Hermione sat at one of the tables at the back of the library, drumming her fingers on the table top in an annoyed way and glancing at her watch for what felt like the hundredth time.
Finally, a head with pale blonde hair, an even paler complexion and sharp facial features peeked around the corner of one of the bookshelves that reached the ceiling of the room. Slowly, he strode towards the table she was sitting at, dropping into the seat opposite to her, without a word of greeting or excuse.
"Malfoy, I told you to meet me at five P.M. sharp, not quarter to six!", she scolded him.
"Oh, come on, Granger, be grateful I even turned up. I already thought about not coming at all. I mean, you'll be doing both our work anyway, so why even bother showing up?", he replied, a nasty grin on his face.
"Well, I would've done all the work, just to get a good grade, but I would've told Professor Sprout you didn't do anything.", she snapped and crossed her arms.
Draco stretched out his long and slender legs while Hermione stiffened up. The boy smirked evilly at her.
"Nervous because of my presence? Well, you should be."
"You wish", she replied. "I'm glad you at least left those minions of yours somewhere behind. Or are they stuck in the picture book section?"
"No, I left them in the common room on purpose, it's already horrible enough if some of the geeks here in the library see me talking to you."
Then Draco pulled up one of his perfectly plucked eyebrows in confusion.
"And what's a picture book?", he inquired.
Hermione stared at him in disbelief.
"You're actually trying to tell me wizards don't know any picture books?", she asked, surpressing a laugh.
He shook his head stiffly, then mumbled, "Could you please simply tell me?"
Now Hermione's expression went from disbelief to astonishment.
"Did you actually say "please"?", she said and when he didn't answer, she simply started to explain. "Picture books are small books made for children which mainly consist of pictures and a few descriptive sentences. Muggles give these to their children to entertain them or they read them to their kids or the children learn to read them themselves."
Draco looked at her, processing this newly gained information. He put his index finger to his chin and stared at a point just above her head in a thoughtful way. Suddenly, he turned his attention back to her, seeming more curious than Hermione'd ever seen him.
"But the pictures don't move, do they?", he wondered.
Hermione snickered at his expression and shook her head.
"No, they don't. Muggle pictures never do.", she replied.
"Hm." Draco put his finger to his chin again. Hermione caught herself staring at him, quickly looked away and blushed. Hoping he hadn't noticed, she changed the topic.
"Can we please start with the project now? We've already wasted too much time", she asked him.
"Granger, this is a Herbology project. Why are we even in the library?", he contered. She sighed.
"Why did Professor Sprout even pair me up with you?",
she mumbled to herself, then spoke up, addressing him.
"To get more information on how to do this, what else?"
He rolled his eyes. "We just need to grow one bloody plant. It's not gonna be that difficult, Hermione."
"Did you just... call me by my first name?"
"Um... yes, apparently I did. Do you... do you mind?", he stuttered, blushing furiously. She looked down at her folded hands in her lap to hide her smile.
"I don't mind at all... Draco.", she replied, almost whispering. Now it was his turn to catch himself staring at her. He shook his head and got up. Hermione's head snapped up.
"Where are you going?", she inquired, her eyebrows furrowing.
"Down to the greenhouse, of course. Learning by doing. You coming?", he asked, smiling slightly.
Hermione smiled back, put her books into her bag and followed him out of the library. He took some turns until she grabbed his arm to make him stop. He looked down at her hand laying on his biceps but didn't pull his arm away.
"Where do you think you're going? This is definitely not the way to the greenhouses!", she stated.
"I just wanted to get somewhere where nobody will see us. To show you something", he replied, smiling mysteriously. She crossed her arms and looked at him suspiciously.
"Fine. Show me", she requested.
"Right here?", he asked, now being somewhat insecure.
"If you don't need to go somewhere special or get something, yes. Right here, right now.", she insisted, being even more curious.
Draco moved so fast Hermione didn't see it coming. He put his left hand to the back of her head, pulled her close to him and cautiously pressed his lips to hers. He was surprised to find her kissing him back, but he didn't pull away.
When they finally parted after what felt like an eternity to both of them, Draco leaned in close to her and whispered, "I didn't mean to be mean to you. I just tried to hide the fact that I like you, like, really like you, because you didn't seem to like me."
She shook her head, smiling, biting her lip.
"God, if only I'd known...", he mumbled.
"You idiot", she interrupted him, grinning broadly, and pulled him in for another kiss.
A/N: Please leave a review to tell me whether you liked it or not and maybe I'll post some more one-shots soon!