Chapter 5
Hermione Granger came down the staircase in slow motion. Or at least that was how it seemed. Draco stood, his jaw clenched, Pansy’s arm wrapped around his own.
“Draco,” she hissed into his ear. “The ice is freezing my hand.” Draco tore his eyes away from Granger and looked down to see there was frost coating the sleeves of his dress robes. He tried to breathe, tried to will the ice back inside.
“What color is her dress?” He asked suddenly.
Pansy stared at him for a long moment, her deep brown eyes pleading slightly with him. She let out a low sigh through her nose and turned to look at Granger, who was now taking the arm of Victor Krum.
“It’s periwinkle.”
Draco noticed a slight red hue traveling up her neck. “Are you blushing?”
Pansy’s eyes shot to him.
The thing about being friends with someone as closed off as Pansy Parkinson is that you get to know the subtle shifts in mood pretty quickly. Pansy could hide a lot, and she did from most people, but Draco could always read her pretty well. Ever since they were kids and thrown into a room together while their parents discussed something or another.
He could tell when she was happy, or sad, or angry.
And right now she was scared.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she hissed. “And you shouldn’t be looking at a mudblood like that.”
But how could he not. She looked ethereal. The dress had some sort of frilly things around it that made it look like waves of water moving down her body. The top was tight enough that what he could see was sending blood away from his brain. Then there were the straps. Little pieces of wispy fabric that tickled her collarbones. The color made her look like she glowed a little more gold than she normally did.
Though her hair was all wrong. It was in a bun at the nape of her neck, slicked back straight. Granger’s hair was never meant to be straight. He wanted nothing more than to fix that for her. To run his hands through her hair, take it out of that bun, let it cascade down her shoulders. He’s cast anything to make it curly again. To give the little lioness back her mane.