The Potions Master's Daughter (Book Five)

Chapter 23

The next day was the day of Slughorn's Christmas party which we had all completely forgotten about.

I walked down the stairs to be bombarded by Hermione who was already up, and looked ready to go, "Jessica! We completely forgot to go dress shopping yesterday with all the excitement, we have to go today now!"

Ginny came rushing down the stairs, "Do you mind if I tag along? I need mine still too."

"Of course," I told her, "Give me 15 minutes to get ready then we can go down."

"Where are you guys going?" asked Ron who came down the stairs yawning.

"To Hogsmeade to get dresses," Hermione responded.

He perked up at her voice and repeated, "Hogsmeade? Hey Harry," he called up the stairs, "Do you want to go to Hogsmeade with the girls? We can get a drink while they get their dresses."

"Sure!" Harry shouted down then a few seconds later he called again, "Neville is coming too!"

Ron grinned at Hermione, "I hope that's alright. We will leave for the dress shopping, but that way we can all hang out today. I think I need a new tie anyways for the party."

"Hermione hasn't even asked you to be her date," Ginny said with a grin between the two of them, "Just because you two made out in front of our entire house doesn't mean you're going to the party together automatically."

They both turned beat red and Ron stuttered, "I-I-I-Of course, I mean if you don't-I just assumed-"

Hermione cut him off before he could say anything else, "Of course I want to go with you Ronald. Would you like to come? I already talked to Cormac after he was a complete ass the other day and we weren't going to go together anyways."

He nodded and his face relaxed, "Well then we will just go get ready. We'll be done in a few minutes."

20 minutes later we were walking down to Hogsmeade. Ron and Hermione kept playing around with their hands until Ron finally just took Hermione's hand into his. I exchanged a glance with Ginny and the two of us gigled to ourselves. I stayed by Neville's side as we walked, and though it seemed like we were another couple, we didn't hold hands on the way down.

Outside the dress store we were saying bye to the boys when Blake and Draco came out of the store each sporting a bag of their own. They must have come for something like a new tie or shoes, or something of the likes.

"Hi guys," Blake greeted taking a quick double take at Ron and Hermione holding hands he continued, "My, I've missed a lot."

Everyone laughed and I replied, "Blake!" and enveloped him in a quick hug, "Are you guys going to the Slug Club dinner tonight?"

Draco responded somewhat bitterly, "I have something to do, and I wasn't invited anyways, so I'm not."

Blake said, "I'm not either, not that I have any interest in going anyway parties aren't exactly my scene normally. We were just getting new ties for the Malfoy's Christmas Party over break, my old one is starting to fade so we got matching ones."

"Awh you boys got matching ties," I laughed punching Draco in the arm.

"Shove off Jess," Draco muttered his face turning red.

I picked up on the strange looks I was getting from the rest of my friends from talking to Draco but I shrugged them off, "I'll catch you guys around then. I know I'll see you at your Christmas party too."

They smiled and bade us all goodbye before leaving. The rest of the group looked a bit stunned by Draco Malfoy being nice and saying goodbye to them but I wasn't going to explain it if they didn't ask, nor was I going to apologize for being friends with him. He really had changed quite a bit, and once you looked deeper at him you could tell that a lot of the things we hated about him weren't his fault.