"Draco," Hermione leaned back in the bathtub she was in, shivering despite the heat of the water. Draco, who'd been submerged in the water for an hour or so slowly came back up, "You know it's not going to work." She sighed.

His hair was plastered to his face as he rested his head on her neck. "I had to try."

The look in his eyes frightened her. It was like he wasn't truly there, like the one inhabiting his body wasn't Draco it was some other thing; she gently held his hand as she pulled them both down into the water.

The bubbles from their breaths mingled as her hair floated around them, as if they were alone in the forest like they used to be, as if they were the only ones in the world of floating strands of hair. In an underwater world where she could pretend they had gotten their wish and that Draco was dead, drowned, eyes closed in eternal sleep.

500 years earlier

Hermione dutifully scribbled notes down as Snape lectured them. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Malfoy was also taking notes.

Didn't think he would be the type to do that, she thought. Crabbe or Goyle would've done that for him…

She raised her hand as Snape asked a question she knew he would never pick on her to answer had anyone else raised their hand. She smirked as she noticed an eye tic on him that hadn't been there before, and that had suspiciously started when he saw her hand go up.

When he noticed no one else's hand up he grudgingly called on her.

"10 freshly picked newts from a pond on the southern part of the northern hemisphere at dawn," Hermione snorted when his eye tic became more pronounced.

"What is so funny, Granger? Care to share it with the rest of the class?" Snape sniffed disdainfully as his eye tic jumped around.

"Oh, nothing. "she stated. "Just a cold."

Harry gave her a discreet thumbs up and so did Ron.

"Ms. Granger, I'm sure the rest of the faculty would appreciate it if you didn't get them sick." Snape turned away and began writing on the board.

Later that day Hermione went into the library for pleasure reading. As she turned a corner she bumped into Draco who was, miraculously, without his friends.

"Watch where you're going, mud blood," he gathered up his books which had fallen. Strange, he wasn't as nasty-sounding as he usually was. There didn't seem to be any malice in his voice.

So was he just showing off in front of his friends?

"Inbred," Hermione shot back. If he could be nasty then so could she.

She was gratified to see a very faint blush appear on his cheeks as he glared at her.

Suddenly he grabbed her hair and peered into her face, brows furrowed in concentration. Hermione tried twisting away from him but he wouldn't let go, and continued to peer into her face.

"What the hell, Malfoy? " Hermione stomped on his foot, hard, then marched off to the dormitories, ignoring his curses as the git hopped around in pain.

There was something not right about her. Her skin, her facial features, her hair-it didn't quite match up. It was like-a fog covering his vision whenever he tried to think harder about it, so he just gave up and attested it to nerves. Perhaps he should get some rest. Also because his foot was hurting like mad-the girl could kick quite hard.

He looked at her retreating back and noticed her bouncing hair, which was so unlike yet so like another's…