Hermione Granger, pragmatic and brilliant, had not been surprised when she had received the Head Girl badge over summer break. She had worked hard for the illustrious position not only academically but also in behavior. She had not caved into pressure from her peers when they told her to look the other way when they broke rules, she had not raised to the bait of name calling when her actions displeased them. No, she had stayed true despite Ronald Weas—ahem!— others, she amended, teasing and ostracizing her.

She had not allowed herself to get too unpopular either. She tried to maintain a balance of stern and kindness. She said hello to others in class, helped struggling students with their homework and occasionally let a few curfew breakers who had legitimate excuses go unpunished.

Now, she wore the fruits of her labor concretized as a golden Head Girl badge pinned proudly on her chest. She couldn't stop smiling, that is until she found out who earned the privilege of Head Boy—Draco Malfoy.

She had suspected he would be her Head counterpart since he had the second highest score in their year, after hers of course, and a remarkably large following of what she would call minions but he dubbed friends—lies! As if someone like him, pompous, vain, arrogant, spoiled and entitled, could every consider anyone worthy of being friends with his holiness!

Admittedly, Hermione knew she could be bias since she still held a grudge for the time Malfoy had called her a mudblood back in second year. She supposed she could have let it go since they had been young and when he had seen her tears he seemed to have regretted his brash words but…Well, she had a terrible crush on him back then and it had really shattered her heart when he had called her that! He never outwardly apologized for it either— though, maybe that had more to do with her slapping him so hard afterwards that he fell to ground in front of all his friends— instead he choose to just ignore her very existence.

She knew logically that just because of her bad experience with the Slytherin, didn't mean that he was cold toward everyone else. Still, she wished the Head Boy could have been anyone else—like Harry— her mind whispered tauntingly.

Hermione felt glad that she was alone in the prefects room so no one could spot her blushing. She didn't like thinking about Harry although her brain didn't seem to get that as it made him cross her mind more often than she liked. Harry was different from anyone she had ever met. It didn't help that he had the prettiest eyes she had ever seen either—no that's not relevant at all— nor the greatest flyer in Hogwarts, nor that he was a guitar prodigy, nor that he even started a band.

His band, dubbed Lightening, consisted of himself as lead guitarist, Ginny Weasley as vocalist, Ron as drummer and Neville as bass. They were incredibly popular now in Hogwarts, so much so that last year they had played at the yule ball rather than a guest band.

He achieved so many things that albeit weren't necessarily academic—although he does have to highest Defense Against the Dark Arts score, her brain reminded— but still inspiring. In first year, he became the youngest player to start on the Gryffindor Quidditch team in over a century, in second year, he defended her after Malfoy had called her a mudblood (and after she had already punched him, but still.) In third he produced a protronus displaying academic prowess that simultaneously filled her with envy and awe. In fourth he started his band and in fifth he became a prefect with her. Last year he became quidditch captain while balancing his band that was growing in fame and prefect duties!

Amazing couldn't even begin to describe him.

Hermione felt like her schedule was practically nonexistent when she thought about his. Not only that, but he also had a steady girlfriend since fourth year; Cho Chang. A year ahead, fellow prefect, fellow quidditch player, and disgustingly beautiful—Cho had even been Head Girl last year. But she's graduated now—her mind whispered enticingly, recalling some gossip she heard during dinner earlier— and they've broken up.

Lavender and Parvarti had been chatting and glancing furtively at Harry at the table, which had caught Hermione's attention. She tuned into them and learned that Ron had confessed to Lavender, his on-again, off-again girlfriend, that he thought Ginny and Harry might get together now that Harry and Cho had broken up. Hermione, with the knowledge that Harry and Cho were over, couldn't help but wonder that as well.

Ginny's feelings for Harry were no secret, only Harry himself didn't know them. While the youngest Weasley had dated others during Harry's relationship with Cho, it always seemed obvious that she had never really given up on Harry. It would be no surprise if she made her move, she certainly had all the attributes that Harry liked. She was beautiful, she was a prefect, she played quidditch and most importantly she also was in his band; the lead singer in fact! It almost seemed like fate for them to be together, if Hermione felt so inclined to believe in those things, which she did not.

Hermione jolted as the door to the prefect room opened. Raising her eyes, she watched as Draco Malfoy came into the room and strode to his place beside her at the Heads table. Hermione glared at his refusal to acknowledge her gaze, as per usual.

"Malfoy," she greeted, not allowing his lack of manners to affect her own. At the sound of her voice, Malfoy gave her a slow sideways glance.

"I've got to do something in twenty minutes so lets just make this a quick meeting, Granger. We give them their schedules and then get out." He replied, ignoring her greeting altogether—the git—and turning his head in a that's that manner.

Irritation shot through Hermione as she turned to face him fully. "That's not possible Malfoy. Not only do we have to go over the prefect schedule's, we also have to go over the rules and expectations of the prefects, take ideas for this year's Halloween feast and—"

"You can not be serious, Granger. We did that last week!"

"That was just an introduction and acquiring the prefects timetables so we can make the round schedule. We didn't even go over the handbook—"

"See, this is why people don't like you, Granger. No one ever goes over the handbook, that thing is over a thousand pages long. Tell me, has any other Heads ever gone over the handbook in your years as prefect?" He asked condescendingly. Hermione's teeth grinded together at the tone.

"Well, no,"

"Yet, you still understood what you could and could not do, right?"

"Well, yes but—

"So why would we be the only Heads to go over it? Do you think our prefects are dumber than the previous years?"

"Of course not—!" Hermione's ire increased at his continuous interruptions. She could feel a vein throbbing in her head at his superior drawling.

"Then why would we waste everyone's time with something as redundant as going over the handbook? We're not doing it, Granger."

"We are doing it Malfoy seeing as I already passed out a small manual of the rules and expectations!"

Malfoy turned his icy eyes onto the desk before them, noticing for the first time the paper name plates and manuals placed on them. He glared as if personally offended before he turned back to her.

"I'll just burn them," he threatened, before he paused, a positively conniving look graced his features, "Hmm, you know what, I've decided I won't burn them. I'll let you hand them out and make everyone so mad so that when I make a big production of talking you out of it, everyone will appreciate me more."

'Rotten little conniving cockroach!' Hermione wanted to scream. She knew it would work for him too. God, she really hated Malfoy. She wanted to argue if only to be difficult but before she could open her mouth, Anthony Goldstein and Padma Patil entered holding hands.

Hermione's mouth shut with a snap as she turned away from Draco to offer the new found couple a smile. She liked the two Ravenclaw prefects, favored them even. She felt genuinely happy for them that they finally stopped dancing around each other as they had last year.

"Hello Anthony, Padma."

"Hi, Hermione! What are these?" Padma asked, reaching with her free hand over to a desk, tipping over a name plate Hermione had made up. "Oops!"

"I've put name tags on all the desks and put the corresponding patrolling timetable as well as a small manual on the do's and don'ts of being a prefect." Hermione straightened her spine, feeling a swell of pride at her work. She did agree secretly that going over the prefects handbook was a little overzealous, thus, she had taken it upon herself to condense it to a whooping eleven pages.

Padma smiled tightly, her face echoing Draco's scoff. Hermione went rigid, her anger only a hair's breath from snapping. "Oh, we're next to each other, Panda." Anthony said, cutting through the tension with an easy smile. "Great!" Padma quickly sat in her seat before engaging with her boyfriend in a hushed discussion.

Hermione breathed deeply. She reminded herself that the best way to handle any situation was with at least a modicum of calm. Slowly slid Malfoy's manual over to him, peering sideways at him through her bushy hair. "This is your copy," she bit out testily.

"Why? I'll only bin it," Hermione's head snapped to him furiously to find him lazily flipping through it.

"Well of course you would! No surprise there since you hardly care to follow prefect rules anyway. I don't know what Dumbledore could have possibly been thinking letting you of all people—" Her words were stopped when Malfoy smushed a finger to her lips unattractively.

"Hush now, Granger, we have an audience and we wouldn't want the children to think mummy and daddy aren't getting along. We must show a united front." He mocked, giving her an infuriatingly triumphant smirk.

Hermione's anger shot to new levels the longer Malfoy kept his index finger on her lips. She could feel her whole entire body heat up with righteous fury and she knew she must be Weasley level red. With a hiss, Hermione roughly slapped Malfoy's hand away, feeling satisfied at the sharp sound her hit created. She hoped Malfoy's hand smarted.

With gritted teeth and barely contained anger Hermione turned away. "You're lucky I'm not inclined to commit patricide today." She hissed, raising her eyes to the prefects streaming through the door. Taking a deep breath—just go to your Malfoy free happy place— she fixed a small smile on her face and stood ready to address her fellow prefects and if her heart skipped a beat at the sight of Harry…well at least she already had an excuse as to why her face was so red.

"Hello everybody! As you can see, I've taken the liberty of assigning seats so we don't waste any time handing out your round schedules." She paused, gazing around the room, "Your schedules are underneath a short summary of the rules and guidelines found in the prefect handbook. I'd like to quickly go over that first and then your schedules. Now…"

Hermione ignored the huffing and eye rolls as she went over the manual as most of it came from the Head's seat beside her. Showing a united front, indeed, Hermione thought with vexation. She was just doing her job—it isn't like they don't need the refresher, honestly—and it only took her ten minutes! Yet she couldn't help but feel a little bit put out when even Harry didn't pay her any attention.

Once done, the topic of their round schedule had everyone engaged as they cross reference quidditch, chorus and dueling practices. It was fifteen minutes of double and triple checking before finally the meeting was adjourned. Hermione glared at Malfoy who was the first one out the door and made a mental note to talk him about his uncooperative, and rude behavior.

She would have gone after him now but she had something to do…something she anticipated far more.

"Harry, do you mind hanging back for a second?" Hermione called out before he could leave with Ginny, Colin Creevey, and Fay Dunbar.

"Yeah, no problem," Harry responded, surprised. She smiled at him as she crossed over to his side.

"How is your band doing?" she asked conversationally as Harry gave her a curious expression. "Or, what I really mean to ask is if you've written any new songs that you'd maybe like to perform for the Yule Ball?" At Harry's wide eyed look, Hermione rushed to explain. "You see, last year your band did such a great job and everybody in this school loves your music! There was also a real sense of togetherness between the houses when you performed and I just thought maybe if you had anything new, you might want to perform again?" Harry smiled as she trailed off, her gaze fixated on the curl of his lips.

"Of course we want to perform again, I was actually going to ask you and Malfoy for the chance later on but you beat me to it. I've got a lot of new music so new material won't be a problem." Hermione's heart spiked as she thought of all the possible ways this enabled her to get closer to Harry.

"I'm so glad." she said a little breathlessly, her gaze lingering on Harry's eyes. Harry smiled politely before looking away, the uncomfortable shift in his eyes snapping Hermione out of her trance with a mortified blush, "I'd have to hear your new music but if its acceptable, which I'm sure it will be, then we can go to Dumbledore and get his official approval."

"Yeah, okay. You can come to our practice this week," He shot her a winning smile as she beamed, proud of her achievement.

"Great! When is it?" She asked eagerly, and she cringed a bit in her head that she sounded a bit too eager— down girl!

"It's tomorrow actually— after dinner 'cause Ron cuts us short if he plays feeling hungry." Hermione couldn't help but roll her eyes at that typical Weasley behavior, always whinging about something or other. "Oh, I take it Ron's not your favorite person ever."

Hermione blushed at having been caught but in all honesty she really didn't like Ronald Weasley. He was her second tormentor… well, maybe that was an exaggeration, but he did like to mock her ever since first year when she showed him up in charms class. "I'm sorry but I don't like him at all." Harry shifted uncomfortably and Hermione did feel sorry for putting him in a tight spot. "So, should I meet you in the Great Hall or the common room?"

"We keep our gear in the room of requirement so there's no need to go back to the common room. We'll just head there after dinner."

Hermione nodded, she should have known they would keep there stuff in RoR. Being a prefect Dumbledore had given her and all the other newbie prefects the information about the room (along with the prefects bathroom password) and when Harry had started up his band it was obvious that room would be ideal for practice, it was close to the dorms, soundproof, and could be willed to fit all their equipment and then some.

"So, I'll see you then." Harry said with a smile that Hermione returned ten fold.

"I look forward to it."

And look forward to it she did, so much so that it made the next day seem to move at a glacial pace. When dinner finally came, she was too excited to even eat properly and she kept glancing over at Harry throughout and if that caused some of her classmates to think her crazy well, she was acting a little crazy but she didn't know how to stop it.

When Harry stood, Hermione jolted to stand so abruptly she startled poor innocent Dean causing his spoonful of soup to spill all over his shirt. She did not notice. Instead she made her way over to Harry with a wide grin that showed all her teeth. Harry blinked at the sight of it before he gave her a charming quirk of the lips. "Hi there. Ready?" he asked redundantly. Clearly, she had been ready for hours.

"Of course," she responded eagerly drawing a snort from someone behind Harry. Hermione turned her eyes to the others who were all looking at her in not an entirely welcoming way. Smile dimming, she gazed at the culprit of the snort, a one Ronald Weasley.

"Merlin, look at her! Cool it, would ya? It's just a practice," Hermione glared at Ron as Ginny rolled her eyes at her brother as they all started moving out the Great Hall.

"You would say that. You know, you really should take this more seriously if you're serious about going pro," Ginny said, Harry nodding his head beside her.

"Do you all want to go pro after Hogwarts?" Hermione asked curiously.

"Absolutely," Harry immediately responded in tandem with Ginny. Neville had only shrugged while Ron shot her a 'duh' look.

"Interesting," Hermione tuned out of the rest of the conversation for a bit as she mused about their responses. She had known that Harry had loved playing the guitar yet she had never thought that he would want to go pro since he also loved flying and could even go professional as a seeker. Now that she knew she felt like she should do something to help. She wondered about the rest of the band members. Ron would always just follow Harry but Neville had not seemed all in like the others and Ginny still had another year before she could do anything. She wondered then if it would be worthwhile to help them just yet if the band was still up in the air. 'I'll decide after I see them practice' she thought to herself with a resolute nod.

"I gotta say, Hermione, I didn't expect that you would be helping us so much," Ron said not unkindly.

"Why wouldn't I help you? I'm Head Girl."

"Yeah, but you helped out last year too and you weren't head girl then." he pointed out. "And well, you just don't seem the type to like or care about this kind of stuff." Hermione stiffened at the slight insult Ron was implying.

"I'm not so stiff that I can't appreciate music Ronald. I'll have you know that I actually play the piano and my mum was once a struggling pianist before she decided to go back to school for dentistry."

"You play the piano, that's so neat." Harry said immediately easing Hermione temper. "Maybe you could play something for us."

"Oh no, I mean, I only get to play during the summers so I'm more of a recreational player and I'm not very good, not like my mum is, she's a natural."

"You could use the Room of Requirement to practice," Neville pointed out much to Hermione's secret chargin. "So you don't get out of practice."

"Yeah, that's a great idea Neville," Ginny smiled at him beatifically making him blush.

"Er, I don't know, I'll be pretty busy with N.E.W.T.S this year along with Head girl duties so…" Hermione trailed off feeling uncomfortable. Ginny, catching on ,just nodded her head as Ron shrugged. Harry on the other hand kept looking at her and for the first time in a long time she wished he wouldn't. Luckily, they arrived at the RoR before he could say anything else. She watched as Harry walked in front of an empty wall of space three times before a door appeared.

"Well Hermione, just take a seat," Harry said gesturing to one of armchairs as they stepped into the room.

Sweeping her gaze around, Hermione was extremely impressed. There was all the equipment they could possibly need and a stage. The four crossed over to said stage and began tuning their instruments while Ginny did some throat exercises and looked at a sheet of paper. They discussed a few things as they got set up, so at ease with each other and the music.

"Okay, were ready," Harry said to her with a smile before turning his eyes onto Ginny and giving her a nod.

Immediately they began a rhythm; a fun fast paced and upbeat sound that had Hermione's feet tapping with the tune. Hermione watched in fascination as Harry fingers flew over the strings of his guitar brilliantly and then Ginny began singing.

Hermione couldn't help but smile as the music wrapped around her.

"Wait, wait, wait, stop." Abruptly the music cut off and Hermione quickly missed the loss of it. "Gin, can you sing that note longer? Really stretch out like this," and then Harry opened his mouth and began to sing the verse, demonstrating the elongated note.

Hermione's jaw dropped. 'Why isn't he the lead singer?' Hermione couldn't help but wonder as she listened to him. Not that Ginny was bad, she had a pleasant pitch that managed to be high and long but Harry's voice had natural grit and rawness.

She knew she couldn't just ask, that would be rude and Ginny didn't deserve that, so she resolved to ask later. Harry nodded as Ginny parroted off of him and then they began the song over again.

Hermione listened as they continued to play, sometimes going over songs twice to change a note or a verse. One song in particular seemed to especially frustrate Harry and he actually halted practice all together so he could tweak the lyrics.

"Oh boy, here he goes," At this Ron got up from his drums as Hermione looked at him curiously, "He's been messing with that song for weeks. I think he's gonna bin it. He's been doing that often lately."

"He won't be able to play again until he's satisfied and that can take hours if ever," Ginny said with a shrug before she took a sip of water.

"We're gonna leave, but if you come back again Friday we can finish."

"Okay," Hermione said slowly, dragging her eyes away from where Harry was sitting mumbling over his lyrics. "What you guys did play was brilliant." Hermione said with a smile.

"We know," Ron said with a cocky little grin that made Hermione roll her eyes light-heartedly.

"You coming," Ginny asked as they herded toward the door. She gazed from them to Harry before she shook her head no.

"There's really no talking to him when he gets like that, Hermione" Neville pointed out but Hermione just shrugged.

"Suit yourself!" Ron said before he exited, Neville following after. Ginny paused at the door, looking from Harry to her before she smiled at then gave a wave goodbye.

Hermione sighed before she turned toward Harry. 'He really is engrossed,' She thought before she walked over.

Leaning over she scanned the lyrics and recalled the beat. An idea formed in her head and before she could second guess it, Hermione thought hard and when she opened her eyes a piano, looking like an exact replica of the one at her home was before them. Harry didn't notice.

Hermione crossed over to the piano and thought hard of the song, and she felt like she could feel the impression that Harry was trying to create.

Messing with a few keys, Hermione quickly figured out a score that would work with the lyrics and began to play.

Harry head snapped up at the sound and she watched him watch her. Then, with a bit of hesitation, she opened her mouth and tentatively sang a bit of his song but with slightly improved lyrics. A smile lit his entire face and he got up to sit beside her. She stopped singing, embarrassment taking over her. She opened her mouth to ask if that was alright but his voice halted her. "Don't stop! That was genius!"

The worked together for a while longer until the song that was once on the guillotine had become Harry's favorite.

"That was brilliant, Hermione," She couldn't help but blush at the praise and the feeling of his peering at her as if he'd never really seen her before, "I'd love it if you could help me with a few other songs."

"Yeah, I'd love to," Hermione replied quickly but this time Harry didn't seem to mind her eagerness, not at all.

That night, Hermione abused her power as Head Girl to remain with Harry past curfew to help him with his songs and she did not regret it. Not one bit.