Long Slow Beautiful Dance
Description: An upcoming formal at Hogwarts sends all the students in a frenzy. To everyone's surprise, Hermione Granger seems to be the most excited student in the school. She obviously has something up her sleeve! But after an unpleasant surprise sends her hopes crashing down, how can she survive the most anticipated social event in school history?
A/N: The title of this fic is the title of a song by Rascal Flatts. Characters created by JK Rowling.
Chapter 1
Professor Binns's voice was nothing more than a buzz in Hermione Granger's ears. Normally, she was an exceptional student, always listening intently and jotting notes over everything, no matter how boring the subject. But on this particular day, she couldn't bring herself to care about the pointless subject of history. The outside sky was gray, and Hagrid had told them this morning that an ice storm was on the way. If the storm did come, there was no doubt that the whole school would have to hibernate inside the castle, lest they risk going out into the blizzard.
Hermione's eyes were diverted from the skies as she heard a tittering of whispers from her classmates, Lavender and Parvati. They both had hands over their mouths and were giggling fiercely. Noting Hermione's gaze on them, they gave each other shocked looks before bursting into more giggles.
She definitely did not want to be stuck in a castle with these people.
Averting her attention away from the giggling girls, Hermione glanced down at her blank piece of parchment. Glancing sideways at her two best friends, Ron and Harry, she saw that they were engrossed in drawing a scene of a Quidditch match on Harry's parchment. A smile played at the corner of her lips, hoping neither of them saw it. Naturally, they didn't. She loved them both dearly, but they were rather oblivious. Realizing that there was still a lot of time left before class was over, and realizing that she had no earthly idea what the ghost professor was droning on about, Hermione looked about her subtly before picking up her quill and joining the boys in drawing.
She wasn't an artist by any means, but she did like to make little drawings, no matter how feeble. Shielding her paper from view with her arm, her quill flew across the page. The first thing on the parchment was a beautiful, tiny girl all decked out for a party. She wore a little dress of solid black with gauze-like material edged with scarlet ribbon at the bottom and a thick scarlet ribbon around the waist. Next, a tall boy appeared, his hair inked in with the blank ink, wearing a suit of black and a scarlet tie. After these two images, the ink seemed to just flow onto the paper, creating roses and hearts and every other thing that could be related to a girlish fantasy. She was just putting the finishing touches on adding a rose to the girl's hair when the bell rang. She jumped in surprise, and noticing Harry's eyes on her, she stuffed the parchment into her bag hastily and followed them to the door.
"Hey, Hermione, you weren't doodling in class, were you?"
Ron smirked at Harry's questioning glance. "Miss Know-it-All didn't pay attention in class? Pinch me I must be dreaming!"
Hermione reached out and pinched his arm fiercely, causing Ron to yelp and clutch the tender spot.
"Hey, I was just kidding! But seriously, Hermione, why were you drawing Harry in a suit?"
Both Harry and Hermione stopped dead in their tracks and stared at Ron in disbelief.
"I-I don't have a clue what you're talking about, Ron. I was drawing people, and, well, you know… Can't a girl draw people with dark hair without being accused of drawing her best friend? I mean, there's lots of people with dark hair, like, like…DEAN!"
Dean Thomas stopped from ahead of them and turned, walking off quickly before Hermione could explain.
She sighed and pushed between her boys, leading the way to Transfiguration. Ron kept teasing her the whole way to the classroom, but Harry was oddly quiet.
There was no way that he couldn't know how she felt about him.
Still, boys could be pretty clueless…
"All right, class, settle down, settle down!" The trio quickly found three seats at the front of the classroom and looked towards McGonagall attentively. Something in the way she was behaving told the seventh year Gryffindors that she had an important announcement to give.
"There is an upcoming event that I need to inform you of. The headmaster has decided that, in light of the inevitable winter blues that fall on students around this time of year, there will be a winter formal two weeks from today. Girls will be required to wear dresses or dress robes in their house colors or standard black. Boys will be required to wear nice clothes and a tie in their house colors or standard black. Now, enough of this hogwash! Today we will be transfiguring raccoons…"
Hermione felt as though all her blood had gone to her head. She moved her head so that her bushy hair fell over her face, blocking her blushing face from Harry's view. She didn't want him to see her clearly right now, now as a horrible, irreversible thought penetrated her everything.
Her mind strayed to her drawings, and suddenly she was there. There, held in Harry's firm arms, wearing that little black dress, dancing, twirling in the darkness, her deep brown eyes locked with his piercing green ones in a love-filled stare…
Hermione gasped, realizing that going with Harry to this dance was the one thing she wanted more than anything else in the world. And her heart's desire at that moment was for Harry to take her hands in his and ask her to go to the dance with him.
She gave a sideways glance at Harry, groaning inwardly as she saw him paired with Ron, prodding a lazy raccoon gently with the tip of his wand. He caught her gaze and smiled sweetly, beckoning her to join them.
Who was she kidding? Harry couldn't possibly know how much she loved him, how many nights she had knelt beside her bedside and prayed that someday, somehow, he would be hers…
There was no way around it. She'd have to ask him to the dance herself.
A/N: Please review!
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