A/N: Okay so the idea came to me and I had to write it because this is my favorite John Hughes movie (blasphemy I know but I have never liked The Breakfast Club). Just don't expect things to go as they did in the movie cos Draco is Steff (James Spader's character) in this one. Also, for simplicities' sake, no wars or Voldemort in this universe.

Hope you enjoy. Fingers crossed it's not a total disaster lol.

"You're not going?"

"What's the point?" Hermione practices the movements of her wand with an empty hand while scanning the parchment. She can hear Tonks emerging from the backroom with cups of tea and a plate of biscuits prepared. They land somewhere next to her on the counter with a distinctive clink of china. The counter is littered with tea stains, some telltale rings and others obscure brown splashes. Tonks is not careful or adverse to mess, despite the precious books around them. It is Hermione who keeps the stacks of BOOKZ organized, having devised the categorization system since the start of her weekend job back in fourth year.

"You might regret it," Tonks says.

"Hardly."

"But it's seventh year dance, 'Mione." She dunks a digestive in her mug, head resting in one hand and a wistful look in her eyes. "Bad dresses and spiked punch and a lame cover band. It's a rite of passage."

"You had a date."

"And I don't remember him now. It's not who I went back to the Ravenclaw dorms with anyhow."

"Ravenclaw? Who?"

"That's not the point. You and I, we're not traditional in the sense of the Wizarding World. Go alone and make a statement. Be yourself."

"That's the problem." Hermione sighs. She's so tired. Stretched between studying for her ten N.E.W.T.s and prefect duties and working at BOOKZ, she feels about ready to rip. "We're not accepted still. Muggles and half-bloods. A good part of the school hates me."

"Then go to the dance alone and give those fuckers the middle finger to their snotty faces." Tonks' nose morphs into that of a pig while the rest of her biscuit dissolves into her tea.

It's enough to make Hermione laugh.

She's hiding in the library later. Hiding isn't the right word. It's just another of her safe spaces, any place that's filled with books. They don't judge. They just sit and wait to be picked up so they can share the knowledge on their pages. It doesn't matter who she is with them. That her hair is ratty and long and her robes are secondhand and she comes from the wrong side of the tracks, where there's no magic. She works hard and she's talented and she understands. Her magic is a song in her heart. It keeps her blood flowing and warm. It's as much a part of her as every bigoted pureblood scum.

She works on her transfiguration essay late into the night. Saturday. Other students are out in Hogsmeade or going to parties. Even her friends. But she needs this. It will be her way out, her proof of worth, her only means of acceptance. Ten Outstandings and nothing less. Transfiguration is her favorite. The ability to change one thing into something else, even her very person. Perhaps if she does, they will let her into the Ministry of Magic. As an Unspeakable, maybe. It's unthinkable, she knows.

Her quill scratches in precise movements, guided by her wordless charm as it spills her thoughts across the parchment. It is the only way she can write and keep up with the speed of her brain. But she is slowing now. Ink blots on the page, and she looks down. Words are appearing that don't belong to her.

Why here all alone?

She stands and looks around, cast in candlelight but surrounded by shadows. "Who's there?"

I didn't mean to scare you.

She grips her wand. "Show yourself."

Don't be mad. I didn't know how else to approach you.

"Creep," she mutters.

"I guess I didn't think this through."

She screams. Her wand falls from her hand and rolls across the ground into the darkness.

"Hey, it's okay." A tall figure emerges, holding it out towards her. "I wasn't trying to scare you, honest."

"Nott," she says.

"You can call me Theo."

She reclaims her wand, cradling it to her chest as she surveys the boy. Slim and pale with light brown hair and startling blue eyes. He gives a crooked smile, hands in the pockets of his robes, elbows bent and sticking out awkwardly. Rich. Slytherin. They have never really spoken before.

"Why are you here?" she says.

"Studying?" He presses sweet full lips together tight enough that his mouth becomes a thin line. "Okay, so maybe I was hoping to find you here."

"Me? Is this a joke?"

"No!"

"You wanted to find me?"

"You're hard to talk to otherwise. It's why I cast that spell so I could write to you instead."

"Clever."

"I thought so."

"So what do you want?"

"To get to know you."

"Oh."

That's how it starts. He moves all his things to her table and they work but not really much, sharing furtive glances and nervous smiles. And she thinks he's pretty in that delicate way the boys she normally likes tend to be. Self-depracating. Unassuming. She's charmed, not just by his spell. So when he walks her back to the Gryffindor dorms as the portraits taunt and the ghosts silently sneer and all the time he remains unbothered, so far from the sanctuary of his Slytherin dungeon, she cannot help but agree to his humble request of a date.

It's one week later. She has done what she can with her hair and transfigured her one Muggle dress into a smarter set of wizarding robes. She wears her red Doc Marten boots because there are only so many concessions she can make. This is who she is. Muggle outcast. Hermione Granger. She twirls amongst the shelves of BOOKZ while Tonks gives a low whistle.

"I love it!"

"You sure?"

"Yes." Tonks' hair is its usual bubblegum pink but she's opted for the face of McGonagall in her appraisal, right down to the voice. "Very good, Miss Granger. Ten points to Gryffindor."

"Stop!"

"Fine." She's herself once again. "You look great. And I can't wait to meet this boy."

"What boy?"

Hermione hadn't even registered the front door opening. Now Harry and Ron are staring. "Why are you dressed like that, 'Mione?" Ron says.

"I…"

Tonks returns to behind the counter. "My girl's got a date."

"A date?" Harry is blinking from behind his glasses, eyes wide and magnified like an owl's.

Ron is turning red. "What?!"

She knew this would happen. Her boys. Her best friends. All misfits like her. Harry a half-blood orphan who spent the first part of his life growing up in a closet at his aunt and uncle's. Ron, a pureblood yes but a traitor to most, and from a large, poor and disrespected family. Money is thicker than blood so it seems. But it's fate that ties them together and mostly luck that they saved her from that troll in first year. They've been like siblings ever since.

But something is changing with Ron. She loves him but he looks at her like he wants something more and what she can offer will not be enough. So she's not surprised when he has her by the elbow, dragging her to the backroom.

"Who is he?"

"None of your business."

"Yes it is!"

"You don't get to tell me—"

"Who?!"

"Theodore Nott, okay!"

"Nott?" He sinks back against the wall, her words having deflated him. "A Slytherin, 'Mione?" He's laughing now. "You're so smart at school but you don't even see that he's using you. He must be! He's going to humiliate you—"

"No! You don't get to do that. You don't get to ruin this for me because you think no one else could like me. Well, he does. He asked me and I said yes and I can take care of myself. If you can't support me—"

"Support you?"

"Yes! Like a friend should."

"A friend. Right." Ron rises off the wall and hunches his shoulders forward instead, hands diving into his back pockets. "So where is he?"

"He's on his way."

"Is he late?"

"So what?"

"He's standing you up!"

"You don't know that yet!"

"Hermione!"

They both turn at the sound of Tonks' voice, looking to the front door. Theo stands uncertainly between a beaming Tonks and a glaring Harry.

"I'm coming," Hermione says, but Ron takes hold of her upper arm.

"Don't do this," he begs, eyes moist and pleading.

"Don't do this either, Ronald," she says and breaks her arm free so she can run to her date.

"Where are we going?"

Theo holds her hand. Their fingers are threaded together as they walk along the cobbled streets of Hogsmeade.

"Some of my friends are having a party. I thought you could meet them."

Hermione stops. Her grip on his hand tightens.

"Please?" He tugs her closer. "It'll be fine, I promise." He tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. "I'll apparate us there."

There's a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, her gut instinct kicking in, kicking off a symphony of unease and 'don't do this' and all the thoughts she should listen to but doesn't.

"Okay," she says and feels herself sucked away.

She stumbles before a set of large, imposing gates when they reappear. "Where are we?"

"Malfoy Manor." She wants to run. Theo continues to tug her behind him as the gates magically open. "Come on."

They are show in by a frazzled-looking house-elf. Music blares and there are people all around, many she recognizes from Slytherin House and many others she does not know but they, unlike her, look like they belong in such opulent surroundings. She feels their stares like unwanted caresses, judgement dripping from eyes like accusing tears. She is an anomaly, the main exhibit of a touring Muggle freak show no one wanted to see.

"I want to leave," she whispers.

"It'll be okay. We'll go somewhere quiet." Theo hands her a drink and she downs it, following him up long winding stairs to a quieter wing of this vast city of a mansion. He stops and opens a door, leading her into a bedroom. She knows this because there is a huge fourposter bed and a couple entwined upon it.

"Shit," Theo breathes.

A woman lies naked, a man stretched over her, shirt hanging open and pants undone, his head of shocking white-blond hair bent over the woman's chest.

"Draco!" The woman pushes at his shoulders, trying to hide herself. Hermione wants to hide as well, shifting her body behind Theo's.

She's not fast enough. Draco Malfoy's head lifts. A pale angular eyebrow raises too. "Are you going to stand there and watch?" He sits up fully, catching the girl's hands by her wrists so her breasts can be seen. Pansy Parkinson. Dark-haired, beautiful and mean. In this moment, Hermione pities her. "Don't be shy. Who's your friend?" His head tilts, eyes widening for less than a second then narrowing. "Granger," he spits. "How'd the mudblood get in?"

"Let's go," she says, pulling on Theo's arm, but Theo won't budge. He stands his ground.

"She's my date, Malfoy."

"Date?" Malfoy smiles like a snake. A dangerous predator biding his time before he eats them. "I didn't know you had such depraved tastes." He's standing now, chest bare save for smudges of lipstick, pants loose, arousal clear. He picks up his wand and wordless summons a bottle of firewhisky and a pack of cigarettes. He taps a stick out and lights it with his wand tip, sits on the edge of the bed and takes a long drag. Pansy is finally emboldened, arms coming to drape over his shoulders as she surveys them while accepting a drag too.

"Tragic," she says through a long trail of smoke.

"I want to go," Hermione says, louder this time, and meets Malfoy's gaze.

"Sorry." Theo takes her hand. "This was a mistake."

"Clearly," Malfoy drawls as Theo drags her away.

It's a long, silent walk back through the house, the music drowned out by her thoughts. Malfoy's stare. Those cruel silver eyes more black with his pupils dilated. The scent of his room, heavy with cologne and lust. He hates her so much that it turned him on. As much as Pansy's perfect body. He gets off on her humiliation and pain. Ever since that day.

"I'm sorry," Theo says again. They are outside beyond the gates. The cool air brings her back to herself, and she blinks up at him.

"Just take me back to Hogsmeade."

"Okay."

The night should be ruined but anything can be fixed, like a transfiguration problem she can solve and she will do all she can to save this, to rid her brain of the muscles in Malfoy's chest and his mouth around a cigarette and the way his hands looked as they handled Pansy. She can't let herself think about how it would feel to succumb to those darkest parts that she has locked away, buried deep like a corpse. These thoughts should have turned to dust. Too much time has passed for them to still have any life.

She takes Theo to the Three Broomsticks. It's rammed with her familiar crowd from school, mostly Gryffindors and a smattering of Hufflepuffs plus the odd Ravenclaw. Here Theo is clearly the exception. People watch with as much open disdain as before but Hermione ignores them, shoving through the mass of bodies until she finds Ron, Harry and Tonks holed up in a booth.

Tonks is rolling her eyes, waving them over when she sees them. "Your friends are shitty company," she says, gesturing to the drunk-looking pair.

"Hi," Theo says but gives up offering a hand. "Can I get you more drinks?" he yells over the jukebox playing eighties' classics.

Ron slams his glass down. "What's he doing here?"

"This again?" Hermione says, clenched fists held at her sides.

"You know he doesn't belong here, 'Mione."

"Cool it, Ron," Harry says. "We were just worried."

"Why?"

"He's—" Harry tries but she knows what is coming.

"I'm not fucking delicate!" Tears sting her eyes with the outburst; it's all too much. She's torn beyond her limits. The world isn't fair and it can't be fixed and one well-meaning if misguided boy's not going to solve a damn thing. So much for so-called friends. "We're going," she says, taking Theo by the wrist. He lets her drag him back outside and has the sense not to ask anything as redundant as 'Are you okay?' when she's bloody well not.

"Where to next?" Theo says.

"Home."

"The Muggle one?"

"God no!"

That would be the end of her. To go back to the place she should belong but never did, to her lonely father and ghost of a mother.

"Why?"

"Just—"

"What's wrong?"

"Don't ask me that!"

"Please." He places gentle hands on her shoulders. She wants him to grab on so hard that it hurts. "What's going on?"

"No! Don't ask! I can't take it if you do. Just please… can you walk me back to Hogwarts?"

"Of course."

He keeps his hand in hers but there's an arm's length between them, the cold of night filled with dead empty air, and earth but no common ground beneath them. All the world is just distance, whichever one she lives in. She was a fool. The only one who sees has cruel silver eyes and won't hide his flesh in fear. She fucking hates him.

"Hermione?"

"Yeah."

They are back safe within the halls of Hogwarts, at the halfway point to Gryffindor Tower and the Slytherin dungeon. Theo holds both of her hands.

"Do you have a date to the seventh year dance?" he says.

She shakes her head.

"Will you go with me?"

She thinks of Ron laughing because this must be a joke, mustn't it? She wants to laugh as well.

"You don't have to—" Theo starts, his face dropping.

"No! Yes! I mean, yes. Okay. I'd love to go with you."

Theo smiles with relief. It makes his face young and innocent like he's got no idea of what this will mean. "Thank you." He starts to lean down and he's going to kiss her, she knows. She closes her eyes and waits.

His hands move to her face and his mouth parts to meet her own, short breaths and tentative touches of soft lips. Sweet and still too fucking gentle.

"Thank you," he says again, stepping back, still grinning like a child. She wants to hold him and keep him safe, but when she's in her bed left in the dark, her mind is seeing another as a hand digs between her thighs, disinterring all her once forgotten demons.

Theo starts keeping his distance. They don't talk at school and they don't make new plans. She's beginning to think it was all a dream, a hallucination, an intricate spell or elaborate joke. Ron was right. Please don't let him be right, she thinks. Not on this.

She tries to maintain dignity, not to get too close, but the change in Theo's demeanor is driving her mad. She's going to explode. She can't concentrate in class and it's seems like Malfoy's watching, waiting for her to break.

After a week she's had enough, rising from her seat at dinner and crossing from the lion's den into the snake pit. She stops where Theo sits, pushing apple crumble around his plate and ignoring what Blaise Zabini is saying. He's not saying anything now anyway. He's staring at Hermione, along with Malfoy and Pansy and Daphne Greengrass and the whole Slytherin table.

"Hey Theo."

He finally looks up. "Hermione. Hey."

"Can we talk?"

He glances to his friends, eyes staying on Malfoy for the longest. What the fuck did he say? "I…"

"What's going on? Why are you ignoring me?"

"I'm not—"

"Yes, you are!" She shoves his shoulder. "Look at me!" He does, but now the whole room is too. She doesn't care. She wants to bring him down with her. "Tell me to my face. Am I still your date to the dance?" A ripple of sniggers start, spreading like electrical current through the people around her. Only Malfoy seems to stay quiet, eyes observing, lips twisting, almost delirious in his glee.

Theo stands to face her. "I'm sorry, Hermione. I forgot I'd already asked somebody else."

"You're just a coward." She shoves him harder this time with both palms to his chest. "A fucking coward!"

When she turns, Harry and Ron are both standing behind her. But she won't let them touch her. Not with the laughter sounding out and Theo calling her name and Malfoy saying loud enough for the whole world to hear, "Forget the mudblood, Nott. She's not worth getting dirty."

She knows Ron and Harry start fighting Malfoy on her behalf, defending her honor or whatever bullshit men tell themselves when they talk with their fists, but she still won't look back as she runs from the hall.

Her confrontation with Theo and the ensuing Slytherin versus Gryffindor brawl is all anyone talks about for the next few weeks. Hermione says nothing. She dives even deeper into her schoolwork, does longer hours at BOOKZ, takes on more patrol duties than hours she should sleep. There are severe point deductions all around doled out as punishment. She has the first detention of her seven years and takes it like a masochist because isn't that exactly what she is?

Malfoy has a black eye that he doesn't heal like it's a statement. But what is he trying to say? That you did this to me? That I'm the victim? Poor little pureblood me.

He's her patrol partner that night since no one thinks to check the schedules or cares or maybe it's just another form of punishment for the both of them. He looks more than unhappy to see her. The bruise beneath his eye is a faded purple-yellow now but it looks stark and ugly against his pale skin and in contrast with his unnatural gray eyes.

"Let's just get this over with," she says.

"What every man longs to hear." But he follows dutifully behind, wand twirling in one hand and a cigarette in the other, which he eventually lights.

"You—"

"What?" He's leaning against the wall, same accusing eyebrow arched as in the bedroom that night, and she can still see his chest and the rest of his debauched figure, all louche and taunting. "You going to dock points from me?"

"No."

She leans beside him, folding her arms. "Can I have one?"

"No."

"What did you say to him?"

"Who? Nott? You sure think a lot of me if—"

"I know it was you."

"You have nothing to offer him, Granger." He pushes off of the wall and stands tall, lauding his full head of height advantage over her. "You'd ruin him and get bored."

"What do you know about me?"

"More than most." He flicks his cigarette to the floor, making a point of grinding it flat beneath his dragon skin boot. "You're a filthy little mudblood slut. Tainting these halls. Contaminating this school. You get your disgusting claws into Theo and his life would be over. His father would kill him if he knew. Do you know that about him? His father would rather his son be dead than touch the likes of you."

"You're disgusting."

"But I'm honest. Unfortunately you kept yourself surrounded with all your loser friends for so long that you've forgotten what you are."

"I know who I am."

"Do you?"

When did he get this close? Why do his words turn her on? She should hate herself but she's been here before, not in this hall but with his body trapping her, his large hands spanning her waist as he purred degradation in her ear.

"You still want me," she says.

"Doesn't mean I like you."

"But it kills you that I chose him."

"No one else knows how to fucking handle you." And he spins her around, her front pressed to hard stone, her hands held above her head by one of his, the other pushing up her robes and delving beneath her skirt. "Spread your legs," he hisses in her ear and she does, obedient as a house-elf. His fingers slip into her underwear and he whispers, "Merlin, you're desperate for this."

"So are you, dumb fucking liar."

"Shut up."

It was like this before, hateful and hard and fast. Hot and perfect. The first time and the last. She can never forget. Neither can he, so it seems. She lets him ruin her like this, stone scratching against her cheek, one hand pulling her hair, the other stroking her clit. Pain and pleasure. No in between. No escape. No surrender. Nowhere else she wants to be.

She slumps against the wall when he's done, feels his palms roughly handling her ass before he steps back, readjusting his robes but not hers.

"You're a mess," he says. She doesn't move.

She knows that he watches, can smell the scent of tobacco while he must smoke as he does, her eyes closed and she thinks I wouldn't change any of this. What is wrong with me?

"Fuck." He must cast a silent spell to clean her up and another to repair her ruined clothes. "Pull yourself together, mudblood. Get a grip."

Do you mean me or you? she doesn't say.

They carry on their rounds and never mention it again.

"I can't believe I've still got this." Tonks lays the gown across her bed. A bright pink satin nightmare. Hermione is enchanted.

"You really wore this?"

"Hey, it got me laid!"

Hermione laughs, stretching out across the bed to caress the shiny fabric, Tonks returning to her closet to pick an outfit for her date. Exams are over and the dance is in less than a week and Hermione doesn't want to go, despite the pleas of Ron and Harry, despite Theo's rueful looks her way across the halls, despite the entire existence of Draco Malfoy.

"What do you think?" Tonks emerges, hair transfigured into a cute black pixie cut, make-up sharp yet demure, her robes dark purple and uncharacteristically formal. She even wears a string of pearls.

"Wow."

"Too much?"

"It's just so different. You must really like this guy."

"He's not like anyone I've ever dated before. A real man. A fucking grown up. You know what I mean?"

"No idea." Hermione continues to paw at the dress. "Can I take this?"

"Sure." Tonks is fixing her earrings when the doorbell rings. "Can you get that?"

Hermione opens the door and slams it shut again. "Bloody hell, Tonks! You could've warned me it's Professor Lupin!"

She takes the dress back to Hogwarts, hangs it on the wall and stares. Should she change it? What would she make it into? Something smart or sexy or expensive-looking? Something she would never buy, could never own. It's out of place as it is, out of time, not that it would have fitted in back when Tonks had first worn it. A statement. Unapologetic. Unafraid. She is starting to love this dress. She wishes it could teach her all its ways.

She sits and stares every night until it is the evening of the dance. The clock is ticking. Her dorm-mates have already left and Ron and Harry have given up asking if she's going to come. She takes a long bath, shaving her legs, washing her hair, still wondering if she is brave enough. What has she got to lose? Examinations are done and her application to the Ministry was sent on the first day of opening. She will be leaving school behind her, entering a world even more unfriendly than this, more subtly cruel. She will have no place and even more to prove. An ugly pink dress in a sea of black and gray, all the same, pure in blood and deathly stale in thinking.

Hermione takes the dress off the hanger and puts it on. She isn't sure how—considering the difference between her and Tonks in height and figure—but it fits like a glove.

As she approaches the doors to the Great Hall, she finds her boys waiting. They gawp when they see her.

"Fucking hell, 'Mione," Ron mumbles.

"You look…" Harry tries but struggles.

Hermione rolls her eyes as she offers both arms to them. "Are we gonna do this or what?"

With her boys at her side, they enter. She feels the stares but they wash off her tonight. She is clad in a suit of armor. She is indestructible. She is going out with a bang of fuchsia. Bring it on, she thinks.

Harry asks her to dance before returning to his date of Ginny. Ron leads her for the next two, eyes drifting to her chest and the less than decent amount of cleavage she's revealed. She makes no comment but turns her cheek when he tries to kiss her and squeezes his hand before he says something they will both regret.

"Thank you," she tells him. "But I think Lavender is looking jealous. You should go talk to her."

"She was looking?"

"The whole time."

"Shit."

Hermione drifts towards the edges, the brightest of wallflowers, sipping her weak spiked punch and watching the other couples dance to the shitty cover band (just as Tonks had foresaw it). No one looks good, she decides. All ballgowns are gaudy and the boys are not yet men, too gangly and awkward in their formal robes. We are all in a holding pattern, she thinks, about to take the next step and leave and none of this matters. She will be a dream of pink, barely remembered, she is sure.

"Hey."

Theo stands beside her.

"Hey," she says. "How are you?"

"That was going to be my line."

"You'll just have to do better."

"I'm sorry. How's that?"

"It's a start."

"I…"

"Please, don't ruin it. Let's dance."

She grabs his hand and leads him out and he's a better dancer than Ron but still too careful in how he holds her. His eyes are kind and remorseful and hopeful, and that last part is the worst. She leans in closer and rests her head on his shoulder so she doesn't have to see. Just the silver of Malfoy lounging at a table and sipping from a hip-flask while Pansy sits bored beside him. Having a ball, she thinks and smiles, her eyes meeting his. He takes one more long drink then stands, leaving Pansy and the room without a word.

Hermione waits for the song to end. She leans up and kisses Theo on the cheek. "Good luck, Nott," she tells him.

"Uh, and good luck to you too?" His hand touches the spot where her lips did. "Are you going?"

"Yeah. I'm done now." And she knows that it's true.

She walks out the Great Hall with her head held high. Mission accomplished. Or so she thinks.

She is dragged into shadows and pressed against a wall, a hand smothering her mouth and a knee pushed between her thighs.

"Did you wear that for me?" Malfoy says, breath warm and rich in firewhisky.

He lets her speak when he decides she's not going to scream. "I wore it to spite you," she says. "You and everyone else."

"You look like a troll princess."

"Is that why you couldn't stop watching me?"

He kisses her to stop her saying anything else or more likely because he doesn't have an answer except this. To touch her and claim her and make her feel things no one else can. She doesn't resist, not even when he gropes her breasts and rips the front of her dress open.

"Much better," he says, mouth closing around a nipple.

Hermione lolls back in his arms as hands drift from her hips to her bum, hoisting her up to wrap her legs around him. She cards fingers through his hair, sticky with gel, and takes great pleasure in messing it up. Scratching at the base of his neck. Digging her nails into his shoulders. Her dress is torn apart and her underwear is vanished away and he fucks her like he hates her and she hates him just the same.

They're still holding onto each other in the aftermath and it's different this way.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Malfoy murmurs. He won't set her down.

"I can fix this—"

"Shut up. I don't mean your ugly dress. What happens now that school is done?"

"Don't you have a plan? Daddy must have something figured out for you."

"You think that makes it easy?"

"The world is what you make it, Malfoy." And she shimmies to her feet, only scraps of fabric left hanging off of her. It's an undignified scramble on the ground for her wand but she rises triumphant, holding it up for him. "See?" It takes what is left of her concentration to piece the dress back together, the degree of ruin making it one of her more trickier transfigurations. Malfoy watches, his face inscrutable, until she stands returned to how she looked before. "Good as new," she says.

"Pretty in pink," he sneers and she smiles as she flips him the middle finger.

"See you around, Malfoy."

Now she's finally ready to leave.

"You sure you don't mind holding the fort for a couple of hours? Remus wants to take me for lunch."

"It's fine." Hermione shoos Tonks out of the door, content in her summer dress and with an open book before her, the radio playing an old Motown song. It's another month before she's due to start at the Ministry. Entry level at the Department of Mysteries. She's been crashing with Tonks since finishing school and saving up for a deposit on her first apartment.

Everything has magically fallen into place, and ever since the dance it's felt like she's still wearing that pink dress armor.

It's a few moments later when the door opens again but Hermione pays it no mind. Customers are few and most prefer just to browse unless they have a specific question.

"Granger."

She looks up. "Can I help you?"

Malfoy looks like the last thing that he needs is her help. His hair is casually immaculate, free of gel thank goodness, and long enough that it hangs low across his brow. His face is clear, eyes like steel and absorbing everything. He wears a pressed white shirt and dark blue pants. Out of school, out of place like this, he doesn't appear much like the boy she knew at Hogwarts but a model from the page of a magazine. All that's missing is his usual cigarette, until she spies one tucked behind an ear.

"I need a book," he says.

"You do?"

"Yeah."

"Care to be more specific?"

"No. I mean…"

Holy fuck. Draco Malfoy is nervous.

"I'm starting a new job," he finishes.

"You have a job?"

"Don't act so surprised." He glances to the side. "Your words and delightful middle finger made me think." His eyes shift back towards her. "If a Muggle-born like you can make something of themselves then of course I can too."

"Modest as ever." But he didn't call her mudblood. The distinction seems glaring, though she doesn't know what to make of it. "I don't get why you're still in Hogsmeade though."

"I came back."

"Oh."

"To see you."

"Oh."

"I can't get you out of my head. You've completely fucked me up."

"I'm sorry?"

"No you're not."

"No I'm not."

"So are you going to help me?"

She moves around the counter to stand before him. He looks her up and down, surveying her short cotton dress, yellow like the sun today, though she has bright pink painted toes peeking out from her flip-flops. Her hair is messy and down and he reaches for it, tugging roughly on a curl. They look different together, she thinks. They don't match. There is nothing they have in common but she always feels the most like her strange, fucked-up self when she's around him. At least they have that part in common.

"Are you going to kiss me first?" she says.

"Forward, aren't you, Granger?"

"I don't give a fuck about school and houses and blood status. You're working at the Ministry, aren't you?"

"Department of International Magical Cooperation. How'd you know?"

"I inspired you."

"You mean you shamed me into action."

"Shut up, already."

One strong arm snakes around her, pulling her close, while his other reaches for a large handful of hair. Hermione almost sighs with the sweet pain as her head tilts back and he bends down to kiss her.

"Pretty in yellow too, I guess," he murmurs as his mouth presses to hers.

He's not gentle or kind but oh how she feels when he holds her. Both lost to a world that's going to be harsh and unforgiving, harsh in the way that it's taught him to be, unforgiving as it's always judged her. She doubts that this can last, but she knows that she can face it, together or alone. Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger. Slytherin and Gryffindor. Pureblood prince and Muggle-born prodigy.

The snake and the lion, she thinks, laughing as he hoists her up onto the counter, what she was reading cast aside.

"What's so funny, Granger?"

His hands caress her bare thighs and she swears that it's nothing as she smothers the thought with a kiss:

What a book we would make.