Never According to the Plan

The next week passed with no real drama. Harry’s detentions with Umbridge were finally over, and it seemed that Harry was starting to learn to control his temper. Hermione knew that now would be the best time to speak to him again about teaching a Defence against the Dark Arts group, but she was feeling slightly nervous after his reaction the last time she had brought it up. Even so, it was their first Hogsmeade weekend in just under three weeks, and she wanted to ask him before then. She thought they could use somewhere in Hogsmeade as somewhere to arrange a meeting and see how many people would be interested. They needed somewhere to discuss it that was far out of Umbridge’s earshot. And then after that, there was the small problem of finding somewhere to practise once they had formed the group...

No, she was getting ahead of herself. The way Harry had been lately, there was next to no chance that he would agree to this. But she could still hope and she could still plan. If she planned all the dates and times and arrangements for the meetings, maybe Harry would see how much this meant to her, and to Ron and surely to some others, who wanted to learn how to fight.

Hermione was sitting alone in the Gryffindor common room, in her favourite armchair by the fire. She was surprised she could get that armchair actually; normally the room was packed at this time. Still, it was a Saturday night; she imagined a lot of the older students were out around the grounds, enjoying their later curfew of 11pm. Still, she thought at least Ron and Harry would be in the common room, she couldn’t think where they could have got to, unless Quidditch practise had run over by about three hours, which didn’t seem so ridiculous, given the way they had been playing recently.

Almost answering her thoughts, Harry clambered through the portrait hole and sat down on the sofa next to her.

“Hi Harry!” She smiled brightly at him. “Where’ve you been?”

“Um, library” he muttered.

“Library?” Hermione raised her eyebrows. “And what have you been doing in the library?” she asked, putting particular emphasis on the word ‘you’.

“Working, what do you think?”

“Right, sure.” Hermione nodded. She got the impression Harry wasn’t being quite honest with her. He never had been a good liar.

“Actually, Hermione, I need to talk to you about something.” Harry began.

“Shoot” said Hermione, closing the book she had been reading.

“Um, not here, let’s go for a walk.”

Hermione frowned. She agreed, but was becoming a little worried. Every time Harry wanted a quiet chat about something serious, it usually ended up with him confiding in her about his fears of someone wanting to kill him. She couldn’t blame him, people did try to kill him annoyingly often, but it was hardly ever the person Harry expected it to be.

She sighed, but allowed Harry to lead her out of the common room and into the desolate seventh floor corridor. They walked in silence for a good few minutes, Hermione hurrying along wherever Harry decided to take a sharp turn down another staircase, or empty corridor.

“Harry, are you going to tell me what the problem is?” Hermione asked him, in a tone that she hoped sounded light and positive.

“Oh yeah, let’s just go in here,” he jerked his head at the closed door of a deserted classroom, “don’t want to be overheard.”

He pushed open the door, and stepped aside, allowing Hermione to slip past him into the room. As soon as she was in the room, the candles floating around the walls burst into flame, throwing the room into light as a chorus of “SURPRISE!!” hit Hermione, throwing her into a state of shock. She was surrounded by a room full of people, all beaming at her happily and shooting glitter out of the ends of their wands. She turned around to see Harry grinning at her.

“You!” she shouting, running and throwing her arms around him. “Oh my God!” She laughed loudly and kissed him firmly on the forehead.

Harry grinned as she let go of him, and slipped his arm around her shoulder. “Actually,” he smirked, “this was all Ron’s idea, I just helped.” He smiled, and pointed. Hermione followed his gaze to see Ron standing in the middle of the room, under a large banner bearing the legend: ‘HAPPY BIRTHDAY HERMIONE!’ and holding his arms up either side of him, as if to say: ‘Come on. How awesome is this?’

“Oh Ron!” exclaimed Hermione, running up to him, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him tightly. “Ron, thank you so much! This is so nice, Aw my Gosh, thank you!”

Ron laughed at her gratitude and shock, and said: “Don’t worry about it Hermione, Happy Birthday.”

“Oh, you guys!” Hermione laughed, still in shock. “It’s not even my birthday till Tuesday!”

“Yeah” smiled Ron, “but we knew you wouldn’t be happy partying hard on a school night.” He winked, and everyone in earshot laughed. “Right, let’s get you a drink”. He led her over to a large table, creaking under the weight of all the food and bottles that it bared.

“Wow.” Hermione’s eyes widened, “where d’you get all this?”

“Nicked the food and butterbeer from the kitchens, courtesy of our very favourite house elf” Ron winked, and Hermione made a mental note to thank Dobby next time she saw him.

Ron pointed his wand at two butterbeer bottles, muttered ‘Accio’ and caught them as they flew into his hand. He opened them both, and passed one to Hermione. He held his high, and she did the same. “Happy Birthday Hermione.” He smiled, and they clinked bottles and hugged.

Hermione spent the next ten minutes walking around, mingling and talking to several people thanking them for coming and accepting their kind birthday wishes. It wasn’t until she went to get another drink that she had time to stop and observe her surroundings. There must have been at least seventy people squashed into this classroom, all to celebrate her birthday. Her eyes filled up with the thought of it. She had never been popular, but all these people were here, for her party. Admittedly, most people were probably just here because they wanted any excuse to get a bit drunk and hook up with some stranger. She’d even seen a large group of Slytherins enter a few minutes ago, who definitely had just come because they’d heard there was a party going on. Even so, it meant that everyone there at least liked her a little bit, or enough to entertain the idea of her birthday, and that filled her with an immense feeling of happiness.

“THE PARTY HAS ARRIIIIIIIVED” shouted two voices in unison from behind Hermione. She turned to see Fred and George standing in the doorway, laden with bottles, met with huge cheers from everyone in the room. They walked over to Hermione, wished her a Happy Birthday, and started pouring drinks into shot glasses shaped like broomsticks. “Shot for the birthday girl?” asked Fred, extending a glass to her.

Hermione took it, feeling wary. “What is it?” she asked.

“Firewhiskey” George grinned. “Go on, live a little!”

She had never drunk firewhiskey before. And she was a prefect. Was this really an example she should be setting?

“Go on Hermione. It’s your birthday, you deserve it.” Ron smiled at her encouragingly.

Hermione lifted the glass to her lips and downed it in one.

The sensation was absurd. She had never experienced anything like it. It was like an immediate burning in her throat, followed by an immensely warm and satisfying feeling running through her body.

“Well?” asked Ron, picking a shot glass up from the table and sniffing it, “what’s it like? I’ve never had it before.”

Hermione noticed he looked a little cautious. “Go on” she grinned, echoing George’s words, “live a little.”

Ron raised his eyebrows at this out-of-character response but also downed the firewhiskey in one. His eyes widened and Hermione knew that he too had been pleasantly surprised by the taste.

However good it had tasted, Hermione did not want to drink any more of it. She was a prefect, she was intelligent, and above all, she was a bit of a nerd. She didn’t like using the word ‘nerd’, as it was usually being used against her in a highly negative manner, but in this case it was the best way to describe her. And hey, what was wrong with being a nerd? Putting ‘silenco’ charms on an empty classroom, partying and getting drunk may be the other fifth years typical Saturday night, but it was not hers. She had had one drink out of politeness and celebration, but that would be all. She helped herself to much safer butterbeer and hurried off to join the rest of the party.

The next hour or so passed very well indeed. The low levels of alcohol in the butterbeers that Hermione was drinking had filled her with a warm sense of happiness, without intoxicating her too much, although the same could not be said for everyone. In every direction that Hermione looked there were couples hooking up. There were witches, completely drunk, throwing themselves onto boys who looked momentarily confused, then shrugged and stuck their tongues down the girls throat. There were also plenty of couples leaving the party, one leading the other out with the crook of their finger, giggling, clearly going to find somewhere a bit more secluded. What is it about alcohol that makes people so desperate for attention from the opposite sex? She found it a bit embarrassing sometimes, seeing these witches throwing themselves at anyone. How could anyone have such little self-respect, and dignity? They just looked so... desperate.

It wasn’t as though Hermione didn’t like kissing. No, the only people who don’t like kissing are those who have never kissed anyone and wanted to make it seem like this was their own choice. Hermione had kissed Viktor Krum plenty last year, but that was very different to this. She wasn’t drunk and only doing it because she wanted to have sex that night, like these girls were. No, she had liked Viktor. She had really liked him. And he was three school years above her and he still liked her, surely that meant what they had had been different? And he had never even tried to have sex with her, which again showed that he did care for her and wasn’t just looking to ‘get laid’. ‘Well, clearly.’ thought Hermione, ‘if he just wanted sex he could have found it very easily at Hogwart’s, with students older or younger than me.’ He was a highly attractive, international Quidditch player, how many girls would say no to that? She had heard the girls in her dormitory talking, in extremely vulgar language, about exactly what they’d like to do with Krum.

Why was she thinking about Viktor now? She was hardly in contact with him anymore, unless you counted a few brief letters back and forth over summer, and she had told him that she didn’t want to see him over the summer as they would never be able to continue their relationship, what with his travelling so much and her schoolwork and it would have been ultimately futile to even attempt it.

“Oh my God Hermione!” shrieked a voice, and Hermione turned to see her friend Fay from her dormitory running towards her.

“Hi!” smiled Hermione, hugging her friend.

“I have so much to tell you! But later, I’ll tell you back in the dorm, Seamus has just gone to get more drinks then I think we’re going to leave” said Fay happily.

“Awh!” smiled Hermione, “don’t do anything I wouldn’t do...” She winked suggestively.

“Hermione, if I only did what you would do, I’d be in bed in five minutes. And not in a good way either, I mean asleep.”

Hermione was a bit taken aback by this slightly rude response, but brushed past it, out of happiness for her friend. After all, Fay had had a huge crush on Seamus for the best part of a year and if something was finally moving forward between them, then she was happy for her.

Fay seemed to realise how this had sounded though, as she touched Hermione on the shoulder and said: “Sorry Herms, I didn’t mean it like that. But we can’t all be as perfect and ladylike as you, you know.” She smiled sadly. “We’re not all goody-two-shoes!” Fay laughed, said goodbye and hurried off with Seamus.

‘A goody-two-shoes?’ thought Hermione. Was that how everyone here thought of her? Yes she was intelligent, and yes she (mostly) followed the rules, but a goody-two-shoes? That seemed a bit harsh. The phrase struck images in her head of primary-school children with no friends, going out of their way to be teachers favourite and refusing to speak to anyone who even spoke out of turn in class.

She wasn’t like that though. She was lots of teachers’ favourites, yes, but that was because she was clever, not because she went out of her way to please the teachers and brought apples to class or something.

Whatever. Fay was drunk and only meant it as a joke anyway. There was no need to take it seriously.

“Having a good night?” asked Harry, coming to stand next to her.

“Yeah” Hermione smiled. “Yeah, I really am Harry, thank you for helping plan this, you guys are great.”

“No problem, couldn’t not celebrate your 16th birthd—” He stopped, looking at something over Hermione’s shoulder, his eyebrows raised.

She turned to see something she hadn’t really seen all night. Although the guys were just as desperate for sex as the girls were, it was often the girls that drunkenly initiated the relationship and the guys that just went along with it. But this was different, and it disgusted her.

She had turned just in time to witness Ron attempting to kiss none other than Ravenclaw witch, Padma Patil.

“What?” muttered Hermione in disbelief as she watched Padma pull away and give Ron a swift slap across the face, and storm off, looking disgusted.

Harry was laughing. “Hard luck mate” he said to Ron, as Ron came over to the two of them, rubbing his cheek and looking confused.

“Worth a shot” muttered Ron. “Whatever.”

Hermione slipped away from the two of them and moved over to stand near to the door. She couldn’t be part of that conversation anymore. She couldn’t be near him at all. As soon as she had seen him with her she had been filled with a feeling of... she couldn’t place it... what was that?

Was it..? No it couldn’t be... it couldn’t be jealousy. Why would it be jealousy? She didn’t want Ronald to be kissing her! Did she? No of course she didn’t.

Maybe it was jealousy, but not because she wanted to being kissing him herself, but just because she didn’t want him to be kissing anyone. Yes that would be it. After all it was her birthday, and he was her best friend. He should be with her, not kissing, just having a good time, isn’t that what friends are for? Or was that the only reason he threw her this party in the first place, to hook up with some random girl? Was her birthday just an excuse?

Or maybe she was just jealous that everyone was hooking up around her. She hadn’t kissed anyone since June and maybe she was just missing close human contact? But that wasn’t exactly like her, so how likely was that? But she was almost sixteen; maybe this was just her getting older?

Ron and Padma hadn’t even kissed and she was suddenly questioning everything about herself. She didn’t know what to think anymore. She suddenly became aware of the single tear rolling down her cheek. She turned to the wall to hide her face, and wiped her eyes hurriedly with her sleeve.

“Screw him” she told herself. “Screw him for being like that, and screw Fay for calling me a ‘goody-two-shoes.’” She was sick of people looking at her like she was some kind of freak. She was sick of everyone thinking she was boring, just because she did well in class. She was sick of everyone thinking that she wasn’t ‘cool’ just because she didn’t go out and get drunk every weekend. She was sick of it all.

She turned around, grabbed a bottle of firewhiskey and downed half of it in one. She knew she would regret it tomorrow, but right now she didn’t care. If this is what it took to prove herself, then so be it.

“Alriiiiight!” shouted Lavender Brown, having been watching Hermione, “never thought I’d see you getting pissed Hermione!”

Hermione gave a loud, shrill and un-Hermioneish giggle. She took another swig from the bottle and went over to dance with Lavender and some of her friends. Every now and then, she saw Ron looking at her, an expression of utter-disbelief on his face, but whenever she caught him doing this, she simple raised her eyebrows at him, as if to say: ‘and what’re you going to do about it?’

The next time she looked at Ron he was talking to a Hufflepuff girl that Hermione didn’t know. He was sticking his chest out and drawing himself up, clearly flirting with her.

Hermione glanced around her desperately. Terry Boot was standing a few metres behind her, talking to a large group of Ravenclaws. She went up to him, pulled him away from the group and struck up a conversation.

She kept one eye firmly on Ron. She had no idea why she was doing this, but she couldn’t stop herself. She waited until she saw Ron glance her way and then pretended to laugh loudly at something Terry had just said, making a conscious effort to touch his arm gently as she laughed. She had almost expected Terry to ask her what on earth was happening, but he just looked rather pleased with himself that he had made her laugh so much.

She supposed it was the alcohol.

Hermione began twirling her hair around her finger, and continued laughing at the things Terry was saying. She could see Ron looking thoroughly confused now. Terry seemed to be enjoying himself though as he slipped his arm around her shoulder, his hand dangling precariously close to her chest and laughing, said: “You know Hermione; I’ve never seen you like this before. We’ll have to get you drunk more often.”

Ron, upon seeing this, immediately put his arm around the Hufflepuff girl.

Why was she doing this? She couldn’t think what was making her try so hard to make Ron jealous, but she did know that she wanted it to end soon, as Terry Boot’s hand was now gently stroking the base of her neck, creeping closer to the neckline of her top.

So when Lavender Brown suggested a game of ‘Seven minutes in heaven’, Hermione jumped at the opportunity to escape Terry’s grasp, despite not actually knowing what the game was about.
Lavender soon explained the rules.

“Right!” she shouted, drawing a curtain across the room with her wand. “That broom cupboard has two doors, one either side of that curtain. Boys, you go on that side, girls on this side. Spin a bottle on each side to decide the one boy and one girl who go in!” She smiled broadly. “Shall we?”

“Um, what exactly do we do in the broom cupboard?” asked a girl who Hermione knew from their potions class. Hermione was glad somebody asked the question and she didn’t know either. Well, she had a pretty shrewd idea based on the previous activities of the party but thought she should probably know for sure.

“Well, whatever you want to do” shrugged Lavender. “But the lights will be off and you won’t know who it is until we open the door afterwards. And even then only the two people actually in their will know, unless you want to tell everyone. Basically just go in and make out with whoever is in there.”

The girl who had asked looked a little taken back by this response.

“Don’t fret” laughed Lavender “if you don’t want to, just say no if it lands on you. Right, boys! That side of the curtain you go, as soon as both people are in your seven minutes will start!” She winked.

As soon as the boys were out of sight, Lavender made all the girls sit down in a circle around a bottle, before flicking it with a jet from her wand to start it spinning. There was a very pregnant pause, broken only by a laugh and a cheer from the boys, indicating their bottle had stop spinning.

The girls’ bottle slowed to a still, pointing at the girl from Hermione’s potion class who had asked about the game. She looked uncomfortable for a minute, then shook her head slightly and said: “No, I’m alright, skip me.”

“You sure?” asked the girl sitting next to her.

“Yeah” replied the former girl, before adding under her breath: “I’m not that fucking desperate.” with a dark look at Lavender.

Hermione tried to hide a smile. Lavender certainly did seem pretty desperate at this point. She was now saying that she would take the girls place, instead of re-spinning the bottle. This idea was met with many smirks and eye-rolls, but general agreement, until Hermione’s friend Alice decided to put her opinion in.

Hermione had always liked Alice. They weren’t close, but she had always got on well with her. But after what she said next, Hermione wanted to punch her.

“Why doesn’t Hermione go?” She said it quietly, to ensure that the boys didn’t hear, but loud enough for all the girls to look around, suddenly interested.

“No, that’s fine” Hermione said hurriedly. “I’m okay, Lavender can go.”

But people were starting to agree with Alice. “Yeah!” piped up Hannah Abbott “It’s your party Hermione, the birthday girl has to go!”

Hermione protests were met with huge agreements for her to be the one to go into the broom cupboard.

“Come on Hermione!” slurred Padma Patil, “Don’t be so boring!”

At these words, Hermione’s head was once again filled with images of Ron attempting to kiss Padma, and the slap he got in response. Anger rose inside of her, how dare she call her boring?
She grabbed a bottle of firewhiskey from the girl next to her, downed it in one and dropped it by her side, where it smashed into a thousand little pieces. She stepped over it indignantly, and strode over to the door of the broom cupboard.

Outside the door, she paused. Her head was spinning. She was certainly drunk now. This was brand new territory for her.

‘Right’ she told herself firmly. ‘You’re going to march in there and have a good time. And try as hard as possible not to throw up all over him. And if it’s someone gross, who cares? Even if it’s Neville-flipping-Longbottom, I can make him swear not to tell, and no one will ever know.’

She pulled open the door and stepped inside. She was plunged straight into darkness. She took a step in front of her and collided with something that felt like the corner of a table.

“Oh shoot!” She muttered rubbing her leg.

She heard movement somewhere ahead of her.

“Hi?” she said, her voice sounding slurred and not at all like her own.

“Hey” came a voice in return. She might have recognised it, but she was not in a position to stop and figure it out.

She felt a pair of hands brush against her shoulder and reached out in front of her. Her hands collided with what must have been the guy’s chest.

“Hi” she said again. She wondered if he was as nervous as her.

“Hi” he repeated. She could hear the smile in his voice. He clearly wasn’t nervous.

“Hi—” she started again, but he clumsily placed a finger to her lips.

“Just stop talking.” He whispered the words so gently that Hermione knew she wouldn’t even be able to tell who it was if she was sober.

He placed a crooked finger under her chin and tilted her face up towards his.

She could feel him moving his face closer to hers. She could feel his warm, alcohol-tinted breath on her cheek. He paused for a moment, before moving in to kiss her.

The first kiss was slightly to the right of her mouth. After all, it was quite difficult to orientate yourself when you’re not only drunk, but also in pitch-black-darkness.

He moved his head, and kissed her again, this time perfectly on the mouth. He was kissing her gently, and had his hands firmly around her cheeks, holding her face tilting up to his.

He pulled away, and kissed her again, moving his hands down until they were around her waist. He was still kissing her softly, and gently.

Hermione became aware that she was just standing there, hardly kissing him back with her hands hanging loosely by her side. She plucked up her courage and moved her hands up to wrap them around his neck. He was considerably taller than her.

As she began to kiss him back he pulled away, and paused, his lips hovering over hers, only an inch from her face.

Then he kissed her again, harder this time with more passion. His hands came back up, to run through her hair.

Hermione couldn’t help herself thinking this was different than with Viktor. When Viktor had kissed her it had been simple, just a kiss. It had meant something perhaps, but it had been the same every time. Always the same, almost boring.

But this was so different. It was interesting. It was intense and it made her heart beat in a way it never had before. She could tell he was thinking the same, by the way he had suddenly starting kissing her harder, and faster, and firmer.

She started running her hands through his hair as he lowered his once more, to the top of her thighs as he picked her up and threw her back against the wall.

Hermione wrapped her legs around his waist and he pushed his body into hers, still kissing her so fervently, and she could feel his heart beating hard, pressed against her chest.

This was amazing. This was better than she could ever have imagined. Even if this did turn out to be someone embarrassing like Neville... well... she didn’t even care.

He had removed his hands from under her legs, and was now only pinning her to the wall with the force of his own body pressing against hers. His hands were slowly moving under her top. His cold hands, moving up her shirt, in perfect contrast to her hot, almost sweating skin.

Hermione Granger was a virgin.

This never bothered her, despite other girls in her year being adamant that you weren’t ‘cool’ unless you’d lost your virginity by the age of fifteen. No, Hermione had always maintained that she would have sex when she wanted to, not when anyone else decided she should. She wasn’t going to run around begging guys for sex just to be considered ‘cool’.

Yes, Hermione Granger was a virgin, but right now she would be perfectly happy to have hot, meaningless sex with this guy, whose identity she had no idea of. She would be perfectly happy if he just took her in his arms and –

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud rap on the door.

“Seven minutes are up!” came Lavender’s irritating sing-song voice.

She could feel the boy smiling as his lips remained immobile against hers. Then he slowly pulled away, and let her body fall into a standing position. She felt him take a step back.

The door was suddenly flung open, and Hermione was blinded by the light. She covered her face slightly with her hand to allow her eyes to adjust to the sudden lighting change.

“Shit.” came a low voice from in front of her.

Hermione removed her hand from over her eyes, and looked up into the cold, grey, and rather shocked eyes of Draco Malfoy.