A Forbidden Birthright

Chapter Forty Four

"Remind me again how the bloody hell you managed to convince me to go to this stupid fucking thing."

"It's called a club."

"Yes, and it looks distinctly not at all like a library. I'm just a little confused why you of all people would be interested in going to a place where everything is so-" Draco scrunched his face in disgust at the music blaring from the open doors. "Loud."

"I do enjoy doing things other than reading, you know," Hermione objected.

"Who's blasted idea was this again?"

"Mine," she said with a grin as she handed her ID to the security guard, motioning for Draco to hand her the one she had made for him using transformation magic. He had suggested they just use Imperio but the look she'd shot him shut him up. 

"Remind me to kill you when we get back to Hogwarts," he grumbled, hands in his pockets as he looked about suspiciously.

"Only if you promise to kiss me while you do it."

At this, he gave her a sly smile and kissed her on her temple. "Of course, love." His expression quickly soured again as she dragged him through the doors, his hand tightly gripped in her own as she led him inside and over to the bar. Nikolai waited for them, accompanied by Harry and Ginny.

For a split second, Hermione's heart ripped in half. It had been over a month now since Ron's death, and knowing that he wouldn't be joining them in their revelries made her nauseas. As if sensing this, Draco squeezed her hand.

She squeezed back.

Nikolai presented a kiss on both her cheeks, which she returned, and then hugged Harry and Ginny. The new-engagement glow had dimmed from her friend's face, replaced by a flickering sorrow. She still smiled, and smiled wide, but it didn't always meet her eyes. Harry also looked more weathered, his jaw often set and offering only a handful of tight or grim smiles.

"I'm glad you guys decided to come out," Hermione said to them over the music.

"You said this is a Muggle club that wizards are known to frequent?" Harry asked. Hermione knew he was shouting but it was still hard to make out what he way saying. She nodded in response.

"Why would wizards come to a Muggle nightclub?" Draco asked from next to her.

She smiled and took his hand again, motioning for the others to follow her. Together, they left the bar, weaving through the crowd on the dancefloor and exited to a long, dimly lit hall. An exit door stood at the end, and when they pushed outside into the sharp night air, they found themselves in a courtyard that was the designated smoking area. A large brick wall cut them off from the other buildings.

"You had to have known there were wizarding nightclub's in England, surely," Hermione said with a laugh, and pulled him through the glamoured wall. 

The stood in an expansive room, all wooden floors and dark brick, illuminated only by the flash of multicolor lights, dousing the room in moody blues and purples. A raised bar lined either side of the room, and the dance floor was a massive square, the center of it lowered into the ground where the crowd of people dancing turned into a crush. The music was loud and pulsing, an electric beat that vibrated Hermione's skin, and underneath was an angelic vocal track that somehow brought a sultry tone to the song. 

Drinks floated in the air next to their owners, each glass protected with a charm that would keep several inches of space around it in order to keep from anybody's glasses getting bumped and spilling its contents on both the club-goers and the floor. 

"There's a spell in the air," Draco noted after surveying the room with judgmental eyes. "An aphrodisiac." 

Hermione gave him a sly grin as she tossed her hair over her shoulder. "A gentle one," she told him.