9. Dear Diary

Author's Note: Well, this is probably my quickest update yet. Like I said last time, I'm trying extra hard to upload the next couple of chapters before Christmase because, well, the next few flashbacks are Christmas-themed. However, the only way I think I will achieve this goal is if I give up everything else in my life for the next week and a half and devote all of my time to writing. Well, we'll see if I can do that. :D Hugs to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and all the ones before it. You guys are the wind beneath my wings. P

Disclaimer: People often ask me, "Are you the author of those Harry Potter books?" Actually, I'm totally kidding. They don't.

"An hour and a half to go until the Yule Ball, and you're writing in your beloved journal." Draco smirked as he dropped his wand down onto the nearest table and threw his robes over the arm of the chair. He plopped down onto the couch and put his feet up on the table in front of him. "And you're not even ready yet."

Hermione sighed in annoyance, but kept on writing.

"What are you writing about tonight?" Draco wondered. "Dear Diary, tonight I am going to the Yule Ball with the unfortunate soul Neville Longbottom. Woe is I. At least I get to have one dance with the incredibly handsome Draco Malfoy, though – that more than makes up for it. He is so charming and popular. I must be the luckiest girl in the world."

Hermione smirked and closed up the journal. She tapped her wand on the top of the book, most likely to lock it. She had a pretty decent anti-read spell on it, for anyone who dared try and open it. "You know, Malfoy, I often lie awake at night wondering how it is you manage to fit shirts over that gigantic head of yours."

Draco grinned and raised an eyebrow at her. "Why, Granger, I had no idea you go to sleep every night thinking of me. I'm flattered. Truly."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I only have myself to blame," she muttered. "I walked right into that one."

"You certainly did."

"But seriously, though, have you ever thought of maybe trying to love yourself just a little bit less?"

"I try all the time, Granger, but it's so hard. There is just so much about me to love."

Hermione snorted.

"So why are you writing in your journal, instead of getting ready for the Ball?" Draco asked.

"Not every girl takes four hours to get ready, Malfoy," Hermione said matter-of-factly. "Besides, it's not like I have to do too much. Throw my dress robes on, brush my hair. I don't have to get too gussied up. It's not like I'm going to be spending all evening there."

Draco narrowed his eyes. "You're not staying for the whole Ball? But you've got a date."

Hermione shrugged. "Neville's okay with it. I told him I'd dance with him a couple of times, then I'd be leaving. He said that was fine."

"That's just silly, Granger. Why not stay until the end? This is the last Yule Ball you will ever get to attend as a student here."

"Maybe I'm just not in the mood to spend all evening watching happy couples parading their love for each other all over the dance floor," Hermione said quietly.

Draco groaned. "Oh hell, Granger," he said, with a little more irritation than he had meant, "enough with all of this moping over Potter bollocks. When are you just going to get over it?"

Hermione frowned. "Who said anything about Harry?" she mumbled.

Draco searched her face, trying to figure out what she meant by that. He was about to ask her when a knock interrupted him.

"Oh for crying out loud," he grumbled. He got up and walked over to the portrait hole and pushed the door open. On the other side stood three giggling girls: Ginny Weasley, Lavender Brown, and Luna Lovegood. Well, actually, only Ginny and Lavender were giggling; Luna was staring off into space with a smile on her face.

The giggling stopped the minute the girls saw Draco. "Oh. Malfoy," Ginny said, not bothering to try and hide the distaste in her voice. "Is Hermione here?"

"Where else would she be?" Draco muttered. He stepped aside, allowing the girls to enter. "Granger," he called into the common room. "You've got three very annoying guests here to see you."

Ginny and Lavender glared at him. Luna just continued to smile.

Hermione stood up when her friends entered the room. "Hey, what are you guys doing here?"

Lavender began giggling again. "We are here to help you get ready for the Ball."

"But I don't need any help," Hermione said, glancing wearily down at the various items both Ginny and Lavender held in their hands.

"Oh, nonsense," Ginny said, grabbing Hermione's arm. "This is your last Ball at Hogwarts, and we are going to make sure you look beautiful for it."

"But -" Hermione protested.

"Shush!" Ginny said, placing a hand over Hermione's mouth. "When we get through with you, nobody at the Ball will even recognize you!"

Hermione glanced wide-eyed over at Draco as Ginny and Lavender pulled her into her bedroom. The poor girl looked frightened. With friends like those two girls, Draco could not blame her. He smirked as the girls slammed the bedroom door shut behind them.

Draco glanced over at Luna, who had taken it upon herself to sit down. "This is quite a lovely common room," she said politely. "Lots of…space."

Kind of like the inside of your head, Draco wanted to say. But he resisted the urge and instead said, "Yeah."

"They really want Hermione to look beautiful for the Ball," Luna continued, not even looking at Draco as she spoke. In fact, the way she spoke almost sounded as though she were talking to no one in particular - rather just voicing her thoughts out loud, whether anyone was around to hear them or not.

"Why do they want that so badly?" Draco asked against his better judgment. "Looney" Lovegood was not the easiest person to carry on a conversation with, due to the fact she was weird.

Luna shrugged. "They don't tell me these things."

Suddenly, the bedroom door opened and Lavender popped her head out. "Luna, get your arse in here."

Luna sighed. "I'll be right there." She glanced over at Draco and smiled before getting up and leaving the room. Once again, the bedroom door slammed shut behind her.

Draco had to admit he was curious as hell as to what was going on behind that closed door. Whatever was happening, he knew Granger probably wasn't liking it. Hermione was never one to go through too much trouble to make herself beautiful. In fact, the one and only time at Hogwarts that she did was for the Yule Ball their fourth year. Otherwise, she had only two looks: her school uniform look, and her casual look – the latter usually consisting of sweaters and jeans, pure muggle clothes. Draco grinned at the thought of her being tortured in that room with makeup and hairbrushes and all sorts of beautifying spells.

He chuckled as he went to his own bedroom to get ready. He had told Pansy he'd swing by the Slytherin Tower an hour early.

About a half an hour later, Draco was all showered and dressed for the Ball. The girls, however, were still in the bedroom – he could hear their excited, muffled voices. He rolled his eyes. He was hoping Pansy wouldn't be going through something similar when he arrived to the Slytherin common room in a few minutes. Girls could be so annoying sometimes.

Quietly, he walked over to the bedroom door and strained to make sense out of what they were saying, but it was useless. So instead of eavesdropping, he instead knocked on the door and said, "Hey, Granger."

At the sound of his voice, the girls all fell silent. "Granger, I'm leaving now. And I just want to inform you girls that you'd better get her to the Ball on time. We have to share the first dance."

"Okay, Malfoy," Ginny and Lavender simultaneously said in singsong voices. More giggling immediately ensued.

Draco rolled his eyes. He couldn't help but feel really sorry for Hermione at that moment.

"What are you reading?" he asked her.

She jumped at the sound of his voice, but smiled when she glanced up at him. "Oh, hello. I didn't hear you come in."

Draco stared down at the book she held open in her hands. He recognized it. Why did he recognize it? As he moved closer to her, he got a clearer view of it – it was Hermione's journal.

"What are you doing with that?" he demanded.

"I'm reading it," Hermione replied simply.

"That's Hermione's journal – it's not meant for just anyone to read."

Hermione shrugged. "I would say I'm entitled to read it, don't you think? I mean, she and I are practically the same person."

Draco took a slow, deep breath, hoping it would calm the sudden anger he felt towards the girl. "I don't think it works that way, Granger. Besides, how did you even break into it? She had a pretty tight locking spell on it."

"I know. I use the same spell for my diary back home."

"And the password? How did you know what to use to open it?"

"That was easy," she said. "It turns out she and I have a lot of things in common, starting with choice of passwords. I just asked myself what word I would use and then I tried it. Lo and behold, it worked like a charm."

"Yeah, well, I don't care how much you have in common with her. That does not give you the right to read her private thoughts."

"Would you like to read it?" she asked him, holding the journal out to him.

"No," Draco said, snatching the book out of her hands. "And I don't want you to read it either. Have you no respect for the privacy of others?"

"Of course I have respect. I was just curious, is all. I land in a world so similar to mine and find out that there was another version of me, only I don't get to meet her because she's…" Hermione's voice trailed off. "Well, you know. And I was just curious to see how similar we were. Don't worry, I didn't read too much. I didn't even get past the September entries." She paused for a moment, and then said, "I see what you mean about her being in love with Harry, though."

"I don't want to hear about it," Draco snapped. Quickly regaining his composure, he sighed and dropped the journal onto her lap. "Whatever. I don't care. Read it if you want to. It's not mine; I can't decide whether or not you may read it. Just…don't talk about it with me, alright?"

"Fine," Hermione mumbled. "I'm just surprised you don't want to read it. She wrote in one of her first entries that she was placing the heavy spell on it to keep you from breaking into it. She suspected that perhaps you had an interest in reading it."

Draco snorted. "Yeah, well, maybe at one point I was interested. But I'm not anymore."

"Why not?"

"I'm just not. Will you please let it go?"

Hermione shrugged. "Yeah, okay. You don't have to raise your voice. You know, I'm starting to see why she didn't like you."

Her comment hit a nerve. So Hermione wrote in her journal about how she didn't like him? He tried not to let that knowledge bother him, but it did anyway. So while she was writing about how wonderful Harry was, she was writing about what a horrible prat Draco was. It shouldn't have surprised him. The girl in front of him had said she had only read the September entries, so of course Hermione had been writing about how much she hated him at the time. He was still being a jackass to her back then. Still, it hurt nonetheless, and suddenly Draco had an urge to grab that journal from the girl and read every word Hermione had written down.

Instead, he took a seat on the couch and said, "Oh really? And why is that?"

"Well, you're kind of rude."

"Thanks. Are you saying I'm not rude in your world? Or am I not even in your world?"

Hermione snorted. "Oh, you're in my world, all right. And you're pretty much the same there as you are here. Well, except for the fact that you're a mudblood in my world."

Draco's jaw immediately dropped as he gave Hermione a horrified expression.

She burst out laughing. "I'm joking. Wow, you looked mortified there for a second. Let me guess – being Pureblood means as much to you here as it means to the Malfoy in my world?"

Draco smirked. "Let me guess – I've been a complete arse to you in your world, because I'm a Pureblood and you're a mudblood?"

"Something like that," Hermione said with a shrug. "You know, I'm not really surprised that you're the same here. I honestly cannot imagine a world where Draco Malfoy is anything other than a pompous git."

"Maybe you should let your imagination run wild sometime," Draco said. "You'd be surprised at the things you could come up with."

Hermione gave him a skeptical look. "What kind of relationship did you have with Hermione here?"

Draco's eyes darkened a bit at her sudden change in topic and he said in an almost defensive tone, "We didn't have any kind of relationship."

"I don't believe that," Hermione said, shaking her head slightly. "I mean, you're Head Boy…she was Head Girl. You two shared a common room together. You did nightly patrols together. Surely you must have had some sort of relationship with her, whether good or bad."

"We were forced to live together," Draco said, "and most of the time, we did what we could to avoid each other. We hardly had anything close to what you would call a relationship. We barely ever spoke to each other." Draco avoided the girl's gaze. He had a feeling that if he were to look her in the eye, she'd be able to tell he was lying.

"Okay," she said. "If you say so." She smiled and paused for a moment before saying, "So did you have a nice time clearing your head?"

Draco stared at her blankly, wondering what she meant. And then he remembered that he had left her earlier to do just that – clear his head. What he had actually done was gone in search of Pansy, hoping maybe she could help him get his mind off of things. However, he never did manage to find her, or any of his friends for that matter, so he instead ventured down to The Three Broomsticks for a few lonely drinks. "Yeah," he replied flatly. "I had a really nice time."

"What did you do?"

Draco opened his mouth to tell her that it was none of her business, but a knock on the door prevented him from saying it. He groaned. "Don't tell me Potter and Weasel are back already."

"I hope not," Hermione said with a frown.

Draco couldn't help but to be amused at her attitude so far towards Harry and Ron. He wished Hermione had had that attitude towards them when she was alive. It would have saved him a lot of exasperation.

"Well if it's them," Draco said, heading over to the portrait hole, "I'll just tell them to go away in a very non-polite way."

He smirked and opened up the portrait hole door. To his surprise, it was not Harry and Ron who stood on the other side of the door – it was Ginny Weasley. He didn't even have to notice her sullen expression to know why she was there – she certainly hadn't come to see him.

"Well, so much for keeping secrets," Draco mumbled. "I'll bet it took Potter and Weasel, what, twenty seconds to tell you what Dumbledore specifically told us not to tell anyone?"

Glowering at Draco, Ginny pushed past him. "Where is she?" she demanded.

"I don't recall inviting you in, Weaslette," Draco snapped.

"Hermione?" she called out as she made her way into the common room. She stopped short when she caught site of the girl sitting in the armchair across the room.

Hermione immediately stood up; the journal that had been on her lap fell to the floor with a soft thud, but she ignored it. "Ginny?"

The petite redhead widened her eyes as she stared in astonishment at the girl. "Wow," she breathed. "You look just like her."

Draco raised an eyebrow at that. While this girl's features did mirror Hermione's, there were still quite a few differences in appearance – although through Ginny's shock, Draco figured she probably hadn't even noticed yet.

The two girls stood still, staring at each other for only a few brief seconds until suddenly, Ginny lunged toward Hermione and threw her arms around her, hugging her tightly.

Though Hermione was stunned by this sudden action, she quickly responded by returning the embrace.

"You hug like her, too," Ginny said softly. As quickly as she had embraced her, she let go of her and held the girl out at arm's length. "Harry and Ronald were right – this is really weird, but…it's just so nice to see your face. You look so much like her."

"So I've been told," Hermione said, smiling. Her eyes flickered over to Draco.

"You want her to leave?" he asked her, motioning his head toward Ginny.

"Not at all," Hermione replied. "This girl was a good friend of mine back in my world. It's nice to see your face too, Ginny."

Ginny grinned. "We have so much to talk about. I want to know everything about you – everything about your world. Everything about me in your world."

Hermione giggled. "Um, okay…" Once again, she looked over to Draco. "I guess we can go in the bedroom and talk. Is it alright with you if she stays, Malfoy?"

No, it wasn't really okay with him, but Draco told her it was anyway. He had a feeling that even if he tried to kick Ginny out, she wouldn't leave - and honestly, he felt too emotionally drained to even argue with her at the moment.

Ginny squealed with delight. She grabbed Hermione's hand and led her toward the bedroom, talking excitedly – something about how she bet Hogwarts boys were cuter in other dimensions than they were in this one. Draco rolled his eyes.

As he watched them go into the bedroom and shut the door, Draco started to get a bad feeling about this whole Hermione doppelganger thing. Ginny's reaction to her was the complete opposite of what he had expected – and the complete opposite of Harry's reaction. Instead of being shocked, saddened, or weirded out by her, Ginny was happy and excited – as if she had just gone into that bedroom with the real Hermione to discuss girl stuff. That disturbed him. With this girl looking and sounding so much like the real Hermione, it would be easy for people to forget who she really was – or rather, who she really wasn't. There was no doubt in his mind that Ginny Weasley was going to be one of those people.

However, he couldn't be bothered by that. It wasn't his problem. If the Weaslette wanted to pretend this girl was really her best friend, good for her. If Scarhead wanted to avoid her, even better. Draco honestly didn't care how anyone else was going to deal with the new Hermione situation. It would be more important for him to concentrate on how he was going to deal with it.

But the most important thing, Draco realized as his gaze fell upon the journal that Hermione had left lying on the floor, was going to be concentrating on finding a place to put that diary where he wouldn't be tempted to read it.