Masquerade - A Dramione Short Story

Part 3

"Malfoy," She replied curtly. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I simply saw a familiar face and wanted to say hello," He answered before holding up his own empty glass. "Plus I too am in need of a drink."

She blinked and looked up at him again. He looked rather nice, if she was honest with herself. He was dressed in all black including his dress shirt, and even his mask was made of black metal.

"Like what you see?" He asked smugly, bringing her out of her thoughts.

"Don't flatter yourself," She replied, tilting her chin up slightly. "I was simply looking at the details of your mask."

"Whatever you say, Granger," He said, continuing to smirk.

She rolled her eyes and turned away from him, and he took the time to look her over. In truth he didn't recognize her at first; she was dressed much more elegantly than he had ever seen her, and he was admittedly surprised by the style of dress she was wearing. But nevertheless, she pulled it off beautifully.

They reached the front of the line and Hermione ordered another glass of wine. Draco moved up next to her, smirking as he saw her glare up at him out of the corner of his eye. As the bartender turned back around with the wine bottle, Draco said, "Put her drink on my tab, please. I'll have another whiskey as well."

Her glare turned into a look of surprise and she said quietly, "You don't need to do that."

"Why not?" He asked, looked down at her with a smug grin. "Your boyfriend going to get upset?"

Her face immediately dropped and she turned away, quickly walking away from him. She blinked back tears as she left the ballroom and found her way onto a terrace where she was thankfully alone. She didn't even care that it was cold out as she collapsed onto a stone bench and put her head in her hands. A few seconds later she angrily ripped her mask off and threw it across the stone before quietly crying, wiping away the tears as they fell.

"Hey."

She looked up and groaned slightly. "Please, Malfoy, for the love of everything, I do not want to be bothered right now."

"I'm not here to bother," He said quietly as he stopped in front of her, offering the wine glass she left behind.

After wiping away another round of tears she quietly took the glass and looked away, not saying anything. He didn't seem to mind as he sat down on the other side of the bench, looking up at the night sky.

"I'm very sorry," He said, breaking the silence. "I didn't mean anything by that comment."

She sighed, looking down into her wine glass. "It's not your fault, you couldn't have known."

He pulled his own mask off and set it down next to him before looking over at her. "I'm sure I'm the last person you want to talk to about it, but...do you want to talk about it?"

Giving a half-hearted laugh, Hermione took a drink of her wine before saying, "I'm not even sure what is going on."

"Well, from what I know, you were dating Weasley before, right?" He asked hesitantly.

"Yeah, I was," Hermione said bitterly, glaring down at the red wine in her hand. "He broke things off on Saturday and told me it was because he wanted to focus on his quidditch career. Well tonight, I learned that it's possible there's another reason he broke things off."

Draco's jaw clenched as he listened, and he looked through the nearby windows to see the crowd enjoying the gala. He wasn't able to see the red head Weasley and he looked back towards Hermione after his unsuccessful search.

"I'm going to assume that he is here with company?" Draco asked slowly.

Hermione simply nodded as she took another drink. He noticed her shoulders shaking slightly as goosebumps formed on her arms, and he sighed as he set his glass down and removed his jacket.

"Here." He reached over to place the jacket on her shoulders and she gave him a surprised look.

"Oh," She said in a quiet voice, pulling his jacket closer together over her torso. "Thank you."

He nodded and looked away, noticing her mask that had been thrown across the terrace. He quietly stood up and fetched it, offering it back to her when he returned.

"You didn't need to do that," She said, shaking her head. "I was going to grab it on my way out."

"It's fine," He said, waving her off before asking, "Way out?"

She shrugged. "I don't know if I want to stay very long after all of this."

He raised an eyebrow. "You're going to leave a party early because your ex is here?"

She gave him a confused look. "Well...I'm not exactly happy to be in the same room as him at the moment."

"I just think it's a waste of a beautiful night and a beautiful dress," He said lightly, giving her a small smile. "Especially considering the reason for the waste would be someone as unworthy as Ronald Weasley."

Hermione was unable to hold back a smile at this, looking away and tilting her head to the side slightly. "I suppose that's true. And Ginny and Harry would be very disappointed."

"Them too, yes," Draco agreed as he took a drink.

She raised an eyebrow at him but didn't say anything as she looked away and back up towards the stars. A cool breeze hit them and she pulled the jacket tighter around her before looking at him worriedly. "Aren't you cold?"

He shrugged as he said, "A little but it's not too bad. Besides, I have sleeves and you don't."

"We can always go back inside," She said, glancing towards the windows.

"Are you sure you want to?" He asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

She chewed on the inside of her cheek for a few moments before faltering. "I'm not sure. I don't want you to be cold though."

"Don't worry about me," He said with a small wave of his hand. "I'm not the emotionally fragile one."

"I'm not 'emotionally fragile'!" She exclaimed, reaching over to smack him lightly on the arm with the back of her hand. "I just was caught off guard!"

He grinned and said, "Alright, alright! I'm just trying to look out for you; I'd hate for you to leave in the middle of a conversation again because of your ex."

"I can't make any promises," She said, smiling at him. "Do you plan on having a conversation with me after this?"

"You are still wearing my jacket, Granger," He laughed. "It would be rather rude of you to just hand it back to me and disappear into the night."

"Would it though?" She teased.

"I think so, yes!" He smirked. "If anything, I think you owe me one dance for this!"

"One dance for you loaning me your jacket?" She asked before taking a drink.

"Well, and coming out to check on you, make you laugh, bring you your abandoned glass of wine," He said, ticking off the reasons as he held up a finger for each. "I could be mean and demand a dance for each, but I think I earned at least one dance."

She smiled, laughing slightly before realizing something. "Wait, you're asking me to dance?"

"Merlin, Granger, I thought you were smarter than that," He said, laughing now.

She stared at him. "Really? You want to dance with me?"

He simply shrugged then and smiled. "If you'd like to."

After a few blinks, a smile spread across her face. "Yes, I think I would like to."