Hogwarts: A History (First Edition)

One Shot:

Bloody bet. Stupid bet. Simply idiotic if you asked her, to bet on anything.

Bets were made by immature boys who sat around the pub arguing fruitlessly about quidditch and spells. They were made but drunkards, like when Harry and Seamus had had too many drinks one night and made bets about which one of them could fly without a broom (which resulted in Ginny hauling Harry home).

Hermione Granger did not make bets. But she did. One stupid bet that was going to waste her perfectly good Sunday off.

She huffed again, vexed at the state of her uncontrollable hair. Her curls were particularly untidy today, and she knew her suitor would prefer them straight and smooth.

She tried to refrain from drinking, but on her night off, she had been dragged to the pubs with Ginny and Harry. Both of them hounding her into relaxing for an evening.

It hadn't been unexpected when Draco Malfoy had walked through the door and joined them at the table but surprised her nonetheless.

He was a changed man, at least that was what the papers said. Reformed Death Eater. Sympathetic. Humble. Sorry. Innocent. All that the papers at printed, and Hermione wondered sometimes what it had cost him to sway the public of his innocence.

But even Harry believed it, and he worked with the man after all. He and Ginny even had Malfoy over to dinner at Grimmauld Place, Harry had visited his mother on house arrest, helped them get Lucius a shortened sentence despite his wrongdoings.

So when Malfoy strolled into the pub and was greeted as a friend, rather than the enemy, Hermione could only nod in his direction.

She had seen him at the ministry several times, he was always polite. But politeness was by no means a redeeming quality.

Then she made that stupid, stupid bet.

"Hermione, how'd that date of yours last week go?"

She groaned and covered her face in her palms. "Horrible. It was horrible."

"You have the worst dating luck of any witch I've ever met," Ginny sighed hopelessly as if it was her personal problem.

"Hermione, have you ever had a good first date?" Asked Seamus, his voice hinted at doubtful. Her dating history was, unfortunately, well known among her friends.

Lifting her head from her hands and sipping on her wine, Hermione thought. Ron had never taken her on any dates, and the two of them had split shortly after the end of the war when Ron realized he had a swarm of women following him everywhere he went. There was Richard, a wizard who ended up only wanting an inside story on Hermione's life for the Daily Prophet. There had been the horrible date with Cormac McLaggen (which was truthfully her own fault) that needed little explanation. She'd even tried a muggle man, only to be stood up and ordered a slice of cake to eat by herself.

"I don't think there's been one," she said quietly, but quickly laughed to humor them all.

"I bet I could take you the best date of your life." Draco Malfoy interjected with a straight face.

Forgetting that Malfoy was part of their friend group, which Hermione was often absent, she was shocked when the table burst into an array of snickering and full-body laughter.

"That bar seems low, Malfoy," Harry laughed, "you wouldn't have to do much, mate."

Malfoy shook his head. "No, I bet that I can take you on the best date of your life."

Ginny made a sound like an owl, watching with wide eyes between the two of them.

Hermione recollected herself. She gestured towards Harry. "Harry's right, the bar is low." She tried laughing, tried to distract him from actually making this a plan.