heard a voice way too similar to his own whisper in awe.
It couldn't be him. He wouldn't. Couldn't. Shouldn't. For the life of him admit it.
Hermione descended the staircase slowly, her periwinkle dress caressing the stone steps, it showed glimpses of her creamy feet covered by a white high heeled shoe that reminded Draco of pearls. The way that it sparkled beneath her. And her hair... Don't let him start on her hair. It was magical how a bush can turn into-don't say pretty- gorgeous tendrils. Worse. Her brown eyes looked like amber and her smile...
Like that bloody git Cinderella.
The warm feeling was gone replaced by a heavy pang of hurt.
Waiting on the foot of the stairs was Krum and by the way he looked at her, Draco knew that he will never let her go for the rest of the night.
And so it was.
Hermione and Krum danced the night away. Krum can't keep his hands to himself, he must have loved holding Hermione's tiny waist beneath that dress of hers. Draco rolled his eyes as he watched Krum lift her for the hundredth time as they danced a faster version of the waltz. Everybody watched including Draco, just from the corner of his eyes, of course. He will never sit this one out like the losers that are Potter and the Weasel.
The Weasel is looking at Hermione with a mixture of depression and disgust. A bad mixture, of course. Draco can almost hear his displacement on her later.
Potter is looking at the Ravenclaw girl dancing with Cedric Diggory. Well, seems like we all know now who's the winner in this event.
Pansy Parkinson grind against him on the corner. They were seated in the shadows. Even though he wanted desperately to be in the light, in the middle of the dance floor. He opened the flask and drank more of the burning Firewhisky. He felt warm but numb at the same time. Parkinson was basically on top of him and he can't feel a thing. He just knows that she's bloody heavy.
The music changed and Hermione and Krum made their way out from the crowd. Draco felt his heart beating fast in apprehension. Where are they going?
Hermione sat by Potter and The Weasel for a while while Krum went and got her a drink. Moments later and she was crying while running out of the hall.
Potter didn't follow her and neither did that sorry excuse of a man Weasel.
Do it. No one else is doing it. Go for it.
Draco took one last swig of the Firewhisky and stood up. "Hey, I have to pee. Get off."
"Can I come?" there was a mischievous glint in Parkinson's eyes as she said this but Draco didn't notice because he was already smoothing down his hair.
"Stay," he tried to speak straight but his tongue was tied. "Guard the seat. I'll be back."
But he highly doubt it as he made his way out of the hall unsteadily. The flickering lights of the fairies is definitely not helping with his vertigo. His temple throbbed as he went to look for her.
And he find her weeping on a bench just under a mistletoe.
Or was it a mistletoe? He could be hallucinating it all. Just to have an excuse...
"Go away," she sobbed. "Go gang up on me again. You and Ron both. Boys are all the same."
"Granger," he approached her cautiously. "Granger," he called her name again. His voice was hoarse from the alcohol.
She looked up at him in obvious surprise. And he swore that he never saw someone that he wanted to protect more.
Her nose and her cheeks were pink from struggling to breathe through sobs. The tendrils of curls have gotten a bit wild from the dancing and the strap of her blue dress has slipped ever so slightly that it showed her shoulders. There were freckles on her shoulders, small dots he could connect to make a map.
But the vision was gone as soon as he saw it.
"What are you doing here, Malfoy?" she sniffed. "Whatever you're going to say can probably wait until tomorrow, can it?"
And Merlin knows that he prefers it that way as well.
Because he's a snake and she's a lion. Nothing but venom comes out of a snake's mouth and when a lion opens it's mouth, it's to roar and nothing else.
None of them ever sang a love song.
If only he could linger longer with her just sitting there in the light of the fairies and the moon, the world would have been a much better place.
"Hermyownninny? Are you der?" Krum pushed Draco aside as he rushed to her. Hermione cried on his shoulder.
And Draco felt something inside him break.
Possibly just a rib because Krum pushed him away pretty hard.
"You're missing the party," Hermione said to him in a whisper.
"It's not a party without you," Krum replied and Draco had to stagger backwards in an attempt not to act on his impulse of bashing his own head against the pavement.
He walked backwards from them, the feeling of vertigo suddenly hit him harder than ever and he threw up on a fairy bush, they all came flying towards the moon. It grew darker. He saw Krum lead Hermione back to the hall.
He's sober. Much, much sober now.
He ran back to the dungeon and got something from under his pillow. He doesn't know what or who exactly it was that he was competing against but he knew that he just needed to do something.
Snow has started to fall. He ran to the outside of the Gryffindor tower and stood by what he knew was her window. He clutched the sharp black seeds the size of knuts in his hands, it dug into his flesh, the droplets of his blood tainted the virgin snow. It needed to happen, the seed won't grow without blood.
He knows her window. Knows it by heart. Threw Dungbombs and rotten eggs at it on more than one occasion. The clock has struck twelve, everyone will have to come back to their dormitories now. The party has ended.
He waited as the snow fell softly on him, his feet now wet on his new dress shoes.
Finally the lights on the room turned on. Draco threw the seeds at her window. Some of it latched on the sill while some fell by the arch. The moment it made contact with the snow, the seeds started growing, slowly and slowly until it grew vines, thin but gracious. It looked like dark hair hanging freely but with thorns. Then it bloomed, the bright red flower a shocking contrast to the black stem and white snow.
It's called 'The Knight's Sacrifice' and he nicked it from a sixth year Hufflepuff who happened to be holding a bunch. It was stuff of legends. Of how a knight fell in love with the princess that he's supposed to guard for marriage. He pretended to be the groom on her wedding day only to be murdered. The only time he got to touch her was when he breath his last. His grave produced the first species.
It was getting colder and colder.
And it was tomorrow.
And he had saved all he had to say now.
He threw a snowball to her window.
Hermione opened it and saw the bright red flowers. "Roses!" She exclaimed. She didn't see him, of course, he ran and hid behind the nearest pillar. His lips blue, his whole body trembling. Never had the courage to take the chance.
Draco racked his brain for the word 'roses'. It's a flower that grows in the muggle world. Something that is given when one muggle adores another.
He watched her cut one and smell it. She tucked it behind her ear, hair wild and bushy again. It suited her chocolate locks.
And he wanted to touch her so bad that he felt that his blood has turned into splinters and glass.
But knew that he couldn't, wouldn't and shouldn't.
Because it's wrong and he wanted to be right. Always right. The Malfoy heir can't make any mistakes.
So he returned to the dungeons.
Dear Granger,
If giving a single rose signifies adoration then what does it mean when I want to give you an entire garden?
He pictured it in his intoxicated brain. Hermione walking in the sunshine in that blue dress with a bouquet of roses in her arms on the way to have tea with him on the garden of their manor and the day will just go on and on and on forever.
If I say now that I'm in love with you. Will you say that you love me back? Won't you say-
And Draco at last could write no more as he collapsed face first on his journal. No one suspected anything. Just that he forgot to close his drapes.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, and I know that it's really sad and all and there seems to be no hope but we haven't even reached half time. ;) or not. XD But seriously though was it true that J.K. Rowling almost made Draco Malfoy Hermione's partner for the Yule Ball? Something about an unexpected twist?
Song up top is 'A Drop in the Ocean' by Ron Pope. I swear, this song is in every single Dramione playlist and just contains all the frigging feels. >.<
This chapter is dedicated to daisy_diaz24 for giving us a star and just being a sweetheart. :)
300+ reads yo! Thanks lots and lots! :D