WHERE RED MEETS WHITE

𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘁𝘆 𝘁𝘄𝗼

"You-You just kissed Malfoy!" Scarlett yelled.

I ran up to the two of them, who seemed frozen in their spots and clamped a hand over Scarlett's mouth, "Shh!"

"What just happened?" Gia's wide eyes turned to me.

"I can explain..." I said cautiously. "Malfoy and I are now friends."

Scarlett removed my hand from her mouth, "That did not look like friendship to me, young lady."

I face-palmed. How on earth am I going to explain this? I looked at my best friends, "This is going to take a while to explain. So much is happening tonight. We need to go to Hermione before anything else."

The girls nodded wordlessly. We walked back to the staircases outside the Great Hall and I heard Gia whisper, "I can't believe that just happened."

When we arrived at the staircase, I was grateful that their attention was on Hermione.

I stroked her hair, "Tell us what happened with Ron."

Hermione exhaled angrily and wiped her eyes, "He claimed that I was fraternizing with the enemy by being at the ball with Viktor."

"That's ridiculous," I furrowed my eyebrows. "He never said that about Alexei and I. He's clearly just jealous."

"I doubt that," Hermione responded. "Otherwise, he wouldn't have asked me to the ball as his last option."

"I think he was scared you'd reject him," Gia chimed in and placed her hand over Hermione's. Hermione didn't answer.

I sighed, "You know what? Boys are the worst. I'm going to go clear things up with Alexei and then let's all go back to the common room."

Everyone nodded and the girls helped Hermione up. I fixed my dress and said, "I'll be right back."

I walked away from the three of them and walked into the Great Hall again. It was seemingly empty, leaving only a few students dancing, including Ginny and Neville.

Ron and Harry were still grumpily sitting on their chairs but I rolled my eyes and walked past them.

Alexei was talking to another boy from Durmstrang when I put a hand on his arm, "I just need to steal him for a second. Excuse us."

I pulled Alexei away from the boy before he could protest and he gave me a bored look, "What took you so long?"

"I'm so sorry," I apologized. "It turns out Malfoy was just acting like a git to annoy me and clearly it worked."

My cheeks turned a faint shade of pink as I lied but I don't think he noticed.

"Okay, that makes sense," Alexei nodded. "I'm going to go back to the ship with my friends. Tonight was very nice. See you tomorrow."

I waved goodbye to him and let out a sigh of relief. I turned around to walk out of the hall and caught up with Harry.

"Ron saw Hermione outside and went to go speak to her," Harry explained. As we were walking, I could hear voices shouting at each other.

"He's way too old!" I heard Ron complain. Oh, Merlin.

"Is that what you think?" Hermione screeched.

"Yes!" Ron rolled his eyes.

"Then why is it you have nothing to say about your sister and her date? Why do you only have an opinion on my life?" Hermione cried out.

"I— That's different," Ron looked taken aback.

I wanted to step in but Harry put his hand on my shoulder to stop me. He was probably right. This fight was between them.