Through the Years (Dramione Genderswap Fanfic)

Chapter Nine: Eighth Year - Part II

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Time won't heal anything
if you don't surrender your lies.

- Doors by Ben & Ben

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Hermes knew a headache would soon form once they started this disastrous meeting. The Prefects had been clamoring for ideas when he raised about the issue of interhouse unity that McGonagall wanted for Hogwarts. With the end of the war, she wished that students from different houses would interact more; that students would leave their prejudices and pasts behind all in the name of unity.

"How about a Yule Ball?" Ginny quipped amidst the excited suggestions. A murmur of agreement spread across the students. "Just for some Christmas cheer. I mean... after everything that had happened last Christmas..."

Her words were left dangling, deathly silence now heard in the classroom. Hermes' eyes flickered from one Prefect to another, and to the Head Girl beside him, wondering what had transpired last Christmas that made these students look so... weary.

"A Yule Ball seems a lot of work," Hermes slowly said, just to break the terrible silence. "And, well, we don't have much time."

"Please, Hermes, I think it's a brilliant idea," Stewart Ackerly, a 5th year Ravenclaw, appealed. He looked uncomfortable as all eyes landed on him. "Christmas will be particularly hard for the students. The Carrows..." His words died down, looking positively sick.

"Shut it, Ackerly," Zacharias Smith, the 7th year Hufflepuff Prefect, hissed. "He wouldn't even understand because he wasn't here."

It didn't slip Hermes' notice how the Hufflepuff spat the last sentence like he'd committed a grave sin for missing his seventh year in Hogwarts.

Malfoy, who had been dutifully writing notes on a parchment, stilled. Hermes lightly scowled at the snarky Hufflepuff; he'd been part of Dumbledore's Army, all right, but he was one of the people Hermes actually didn't like.

"He wasn't here, Smith, because he was on the run," Ginny snapped, glaring darkly at the Hufflepuff. "With Harry Potter, searching for horcruxes, to destroy You-Know-Who. Or have you forgotten? Maybe you'd like to be reacquainted with my Bat-Bogey Hex just to remember?"

"Ginny," Hermes sternly replied, eyeing the wand suddenly on her right hand. Smith paled and looked away, a scowl on his face. The Head Boy rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed, choosing to ignore the sudden tension in the room. "If we do this Yule Ball, we need all the help we can get."

"If we do this Yule Ball," Malfoy suddenly quipped, much to his surprise, "I think it is best if we include the lower years, too."

"Nobody asked for your opinion, Death Eater," Zacharias snarled with a nasty look on his face.

Hermes' eyes widened as the quill on Malfoy's hand snapped into two. Her eyes briefly flared with unadulterated rage and the Head Boy anticipated for her to lash out, because really it was something Iris Malfoy would surely do. But to his utmost surprise, all the anger in her eyes seeped away until her emotions were hidden behind an icy cold emptiness.

For some strange reason, the expression on her face prompted a roaring fire in Hermes' heart. Iris Malfoy always fought back. Always. It unnerved him greatly how the snarky Slytherin princess he grew up with chose to keep quiet in the end.