Forbidden Love's Trap (Dramione AU)

Chapter 1

October 1996, sixth year at Hogwarts

"Draco, wake up," Hermione shouts jumping onto her younger brother's bed. "If you want breakfast you'd better get up now or Ron will have eaten it all by the time we get to the great hall."
"Five more minutes," Draco mumbles turning away from her and pulling his pillow over his head.
Hermione rolls her eyes with a sigh, "I tried to be nice," she says standing and taking out her wand and pointing it at Draco. "Rictusempra."
A silver jet of light shoots out of her wand and envelopes Draco's body eliciting a startled laugh from him as he bolts up in bed curling in on himself as if to protect himself from the tickling sensation.
"Okay, okay," he says while laughing and holding up his hands in surrender, "I'm up, I'm up."
"Good," she says with a smirk on her face and laughter in her eyes as she ends the spell and puts away her wand.
"Great," calls Blaise, his head sticking out of the bathroom, steam slipping out of the opening, "now that you've successfully woken him up, please leave. Unless you want to get an eye full," he says opening the bathroom door a little wider and smirking mischievously at her.
Hermione matches him smirk for smirk and raises an eyebrow at him. "I'm not stopping you Blaise," she says crossing her arms in front of her. "Besides, I wouldn't mind finding out if all the stories I've heard are true."
Blaise raises an eyebrow in question at that comment.
"Did you forget that I'm friends with most of your exes," she asks with a laugh. "I have to say, I've been dying to find out if any of what I've heard is true or an exaggeration," she says slowly closing in on him.
Draco feels his anger rising as he watches the exchange between his sister and his best friend and himself unconsciously grabbing his wand. He forces down his anger and makes an exaggerated gagging noise, drawing their attention. "If you two don't knock it off," he says not really having to fake his disgust, "I'm telling Ginny."
That makes Blaise take a step back and around Hermione to his side of the room, his face hot with embarrassment and more than a little concern about what his girlfriend would do to him if she found out about this. The flirting she wouldn't care about, this isn't the first time he and Hermione had pretended to flirt with each other, they'd been doing so since third year. It had never gone any further than that and it never would, not just because she's his best friend's sister and he would skin him alive if he tried, but also because she was practically a sister to him as well.
No, Ginny wouldn't care about the flirting. The thing that would piss her off was that fact he was flirting with Hermione while wearing nothing but a towel. Ginny's temper is as fiery as her hair, not to mention that Hermione had taught her all the hexes she knows, some of which made his skin crawl just thinking about.
"Alright, I'm leaving," she says heading for the door with a laugh. "Can't have Ginny trying to kill you. I'll see you two down in great hall."
When the door closes behind her, Blaise turns to Draco, "You're not really going to tell Ginny are you," he asks sheepishly as he begins to get dressed.
Draco simply gives him a cheeky grin and shrugs.


That night at dinner Dumbledore announces, "This Halloween, Hogwarts will be holding its first ever masked ball."
Excited chatter breaks out among the house tables, as students quickly begin discussing who to go with and what to wear.
Dumbledore smiles indulgingly at the students for a moment before raising his hands for silence. "There are however, a few things we must go over first," he informs once the students have quieted down. "First and foremost, this dance is intended to help promote friendship between all the houses. It is unfortunate that, despite the recent strides that the wizarding world has made to do away with the old prejudices, thanks in no small part to our to our Minister of Magic Lily Potter, that even here among you students, there are still traces of these old prejudices. That being said, this dance will has special rules that will be magically enforced. And for those of you who enjoy finding loopholes in the rules, just know that you will have to contend with not just with my magic, but Professor McGonagall's and Professor Snape's as well."
A low scattered grumble can be heard coming from the more mischievous students.
"Rule one," he continues, ignoring the discontented grumblings, "in regards to the dress code, your costumes may not contain any reference to your house, be it house colors or representation of your house mascot. This also applies to family crests for those of you who have them. Everyone will be seen as equal.
"Second, in order to ensure this equality, special charms will be put into place. These charms will ensure complete anonymity among you. You will be unable to tell anyone who you are until the unmasking at midnight. Our hope is, that by doing this, by the time of the unmasking you will have made some new friendships that some of you may not have considered otherwise. Oh, and unless you're family," he says in almost an afterthought, "you won't be able to recognize anyone by the sound of their voice either."


The next day Draco, Hermione, Blaise, Ginny, Harry, Ron, Neville and Luna sit around one of the tables in the library.
"So what do you think about this masked ball," asks Harry in a low voice so as not attract the attention of Madam Pince.
"I think it's a wonderful idea," Luna says happily. "It sounds like great fun."
"The biggest complaint I've heard is about not being able to take a date," says Ginny while leaning her head against Blaise's shoulder.
"I agree with Luna," says Hermione. "I think that it's especially great for Slytherins since so many of the other students can't seem to let go of the long past transgressions. This dance is the perfect opportunity to prove that we're not all bad."
Draco nods his head in agreement. He watches as excitement lights up Hermione's eyes as the girls shift the conversation to costume ideas, a small smile on his face. He doesn't notice, that while he's watching his sister, someone else is watching him with a similar smile on their face well.