Greengrass

~11~

Fake dating, as it turned out, took a lot of planning. Draco and Hermione had spent almost two hours talking about what each other was okay with doing and what went over the line. They also had to make it look like it happened naturally and not like they agreed to fool everyone into thinking they were in love to mutually benefit one another.

They would start slowly. The first step was to start sitting next to each other and holding hands, maybe whispering into each other's ears sometimes or making eyes at each other.

It should've been easy. Seamless, even. They just had to not look suspicious.

"My middle name is convincing, Greengrass," Draco had said. 

And then he promptly hip-checked Theodore Nott when trying to sit next to her at dinner. The poor boy stumbled and almost dropped the book he'd been carrying. She tried not to groan into her hands as Theo eyed him oddly before picking up his bowl and moving to sit across from them instead.

Draco had an almost smug look on his face as he started eating. If her plan didn't rely on this man, she swore she would've hexed him. She was pulled from her aggravated thoughts when she felt his hand on hers. She looked down at their hands on the bench. Tables behind them could see it, but not anyone in front of them. Gryffindor just so happened to be behind them.

Draco leaned close to the side of her face and whispered, "Start laughing. Pretend I just said something incredibly funny. Don't overdo it."

Hermione threw her head back and let out a peal of laughter. She rested her hand on his arm for effect and let her eyes roam while she laughed. While she made sure not to look directly in Gryffindor's direction, she could see Harry and Ron snap their heads up at the sound of her laugh. She could almost feel their eyes burning a hole through the spot where her hand met Draco's arm.

She let her hand linger a few seconds too long before slowly pulling it back to my side. Draco shifted slightly closer and dinner continued like that. Hermione made it obvious that she was avoiding Daphne's suspicious eyes, all while the blush on her cheeks helped drive the point home. 

As soon as they were back in their room, Pansy and Daphne wasted no time hurling questions at her. 

"What was that? Are you two courting?" Daphne asked.

Pansy scoffed. "She became a pure-blood like last week, she probably doesn't court."

Hermione only had time to be offended for a second before Daphne continued. "Yeah, but Draco knows the customs. Did you see how close they were sitting? Draco isn't that funny so she has to be enamored by him to laugh like that with him." Containing her laughter at that comment was admittedly hard. She couldn't wait to tell Draco that later. 

"That's true. Draco hasn't had a serious relationship, though. Maybe it's one-sided?"

It was Daphne's turn to scoff. "Yeah right. Have you seen how beautiful Hermione is? If he didn't notice it at the Yule Ball then he definitely has this year, especially since she has the family hair."

Hermione self-consciously ran her fingers through her hair. It's true that the Greengrass' had pretty nice hair. Daphne placed a straightening charm on her hair every morning so she never really saw it curly, and Astoria had wavey hair. When she met her parents, her mum's hair was always back in a bun so she couldn't tell if she got it from her. Maybe Daphne was talking about the quality of the hair? They did have pretty thick hair, that's for sure. 

"Well?"

Hermione snapped her attention away from her hair and back to her friends. They both stood in front of her with their arms crossed and had pointed looks on their faces as if they were waiting for answers.