Haunted

The words continued to echo in her head. Hermione couldn't understand it. Even hours later, she could still hear them in her mind loud and clear. At first, she had thought he'd just said them out of anger, but the fact that they were repeating themselves over and over in her head made it seem like he had meant every word. And it scared her.

She laid in her bed around midnight, the only girl in her dorm not asleep. She was actually afraid to close her eyes. His face was haunting her. But despite that, her mind still drifted back to the events of earlier.

Flasback- Five hours earlier.

Hermione stood before the stone steps leading up to the portrait of the fat lady preparing to ascend them when she heard loud footsteps behind her. Earlier, Harry and Ron had told her they'd meet her so they could work on their project for history, so naturally she thought it was them. She turned around with a smile on her face and opened her mouth to say something, but the person who stood before her immediately caused her mouth to snap shut.

It was one Draco Malfoy. She groaned internally. Not again.

For some weird reason, he'd been trying to get her to go out with him ever since school started three months ago. It didn't make sense. He'd always called her a Mudblood and whenever she'd ask him why he was suddenly in love with her, he wouldn't give her a straight answer. She'd thought it was a hoax, but by now she knew better. Draco was devotedly and insanely in love with her.

Emphasis on the insane.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" she asked him coldly.

He smirked. "And here I thought you'd be happy to see me," he said.

She scoffed. "Happy? Never."

He put a hand to his heart and feigned a look pain. "Aw, dear Hermione, I'm hurt."

She narrowed her eyes. "Don't call me that."

"What? Hermione?"

"Dear," she practically spat.

He raised an eyebrow. "And why not?"

She sighed. He still hadn't gotten the message it seemed. "Because I said so." He smirked again. 'What do you want?" she repeated annoyed. And where were Ron and Harry?

He took a step closer to her. "I told you," he said softly, "I want you." He reached out to touch her face.

She batted his hand away. "And I told you I will not go out with you."

"Oh, you don't mean that. After all, I am a Malfoy. You shouldn't pretend to resist the things you want. Why do you think I stopped calling you Mudblood?"

She took a step away from him, and then another, as he tried to move continually nearer.
"I won't say this again, Malfoy. I will NEVER go out with you. I will never be your girlfriend, and I will never love you. Not if you were the last being on Earth. And yes, that does include the infinite amounts of bacteria and algae."

His eyes darkened as she said this and Hermione actually felt a spark of fear shoot through her and down her spine. Then it reversed and shot back up. A look like this never boded well on the face of a Slytherin.

Before she even realized what was happening, Draco reached out, grabbed her by the back of the neck, and kissed her hard. Hermione couldn't back away, she couldn't move, and her hands were too full of books to push him from her. But finally, it did end, and he released her lips.

However he put his mouth dangerously close to her ear and she could feel his warm breath beating against her neck. "Remember, Granger," he said in a chilling low voice. "Payback is HELL."

With that, he took a step back, his dark gaze flitting over her again, and then turned and swept down the stair, leaving Hermione in a mixture of shock and fear.

End Flashback

Hermione looked around her room for a second. It was almost like she expected him to come out and kill her...even though he couldn't possibly know the password.

This wasn't right. Hermione Granger was not suppose to be scared of anything. Especially not Draco Malfoy. But he did scare her. She rolled over and tried to block out his face.

But sleep would not come to her, she knew. She knew he would plague her for the rest of her Hogwarts career.