A/N: I have terrible insomnia right now. Real life is always the best inspiration :)
Hermione Granger had always had a certain amount of difficulty getting to sleep. It wasn't the sleeping part itself that eluded her - once she got to sleep, she slept deeply and often to great length – but rather the transition from being awake to actually being asleep. The falling part.
She rolled over in her bed in the Gryffindor Dormitory, stretching, and a frustrated sigh escaped from her lips. Her mind scrolled forward to the next day and in horror she pictured herself falling asleep over a cauldron or something equally inconvenient. She needed to get to sleep, she knew. She sighed again and sat up in bed, her hair wildly cascading over her shoulders. She tugged at it, frustrated, and slouched. While she was used to needing a while to actually fall asleep, it hardly ever took a length of time even vaguely equivocal to this.
It wasn't that she hadn't tried, of course: she'd started with the basic Muggle remedies for insomnia. Counting sheep, picturing a beach – even holding her breath in the hopes that she would just pass out. All to no avail, of course (though, admittedly, she didn't have high hopes for the last one). When her mother's traditional cures failed her, she attempted to cast a fatigue charm (her wand refused to turn on its owner), accio'd some hot tea from the kitchen (it spilt all over her bed before she'd even laid hands on it) and was even desperate enough to summon some of Fred and George's Fainting Fancies – although when they actually arrived she couldn't bring herself to eat one. The formula was a little temperamental, she knew, and she decided she much preferred the thought of not sleeping to the thought of possibly not waking up until the following year.
Hermione stared up at the ceiling blankly. It was time to accept her fate, she decided – she was, apparently, not going to be sleeping tonight.
Nodding to herself, she made a snap decision. Hermione gathered up her pillow and blanket into a neat bundle under her arm and slid off her bed, creeping silently towards the door. The Astronomy Tower would at least give her a view to admire.
She crept along the hallways, occasionally sparing a glance around corners for any unwelcome wanderers, each time quietly breathing a sigh of relief when no one sprung into her line of vision.
It took her less than ten minutes to reach the Astronomy tower and settle there comfortably, sitting on her pillow with her blanket wrapped warmly around her arms. It was comforting. Peaceful. If she wasn't going to sleep tonight at least she would be bloody relaxed.
"Granger?"
Shit.
Speaking too soon – truly a cruel epidemic.
Hermione recognised the smooth voice instantly, of course – when you spend seven-odd years being taunted continuously by a person, you learn to recognise their tone quality. Call it self-preservation.
"Not in the mood, Malfoy."
A snort. "Thank Merlin. Now I won't have to listen to a Mudblood waste valuable seconds of my time begging me to bed her."
"Me? Begging you to bed me? Please, Malfoy, I'm not that desperate."
"Oh, so you're only a little desperate, then?"
Hermione paused. "Go away."
A dark figure emerged from around the corner, platinum-blond hair shining in the moonlight. Merlin, it was almost fluorescent. Even in the dark, Hermione could make out the malicious smirk which played across his features.
"I'd rather not just yet, thanks. You see, Mudblood, it just so happens that I have a certain amount of authority within these school walls and as such I would like to know what a pathetic teacher's pet like you is doing walking around the school at so very late an hour."
"I could ask the same of you. Observe me restraining myself."
He didn't say anything after that. Hermione looked up at him, and smiled inwardly. He was still the same insufferable brat that he'd always been, that much was sure; but since the end of the war the two of them had built something of a rapport. They were part of the small handful of students who had returned to Hogwarts to complete their education – although she had been surprised to see him that first day back, a certain part of her mind ached with relief. He was, however distasteful, at least something familiar to cling to. His voice carried across the room, breaking her train of thought.
"Really though, Mudbood. Why are you up here?"
"Replace one of the words in that sentence and I might tell you."
"Fine. Granger. Whatever. Why are you here?"
"Why do you want to know so badly?"
The figure shrugged. Hermione sighed.
"Not a particularly exciting reason. I couldn't sleep. You?"
"None of your business."
Hermione laughed. There was another pause.
"I couldn't sleep either."
"Ah."
Another silence washed across the room.
"It's nice out here," Hermione offered, made uncomfortable by the quiet.
"What terribly exciting small talk."
"Very bloody funny. You say something then, if you can do better."
Malfoy snorted derisively. "You appear to be working under the assumption that I wish to engage in said small talk with you. I have better things to do with my time, Granger. Like watching grass grow."
"Go watch it grow, then. Elsewhere."
Another pause. Hermione frowned. She was getting tired of this.
"It may surprise you to learn that your not leaving hasn't escaped my attention. What do you want from me, Malfoy?"
He paused. "I don't know, exactly."
Hermione frowned again. What?
"What do you mean, you don't know?"
"To not know. To be unaware. Indeed, to lack knowledge or awareness. Come on, Granger, you're smarter than that."
"I meant-"
"I know what you meant."
"Oh."
Malfoy stood up from the table on which he had been previously perched and walked towards Hermione, surprising her as he slid down the wall about two feet away from where she was sitting. What was he doing?
"Did you finish that Telekenesis Elixir essay for Snape?"
"Yesterday. Three feet. You?"
"About the same."
"Look," Hermione began confusedly, "As much as I appreciate the small talk, you must have some reason for being up here and I'd rather like to know what it is so that I can be sure you're not trying to poison me."
"Oh, Granger, don't be stupid. If I was going to kill you, Avada Kadavra would be the best way forward. We both know that."
"Malfoy…"
"Alright, alright. I couldn't sleep and I wanted to come up here to look at the stars. And then you were up here…" He coughed. "It feels strange to be rooting for the same team as you."
Hermione laughed self-consciously; a timid, breathy laugh. "I know what you mean. You spend so long hating someone…"
A sharp intake of breath. "You hated me?"
Hermione blanched. "Um. Did you not hate me?"
"Do chickens fly, Granger?"
"Well, actually, no-"
"Not the point."
"Right."
"No, of course I hated you, Granger," he drawled, though Hermione heard a new edge to the tone in his voice. "I just find it surprising that you hated me. I am, after all, deliciously irresistible."
Hermione snorted, and heard a chuckle from Malfoy's direction.
"What's this? Draco Malfoy – laughing? I'm glad the personality transplant took well."
"Funny, Granger."
"Well, I try."
"It's good though."
"The transplant?"
"That we don't hate each other any more."
"Ah," Hermione said, pseudo-sagely, and then, as an afterthought, "Don't put words in my mouth."
"Oh, Granger, give it up. If I don't hate you, you certainly don't hate me."
"Good to see your raging egomaniacal tendencies are under check."
"Well, I try."
There was another pause, and Hermione sensed that Malfoy was thinking intently on how to phrase whatever it was he was going to say next. She wasn't even going to attempt to predict it – Draco Malfoy, it seemed, was full of surprises tonight.
Finally, Hermione saw Malfoy shift slightly where he was sitting and he spoke. "You're different than how I thought you were."
She froze.
"What do you mean?"
It was another moment before he spoke again. "You're terribly insecure. But you hide it under your intelligence because you always thought knowledge was power. I do that too. The arrogance, you know – a product of overcompensation for insecurities."
Hermione didn't quite know what to say to that. She confessed so.
Malfoy laughed. "That's alright. Finally, something that Granger doesn't know."
Hermione laughed too, searching for any hint of malice in his tone. There was none.
"Why did you tell me that?"
"I suppose because it's important. You need to know that I see right through you, Granger. The way you see through me."
She swallowed. She sensed the implication in his words – and he was right, of course. There was some kind of connection between them; a passionate one at that. One that had always manifested itself as anger. What would they do when the anger dissipated completely?
"I do see through you," she replied, because it was the only thing running through her head that made sense.
"Mm."
"Why couldn't you sleep tonight?" Hermione asked, changing the subject without carelessly. She could have been more subtle about it, she supposed… but bluntness worked just as effectively. More so, probably.
"Thinking too much. I'm too much in my head, Granger."
Was it just her imagination, or was Draco Malfoy and his platinum head coming closer towards her?
"Oh?"
"Yes," He was whispering now. And definitely a lot closer. "I need to get out of my head, Granger."
And with that he closed the distance between them. Hermione froze in shock, her muscles seizing, and it felt like an hour before she relaxed into his mouth. Her brain screamed at her to stop, screamed at her that it wasn't right – but the pure absurdity of the notion that Draco Malfoy was wilfully kissing her had numbed her body into submission. His kisses were soft, and full of emotion, so gentle that she felt compelled to return them.
He didn't attempt to put his hands on her face, or touch her body, or even slip his tongue into her mouth. It was a chaste kiss, as far as kisses went – and over before it had barely begun.
Despite everything it wasn't, it was definitely a surprise in all respects and every sense of the word.
When he broke away from her, her eyes scanned the room left to right, the paranoia in her searching for an invisible third person who might have witnessed this bizarre event. It was a good few minutes before it was satisfied, and she opened her mouth to speak.
"You kissed me."
"Yes." The voice that escaped Draco Malfoy's lips wasn't the one she had been used to. This voice was stripped bare of its arrogant and assuming tones. It was timid.
"Why?"
"I don't know."
Hermione calmly fought the urge to roll her eyes.
"You don't know? You don't know why you just kissed me?"
"Basically."
"Oh."
Silence, Hermione decided, was some kind of rampant disease in this tower.
"Do you… Malfoy, do you have, you know… feelings for me?"
"Chickens don't fly, Granger."
"Right."
"Or… I don't know. Maybe they do."
"Honesty. Wow."
"I know. Merlin-forbid it should ever happen again," he replied, and Hermione was relieved to hear the smile in his tone that must have been tugging at his lips.
"So what do we do now?"
"I think you should go back to your bed, Hermione. And I think you should keep this to yourself."
It took a moment for the use of her first name to register. It sounded foreign and strange coming from his lips.
"I'm confused, Draco."
"And I'm not?"
"Fair enough."
There was a final brief pause, during which Hermione decided to just gather up her belongings and leave. It would be easier to think about this in the morning, when there was sunlight and the chatter of hundreds of other students to keep her awake and focused. She swung the pillow and blanket under her arm and walked towards the door, pausing before she left.
"Sleep well, Draco."
Malfoy didn't reply until he was sure she was well out of earshot.
"Sleep well. Hermione."
--
He wasn't in love with her, that much was certain. Hermione had decided almost as soon as she'd left the Astronomy Tower that that explanation was just too far detached from reality to even possibly be correct. She walked through the halls, letting her feet guide her back to the Gryffindor Tower absent-mindedly.
He had kissed her. Draco Malfoy. The two concepts were completely antithetical. It made no sense. And yet.
She couldn't deny that she felt elation in her stomach, in her head, in her lungs when he kissed her. The strangest joy she'd ever experienced.
Hermione fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. And that night, she dreamt of platinum-blond kisses and dark towers.
A/N: Forgive me if there are errors... it's 1:40am and that tends to make one a little sloppy when it comes to editing. :) I know it's kind of an open ending, and I'm not really planning on writing a sequel oneshot, but if you guys want a second chapter or something then I suppose I can. If you're just curious to know what happens to them, you can always PM me or ask in a review or something.
Cheers guys. :)