Dramione One-Shots (Dramione Fanfiction)

4. Take My Breath Away

Prompt: this edit of Take My Breath Away by l0user on YouTube. Would definitely recommend listening to it before reading to get you in your feelings.

It wasn't that Hermione was a wallflower, more that she was chronically sensible. Why walk to smell the flowers when the bus gets you there faster? Why slow your pace to appreciate the sky when there are things to get done, places to be, possibilities that can disappear in the time it takes you to realise it's the same blue above you that was there yesterday?

And this attitude applied double for relationships. It wasn't that Hermione didn't have feelings or didn't fall for people – it was that she couldn't understand giving way to that kind of emotional investment when there were other things to prioritise. Her grades would trail her for the rest of her life – they wouldn't wake up one day and decide they didn't love her anymore. So why go all in on something as fickle as feelings when her efforts could give her everything else? That was her philosophy.

But now it was her final day of highschool. And she had never danced with someone, and all the books and movies she had ever consumed were telling her that she had failed in some indescribable way. Yes, she was certain she had the grades she needed for college, but she had failed in that human way of having never made a connection with another human, never pressed damp lips to a sweaty neck at a house party, never found a dark corner to reach for places people wanted to touch, never allowed the caterpillars in her stomach to swell and burst into butterflies. Hermione was hurting in a deeply nostalgic way, in this yearning for a connection she had never dreamed of having before.

There was still time. She had come to prom, after all, dragged along by Ginny because she was Harry's date, and Ron would be there. Too many times she had tried to push away those feelings towards him, but tonight she would let herself give into them, for this final chance at being a main character. She would have her slowdance under a pink glowing ceiling, with her low heels sticking to the linoleum of the gym, his breath tasting of punch as it touched her face. Hermione was going to try to be a teenager, just for tonight. She could break out of the rigid walls she had created for herself, and be someone who did things on a whim. After all, she had dressed for the occasion – hair crimped into a neater bouffant, secured at the back with nearly an entire packet of Ginny's hair grips, her face made up in mauve and baby pink, her dress layer upon layer of peach crepe with a slim plum belt pulling in her waist. Her mother's necklace briefly stolen for the night shining against her chest, her wrists lightly clicking with rose gold bangles. Hermione looked like the prom queen for the first time in her life, and although that title had already been given to Parvati Patil, it didn't matter. She would feel like the queen, dancing in a room of people that would see her as someone human and real like them for the first time – so much more than her study habits and prefect duties. She was human tonight.

Hermione looked at herself in the mirror above the bathroom sinks one last time. The stale yellow light of the overhead bulbs made her look waxy and fake, but she knew that that wasn't how she really looked. Leaning forwards, she dabbed a little bit more blush over her already sweating cheeks. Dancing with her friends had been so much fun, but it had brought up the redness in her face that normally only showed when she was stressed. Is that why other people had fun? They got their blood flowing through games and flirting, bunking off and playing the fool. She had never thought about doing things any other way than the way she already did, but now Hermione was realising all the simple easy joys she had neglected over the years.

Sighing, she reached into the nearest cubicle and took a wad of toilet paper, wiping off the blush and the sweat to reveal her bare skin underneath, still lightly streaked with sparkles. There was enough pink under her skin to make it look like she'd touched up her makeup anyway.