Hermione and Draco:

HERMIONE'S POV:

The light streamed in from the thickly draped windows. There was a small sliver of an opening in the curtains that was positioned to where it only woke me. Of course.

I sighed and stood up, shivering when my bare feet hit the cold wooden floor. Everyone would be waking up soon. Only 30 minutes till it was time for everyone to get up. I got dressed quickly, brushed through my hair and threw it up into a ponytail, leaving the short front part out and hanging over the sides of my face. I pulled on my shoes and walked out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind me. I was planning on going to the library and studying some before it was time for everyone to head to the dining hall for breakfast. I tiptoed down the stairs, not wanting to wake anyone.

When I got to the common room, I heard muffled snoring. 'Oh, Ronald.' I smiled, wondering how any of the boys could sleep through that. I walked out of the door and went straight to the library.

The library was always open (except for after curfew). I pulled out a book and pulled out my wand, studying some spells. After a couple attempts at making my shoe turn into a bird, I got it to work. I was concentrating so hard on the spells in the few minutes I had been flipping through the pages that I didn't notice the footsteps that walked closer to the aisle of books I was on and then stopped.

"Ahem," I heard a male voice. I jumped and turned around to see Draco Malfoy, the most detestable Syltherin at Hogwarts standing there smiling at me. Why was he smiling?

"What do you want, Draco?" I asked coldly, turning to put the book back on the shelf.

He shook his head and said, "Nothing, I woke up early and decided to come study for my transfiguration test this week and I heard someone so I came to see who it was. Should've known it would be you, Granger."

I rolled my eyes and turned away from him, ready to go to another book aisle if it was necessary to get away from him.

"Hey, I get it, you want to study. So I'll, uh… Leave you to it." He said, sounding awkward and nice and completely out of character.

I just nodded and kept my back to him.

He walked past me and went to the aisle across from me before walking to the aisle in front of that one. I tried to ignore the sound of him looking through the hundreds of ancient books and looked for my own. I found one that was on wizard history. Just one small fraction of it, of course; there was much too much history in the wizarding world for it to all be recorded in just one book.

I became absorbed in my studies, so Draco once again startled me when he showed up at the end of the aisle I was in. I looked at him like I was impatiently waiting for him to answer a question. The question I had for him was something like, "What the hell do you want you psycho creep?" Of course, I didn't say anything, I just kept watching him, thinking maybe he was on some kind of illegal drug.

He just stood there and then eventually jumped and looked as if I had brought him out of some kind of reverie. "Oh, umm… Its time for breakfast." And then he walked off. Why was he being nice all of a sudden? Maybe my drug assumption hadn't been so far off.

I put the book up, picked up my wand and ran after him, wanting to decode his strange behavior. "Malfoy!" I yelled, running after him.

DRACO'S POV:

I walked off, hoping she hadn't thought anything about me was weird this morning.

"Malfoy!" I heard her call to me.

I stopped and turned, working to put a sneer on my face. She took one look at my expression and took an involuntary step back.

"What…" She started to say and then decided she didn't care and started walking again. "Why were you being so nice earlier?"

I looked at her as if I didn't understand.

"You didn't once call me a mud blood, and you even reminded me of the time so I wouldn't be late." She finished, looking at me with an expression that made it clear she thought I had lost every bit of my mind.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I said, looking straight ahead. Why had I been so nice? I didn't even know.

She made a sound of disbelief in her throat and sped up, walking faster. But not in time to walk through the doors of the dining hall without looking like she was walking with me. As the door swung open, all eyes turned to watch us. Everything was completely silent. We both kept our eyes straight ahead, trying to make it obvious that we were not walking together.

I tried to insult her loud enough for everybody to hear so they would know for sure that we weren't walking together on purpose. "Stupid filthy mud blood."

She looked at me with such hatred. It made my stomach hurt to look at her, so I looked away as I sat down. But not before I saw the jealousy in Weasel's eyes.

HERMIONE'S POV:

I sat down, despising Draco Malfoy and wishing he would just go somewhere else, or maybe even not have been born at all. I slammed my books onto the table as everyone in the dining hall burst into obnoxiously loud conversation. I hadn't been unaware of the silence as Draco and I walked into the hall. I knew what everyone had thought. They had thought Draco and I had been late TOGETHER… They thought Draco and I had been walking TOGETHER… They thought we were suddenly TOGETHER!

"So, what were you doing with Malfoy?" Ron said, trying (and failing horribly) to cover his irritated tone with nonchalance.

"Nothing. I was in the library and Draco came in and when I lost track of time through all of my studying, he reminded me of the time. He was being oddly nice today, besides the mud blood comment, but other than that, he hasn't called me one mean thing all morning and he was actually being nice." I said, poking some eggs onto a fork and setting them on my tongue. I hadn't really been paying attention to what I had been saying (I hadn't had no need to, I wasn't hiding anything from Harry or Ron) so I had probably sounded distracted.

"Oh." was all Ron said.

Just then, Lavender walked up. The girl infuriated me. "Hello, Won Won." Ugh! So did that nickname!

"Hello, Lavender." Ron said in a tone that made me wonder if he was getting tired of her, too.

I looked across the table at Harry and he shared a look with me that told more about his annoyance with the pathetic girl than he let on. We sat there awkwardly as Lavender launched into an animated story with Ron barely listening from the sound of his detached "hmm"s.

Soon, I decided I would go back to the common room and get my books for my first class: Charms. I was walking down the stairs when I heard a familiar (and irritating) voice.

"Granger!" Draco called.

I stopped and slowly turned around to see him running up to me smiling. What was his problem?

"Would you mind very much if I walked with you?" Yep, definitely on drugs.

"Actually, I prefer walking alone." I said coldly, expecting him to pull something unspeakably horrible in his time alone with me. He would probably cast a spell on me and make something horrible happen to me. It was Draco, the possibility wasn't that unbelievable.

I started walking again and he stepped in front of me, still smiling. He must really be eager to do whatever it was he was planning to do to me; the only time I had ever seen him smiling was when he was picking on some helpless little kid. But even then it was a sneer, a cold humorless shadow of a smile. Now he looked… Happy?

"Wait. Why not?" He asked.

"Why not? Draco, you've tried to curse me and my friends more times than I can count. I don't trust you. You're my enemy." I didn't say it in a mean way, I said it logically. But his smile fell a tiny bit. Then perked right back up. What was it now?

"What if I pinky promise not to do anything? I never break a pinky promise. Never." He said it with such intensity, I almost believed him.

Then I remember everything he had done to us in the past. He held his pinky up, waiting for mine to wrap around his and seal the deal. I decided to let him walk with me. What was the worst he could do? And even if he did try anything, I would be on my guard.

I lifted my pinky and held him to his word, rolling my eyes. He smiled even bigger and then fell into step beside me.

We both had the same first class. Oh, great, I would get to put up with his sudden and kind of scary perky attitude for another hour.

We had only walked a few steps when I decided to ask him, "Why do you want to walk with ME? You hate me."

He took a second to answer. "I'm trying to be a nicer guy. I don't want to be the guy that everybody hates anymore." But it didn't convince me. This was Draco Malfoy we were talking about. He would never change.

The rest of our walk was silent. We walked into charms class together, but we were early. The only person in the classroom was Professor Flitwick. Draco and I went to opposite sides of the room and sat in our two-people desks. I pulled my book out and turned to the page we would be starting today.

I was an overachiever but I liked knowing things. It made me feel… useful.

I heard paper rustling and turned to see Draco folding a piece of paper several times in various places.

I turned back to my book and began reading where I had left off.

DRACO'S POV:

My excuses were lame and my reasoning was faulty. But I didn't care. She made me feel something.

This morning, I really had been just going to the library to study because I couldn't sleep. But when I saw her there, something happened inside me. I didn't want to change. I liked being the way I was. The only thing I didn't like was that she hated me. I could deal with everyone else's hostility. But not hers.

I folded the paper over and over.

I felt her eyes on me and looked up in time to see her turning back around, her curly ponytail bouncing slightly with the movement.

I cupped the bird figure in my hand and blew on it, letting it fly to Hermione's desk. She heard the bird's paper wings flapping and turned around again and saw the bird.

I had written a message for her on the inside. She caught it in her hand, smiling in wonder at my creation. She looked up at me the smile still in place. I smiled back. She must not have realized what she was doing until I smiled because after she saw my grin hers quickly faded and she turned around, putting the bird on her desk and staring at it.

I knew she wouldn't be able to help but unwrap it. She was too interested in it not to. She unfolded the paper and smoothed it out completely on her desk before she even glanced at the words scrawled in black at the top of the page.

I heard footsteps outside the door and knew the rest of the class would be coming soon. She heard them, too. She looked up at the door just behind me and then her eyes strayed to me.

I smiled and then turned it into a haughty sneer so that no one would think that I was here WITH Granger. She understood and grimaced back at me.

The other students walked in and she folded the paper into a small square and put it in the pocket of her robe. She would read it later.