Harry Potter. Hermione X Male Reader Story

Pipe Smoke and A Poorly Taken Joke

(Y/N)'s POV

We arrived at the party fifteen minutes late. The reason being that I was supposed to meet Parvati in the common room, but even after Harry and Hermione left with their respective dates mine was nowhere to be found and apparently still applying makeup.

Ron was taking a well-earned breather between snogging Lavender to make fun of me while she helped Parvati with her dress and makeup, I was more concerned with adjusting the collar of my dress robes.

It took quite a while and meant I had time to question just about every decision I had made that led up to this, but they did an excellent job. She descended from the girl's dorm as if it was a runway.

It was honestly kind of impressive considering she was wearing fancy heeled shoes, much to my relief, I could do without the neck pain that looking down all night usually gave me.

Parvati was wearing a dress that was similar to her robes from the Yule Ball, the pink not being as vibrant as back then, but otherwise it was pretty similar, at least to me, I'm sure there where a thousand intricacies that I wasn't able to catch.

To my uncultured eyes, it just seemed like a more mature version of the original, not as girly I suppose. It was much tighter than what I expected her to wear, more form fitting? Not that I'd care about anything like that. I have a girlfriend...kind of...I think.

It was at this point I realised I couldn't think straight and questioned why I was doing this in the first place. I stood up nervously, my mouth slightly agape at the sight before me as Ron pretended he wasn't doing exactly the same.

I'm sure I looked terrible in comparison, but before I could give her any praise she spoke, "Shall we head off then?" she beamed at me, holding out her arm. Snapping out of it and back into reality I caught myself.

"I think we shall" I smiled, hooking my own arm through hers and escorting her out of the room. Eventually, after cursing several times and wishing I had the Marauders Map handy, we managed to find our way to Slughorn's office.

"Why is it always so bloody dark in here?" I sighed as we made our way through the dungeon, Parvati giggled and held out her wand "Lumos." I nodded "Smart," I shook my head, "I forget I'm a wizard sometimes"

Casting my own charm I looked down the hall and tried not to think about where she had pulled her wand from in a dress like that. "Are you that nervous?" she asked, trying not to laugh, I shook my head.

"Nervous, me? Never. I'm just an idiot" She seemed to find this answer acceptable "True." She giggled playfully, we made our way inside. This was not what we were expecting. That was for sure.

Whether it had been built that way, or because he had used magical trickery to make it so, Slughorn's office was much larger than the usual teacher's study. The ceiling and walls had been draped with emerald, crimson, and gold hangings, so that it looked as though they were all inside a vast tent.

The room was crowded and stuffy and bathed in the red light cast by an ornate golden lamp dangling from the centre of the ceiling in which real fairies were fluttering, each a brilliant speck of light.

Loud singing accompanied by what sounded like mandolins issued from a distant corner; a haze of pipe smoke hung over several elderly warlocks deep in conversation. My first thought being 'how are they even allowed those? This is a school."

A number of house-elves were negotiating their way squeakily through the forest of knees, obscured by the heavy silver platters of food they were bearing, so that they looked like little roving tables.

"I swear if he's making Winky do this I'm going to hit him with a serving tray" I promised myself. Speak of the devil. Slughorn was wearing a tasselled velvet hat to match his smoking jacket. "You're late my boy" he said weakly, "What can I say? I like to make an entrance"