Daze
Ginny whacked Hermione with a pillow.
“Shut. Up!” she squealed, emphasizing each word with another hit. “Tell. Me. Everything!”
Hermione laughed, batting her off. “We just walked around campus after his practice, discussed details for the ball, talked. He asked a lot about me, actually. Where I grew up, what my parents did, how I got into Godric's Hollow.”
“What did you tell him?”
“The truth—said that my parents were dentists, that we weren’t rich or famous in any way. That that I’ve worked my entire life to get here.”
“Fair enough,” Ginny said, picking up a chocolate covered pretzel. On Friday nights, Hermione and Ginny made full use of the empty 8th Year Girls common room—which was deserted by its occupants who were usually out on dates, society events, and parties—by going down to the castle kitchen and raiding it (read: politely asking the kitchen staff) for snacks. They then spent the evening debriefing and going over their week while eating their makeshift dinner. It was the only evening on which they didn’t study or work and was therefore by default Hermione's favourite day of the week.
In summer, they sat perched on the common room window nook, looking over the castle grounds through tall, arched window and feeling the cool evening breeze spiral around dormitory tower. In the colder months they curled up on the cushy sofa in front of the common room fireplace, watching the flames crackle.
“I’m just a little confused,” Ginny said, after a small pause. “No offence!” she said quickly, waving her hands in front of her, “I understand why he has a crush on you, that part is obvious. Hell, I’d have a crush on you, too.”
Now it was Hermione’s turn to whack Ginny.
Ginny laughed, then turned serious. “I just mean, why ask you to the ball. It’s a big deal. Lots of important people are going to be there, going to see you two together. It’s going to raise some talk—who you are, who your parents are.” Her big doe eyes, impossibly, got even bigger. “Everyone is going to want to know who the girl hanging on the arm of Theodore Nott is.”
Hermione nibbled on a pretzel. “I really don’t know,” she said quietly, looking out the tower window. It was something she’d been mulling over herself. Why had he asked her?
Ginny waved her hands again. “Whatever. Let’s not overthinking it. He asked you and that’s that. What’s the game plan, then? What are you going to wear? Who are you going to talk to? I hear Professor Sinistra is going this year, from Oxford.”
“I don’t know, Gin. I haven’t even started to wrap my head around the fact that I’m going to the ball in the first place.” She picked up the tub of pretzels and held it upside down. “For now, I think the gameplan is to get more pretzels,” she said, trying to keep her tone lighthearted.
“Okay,” Ginny said, stretching out on the cushioned window nook, her red painted toes wiggling. “Once you get back from the kitchen though, we’re going through ALL the details,” she said sternly, eyeing Hermione as Hermione rolled her eyes and made her way out the dormitory door.
Hermione made her way through the castle, taking a shortcut down to the kitchens located on the second floor. As she was nearing the bottom of the stairs on the fourth floor, she paused, her ears pricking at the sound of muffled voices coming from an alcove tucked away behind the massive stone staircase.
Something about the voices—their cadence, their quiet intensity—made her almost sure that they did not want to be heard.
As carefully as she could, she crept down the last few steps and stopped to listen, straining her ears.
“I don’t understand what the problem is, Draco.”
“The problem, Nott, is that you’re taking a filthy, no-name, nobody to the ball. Have you lost your mind? She’ll be an embarrassment – and what’s worse, when she embarrasses herself in front of everyone—not if—it’ll reflect badly on you. On us.”
Hermione’s breath caught in her throat.
“You’re catastrophising, Draco. Granger’s smart, she won’t do anything stupid.”
“Fine. That still leaves the question of why you’re taking her. She doesn’t belong here. She’s a charity case with no friends, except for that Weasley girl, which is arguably worse than having no friends at all. A scholarship kid and the Weasley failure – is that who you want to align yourself with?”
A flush of heat went up Hermione’s entire body, warming her limbs, her face.
“Christ. Draco. What’s gotten into you?”
“No, Theo, what’s gotten into you? People like us don’t fraternise with people like them.”
“I happen to like Granger, Draco. And unlike you, I happen to not care so much about where she comes from. Who cares if she’s on a scholarship? She’s better company than someone like Daphne could ever be.”
“You know I have to take Greengrass to the ball, Theo. Our parents arranged it.”
“Well, my date hasn't been arranged for me, which means I’m in a position to pick one myself. And I choose Granger.”
Hermione heard Malfoy spluttering.
"And what’s more,” Theo continued, “I plan on taking Granger to Pansy’s party next week, so please kindly ask Daphne to not let her horns show around my date.”
Malfoy scoffed. “Pansy will never let you bring Granger, you know that.”
“Then you’ll have to convince her," said Theo. "You owe me.”
The silence that ensued was so loud that Hermione didn’t dare breathe. She felt the temperature on the floor drop several degrees in the quiet that followed; it was so chilling that she was surprised it didn’t start snowing from the arched ceiling.
“Fine,” Malfoy said eventually. His voice was cool, but Hermione could hear the anger and annoyance disguised behind it. “I’ll convince her. But I can’t tell the others how to act. If you bring her next week, you’re responsible for whatever happens.”
“Fine.”
Hermione heard a scoff—Malfoy—then the sound of boots on the polished wooden floor. Heart beating painfully fast, she scampered back up the stairs and onto the landing halfway between the fourth and fifth floors. She hid behind the landing bannisters just in time to see Nott as he emerged from the alcove and made his way down to the level below, his boots clicking adamantly on the wooden stairs.
A few seconds later, Malfoy himself emerged from the alcove and followed Nott, the both of them presumably making their way down to the 8th Year Boys dormitory on the third floor. Hermione noticed that Malfoy's footsteps were slightly uneven, his knee stiff.
In a daze, she stayed crouched behind the bannisters, unable to make herself get up. Her mind was whirring with all that she’d heard.
Eventually, the sound of a door closing somewhere in the distance startled her out of her disfunction. She jumped – what was she doing? She was getting more snacks… Yes, for her and Ginny.
She meandered down to the kitchen, hoping that her feet would take her where she needed to go. Her mind felt cloudy, her thought processes scrambled.
She knew that Theo would receive some flack for taking her to the ball. She knew that she was an unusual choice for a date, that he was probably breaking some unspoken social protocol in asking her. She knew she was invisible, a nobody here at Godric's Hollow Grammar, not worthy of a date such as Theodore Nott.
She knew all of that.
She just didn’t realise how deep their disdain went.
Or, at the very least, how deep Malfoy’s disdain went. Did he dislike her simply because she was on a scholarship? Because she didn’t have land or titles or a signet ring with an ancient family crest, or a powerful mother and father? Or was it something else? Perhaps the comment that she had made in detention cut deeper than she had thought…
Lost in her thoughts, she bumped into something, rather someone, solid. Slowly, she looked up.
Malfoy, tall and glowering, stood staring down at her. Of course, she groaned internally.
“Watch where you’re going, Granger.”
She looked up at him, his words to Nott still playing in sickening loops around her head.
“She’ll be an embarrassment.”
Hermione felt colour rise to her cheeks, felt a cocktail of emotions simmering in her blood – a dangerous mix of indignation, humiliation, and…
Resentment. For him, for his friends. For the stupid, elitist ball, and the stupid, elitist school that would never accept her with welcome arms, no matter how perfect her grades were or how hard she had worked just to step foot inside its ancient walls.
She had had enough.
“Maybe you should watch where you’re standing, Malfoy,” she said, raising her chin.
Malfoy’s grey eyes narrowed into slits and he lowered his head, training his eyes on hers. She felt like a deer caught in headlights.
“Feeling a little cocky are we, now that we’ve got a date to the ball,” he said in a low voice, his long, straight nose almost brushing hers. “Well done, Granger. You’re almost passing.” He smiled in a way that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Passing for what?” she asked in challenge, refusing to break eye contact.
He smirked, one side of his mouth quirking upwards.
“A real human girl.”
Her hands, which she only now realised has been balled up into fists at her sides, started to shake.
He leaned away, his smirk slowly morphing into an arrogant smile. “Enjoy it while it lasts, Granger,” he said as he started to turn around.
The words had barely left his mouth before Hermione’s fist landed squarely on his jaw.