Lost Along the Way (Dramione)

Chapter 4

HERMIONE'S P.O.V.

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To be honest, things had slowly slipped back to normal. Well, 'normal' as in leaving school and flying to the Ministry of Magic to try to save your best friend's godfather, 'normal'. Ron and Lavender had officially broken up and we had eventually began to start talking again. The end of the year was two days away, Dumbledore was back, the Minister of Magic had finally come to terms with the fact that You-Know-Who was back...and, other than the constant fear of Voldemort coming to power and killing millions of people, everything was in balance.

Oh. And there was Draco.

It had been about a week after that day by the lake. I had gone down to the library and ran into him there. He told me to meet him there again. So I had borrowed Harry's invisibility cloak and, after the clock in the Gryffindor struck 1:00am, I slipped out. How Draco managed to make it out there without getting caught, I had no idea. But meeting up with him became a normal, and eventually, an everyday thing.

At first we would give each other notes during lunch every couple days or so, but it soon turned into me sneaking out every single night to 'our' little lake.

Most of the time, we just sat there and talked. About everything: something stressful that had happened during the day, getting the results back on an essay and seeing we had done better than we had thought, maybe one of us had witnessed something completely embarrassing that a second year student had done. We were, it seemed, two people who could just chill out and talk to each other and easily carry on a conversation without even trying to.

And I loved it, every minute of it. It seemed to become my addiction; At night, I would constantly keep looking at the clock and leave right on time every single night, even leaving behind unfinished homework assignments sometimes.

Because talking to Draco wasn't only easy. It was entertaining; he was always teasing me, but at the same time could carry on a very serious conversation. And he was always able to cheer me up. Especially after Sirius had died. I had actually told Draco the whole story from third year, with the time turner (during which, of course, I kept getting interrupted because he would keep randomly throwing in a comment about how I had punched him) and how we had gone to the Ministry and Sirius had died. I didn't mention anything about his father being there, but I wondered if he was aware of it or not.

There had been a few times though, where I thought something "more" would happen.

For example, once, we had brought up music, and I told him my favorite song. He had been able to - impressively - conjure a spell that caused the song to play, without actually being *heard;* I couldn't really hear it, but it seemed to be, rather, playing clearly *inside* my head.

He had jokingly bowed and offered me his hand, and the two of us had danced around like idiots, laughing and tripping over each others' feet. Towards the very end of the song, however, the music became slower, and our dancing followed suit. Draco had pulled me in closer, and, saying nothing, lifted one of my hands and placed it on his shoulder, than he put one of his gently on my waist, while our remaining hands entwined. By the time the song had stopped playing in my head, Draco's face and mine we only centimeters apart. For a moment, we didn't move. But than Draco smirked and took a step back, saying, "You're a terrible dancer, you know that?"

I had laughed and replied, "Oh really? Because I was pretty sure you stepped on my foot several times more than I stepped on yours."

He gasped, pretending to look offended, than commented, "I just didn't want you to think that you were so bad that you didn't deserve to even be dancing with someone with as much talent as me."