“Draco?” He huffed in response to his name. “Draco, have you heard about that New Years Eve superstition?”

“What are you babbling about Pansy?” he mumbled as he continued to read The Daily Prophet.

She looked flustered as she tried to get his attention. “I heard that if you are with someone, like your girlfriend or whoever, at the stroke of midnight on New Years Eve then you will be tied to that person in following year.” There was a long pause as she hoped for a response from him. But nothing came.

“Draco?”

“What?”

“Did you hear what I just said?” Her voice pleaded as she looked for her answer.

“Something about friends and midnight and….” He trailed off as he continued to read his paper.

But the truth is, he heard every word. He knew what she was hinting at and he wasn’t falling for it. He believed in that same superstition she was speaking of. That’s why they had never spent the holidays together. But somehow, her family ingratiated themselves into the Malfoy’s company. So he’s been scrambling to make plans, to be somewhere else at the stroke of midnight.

“So are we going to spend time together on New Years Eve?” she asked.

“I suppose, Pansy. Well see.”

Pansy got up and went to her guest room. “We’ll see, all right.”

********

He crept out the back way into the mansion’s garden. He was planning to meet Crabbe and Goyle at some Muggle pub at some village across town. Everyone was too drunk to notice that he was gone and Pansy was still sulking in her room. He needed to get past the mansion’s perimeter before he could Aparate without being noticed. As he passed the Lilacs, he ran into something sweet and familiar, like some invisible wall fell in front of him. As he turned, his eyes caught the golden brown highlights that the moon was reflecting from her bushy hair.

“Hermione?” he said in disbelief. His heart was filled with joy as he made his way closer to her. His senses filled with her perfume as he got within arms length. He was suddenly over taken with this need to be with her. It was as if an emotional damn had broken and he was drowning in his repressed feelings. “Granger? How did you-?”

She did not speak. As the clock struck twelve, she smothered him with a kiss that he graciously accepted. He was so over whelmed that he toppled her onto the ground. His greedy hands grasped at all parts of her body as his lips stayed glued to the nape of her neck, taking in her scent.

Pansy took it all in, allowing his hands to roam free as she desperately tried to hold onto her wig.