Something Unpredictable, Part I

I'm really sorry...i know i keep getting sidetracked from my beloved james, but i just can't bare to have james and lily make up...so here's yet another flop. It's d/h, sorry for all you people who hate them, but really, right now...they hate eachother(well, duh). I mean, they don't go and fall in love over night. So, r/r

It's something unpredictable
But in the end it's right
I hope you had the time of your life

"Granger!" Hermione turned, slowly, praying it wasn't who she thought it was. It was. "Still playing teacher's pet?"

"Who shoved a stick up your ass, Malfoy?" Hermione growled, determined not to lose it.

"Did I just hear Granger SWEAR?" Malfoy doubled over in mock laughter. "No Miss-I'm-A-Muggle-Too-Good-For-The-Rest-Of-You bull?"

Hermione kicked him. Someplace a bit lower then he might have liked. Malfoy's laughter soon turned into groans of pain. "That," she said, feeling slightly triumphant, "is how we do it in the muggle world."

Malfoy's only response was to groan.

Hermione turned to Ron and Harry, whose mouths were both hanging open, as though waiting for someone to stuff them with words. "Can we go please?" she asked irratabily. "It's been a long day."

"You think she's changed over the summer?" Ron asked, when he finally recovered his jaw muscles. Hermione had since stormed off.

"I think she must have," Harry said, nodding intelligently.

"Duh!" Malfoy said, groaning from the floor. "Last time she hit me it was in the face...-"

Ron and Harry both looked at Malfoy, and then at eachother. They agreed. "Defintitely for the better."


"Hermione." McGonagall fixed her with a stare even Dumbledore would have run from. "Would you please explain why you felt it nessacary to...um, kick Mr Malfoy?"

If the Proffessor hadn't been glaring at her so, Hermione would have found it amusing that McGonagall was at a loss for words.

But the situation wasn't funny, really, Hermione reminded herself. Not at all. And then she remembered Malfoy, rolling on the floor...

...and burst into giggles.

"Ms. Granger!" McGonagall was, yet again, at a loss for words. "What is so funny?"

"I'm sorry, Proffessor." Hermione, being Hermione, obviously meant it. "I...got a bit carried away..."

"Yes, I realized that." The Proffessor again fixed Hermione with her glare. "Two nights of detention. And fifteen points from Gryffindor." She looked wearily at Hermione, still unsure of what to make of her. "You may go."

"Hermione..." Ron ambushed her the moment she stepped out of the office.

"Buddy..." Harry swooped in on her other side.

"Pal..."

"Would you please do that again? Please?" Harry begged.

"I need to get a picture...just think, a framed picture of Malfoy rolling around on the floor...-" Ron's voice trailed off dreamily.

"There's nothing funny about it," Hermione said, reassuring herself just as much as them. "I just got a bit carried away. Really," she said, fixingthem with a glare so like the one McGonagall had laid on her a few moments ago, "you two should be berating me."

Ron looked slightly dissappointed. "We'd really thought you'd changed over the summer," he told her, conjuring up a puppy like face. Hermione scowled.

"What was wrong with me before?" she asked, eyes glinting dangerously.

"Er...nothing," Ron said hastily, backing up.

Right into none other than a scowling, grimancing, and altoghether not to happy Draco Malfoy.

"You!" But he wasn't looking at Ron; his icy stare had shifted to Hermione. "You dirty little...-"

But he couldn't bring himself to say Mudblood. Not quite. Besides, Crabbe and Goyle were other occupied (probably eating), and Draco had a feeling Ron, Harry, and even (or especially) Hermione would kill him.

But Hermione could no longer help herself.

Harry and Ron had to drag her laughing to her next class.

But despite a humorous first day, the year was not looking for Hermione. Classes had become suddenly harder, and since Hermione was taking twice as many classes as anyone else, it began to hit her hard a couple weeks into the term. It got to he point where Hermione could be found, almost every morning, collapsed on top of her books.

"Hermione," Harry whispered, shaking her gently on one such morning. "Time for breakfast."

"What?" Hermione peered up at him through groggy eyes.

"Never mind." Harry glanced at theclock, then back at Hermione. "Why don't you go upstairs and sleep? It's just Herbology. We'll tell Proffessor Sprout you're sick." Harry looked at Hermione again, and didn't think it would be much of a lie.

Hermione protested, of coure, but only half heartedly, and ended up snoring in her own four poster bed for the first time in weeks.

She slept for a good hour, and then lay in her bed for awhile, while unbidden thoughts danced across her mind, leaving only toeprints in her mind.

Charms...Ron....Buckbeak and Sirius... Voldemort...Harry...childhood memories...Malfoy... they were all there. There was no order to her thougts, just randomness, a hurricane of swirling memories.

It wasn't until the sun's light flooded the room that Hermione regained conciousness enough to sit up. The clock in the corner told her that Herbology was done, and Transfiguration would be soon. So there was no point in going to class.

But Hermione didn't want to go back to sleep.

"Crookshanks," she called out softly. But the cat didn't show. "Where is that cat?" Hermione frowned; Crookshanks had been dissappearing a lot recently.

Abandoned by her pet, Hermione resolved to wander around outside. The sun was high in the sky, but the dark clouds of mid-autumn countryside covered it, casting shadows across the grounds. The wind whispered across the feilds and lakes.

Hermione sat down on one of the rocks, huddling her cloaks around her. It was the first time she'd had to think, really think in awhile, so burdened by school work.

What am I doing? She asked herself. This is dumb, I'm being dumb. I get so focused on school...

She sighed, realizing she'd been tearing out the grass around her. Hermione looked at grassblades sadly, wondering if they could here her thoughts.

The wind blew, and pushed the grassblades spinning through the air, looking lost. Hermione's eyes followed their flight until they drifted beyond her sight.

Leading her, it seemed, to a small figure, that sat on the other side of the lake.

Hermione frowned, and squinted, but couldn't figure out who had intruded upon her solitude. Annoyed,and slightly intrigued, she picked herself up and began walking the exterior of the lake.

The figure didn't notice her; it was bent over something, which was, as Hermione drew closer, turned out to be a crumpled letter, little droplets of water sprayed across it.

The crinkle of grass beneath her feet betrayed Hermione's presence. The figured jumped, and whirled around.

"Malfoy?" Hermione's jaw dropped, not because of his presence, but because there were tear marks on his face.

Malfoy glared at her, his eyes cold and furious.

"Umm... I was just wondering who else was out here, other than me," Hermione said hastily. "I think I'll go now."

But Malfoy had regained his composure, or, at least, made an attempt to. "What are you doing out here, Granger?" Hermione guessed he was trying to sound nasty, but it came out kind of choked.

"Thinking,"she told him, recalling her earlier purpose. She scowled. "It's a depressing habit."

"No kidding," Malfoy said, glancing involantarily at the letter he held crumpled in his hand. And then he was his old self again.

"Thinking, Granger? Really?" Sarcasm covered whatever else he had been feeling. "About what? How you only managed 99% on your History exam?" Malfoy's tone became mocking. Hermione bristled.

"You...just...I honestly don't know what the hell you are doing, Malfoy." Hermione glared at him. "It wouldn't hurt to be nice once and awhile." She spun around, and began the walk back to the castle.

That was when the rain started, leaving a tear and storm soaked Malfoy behind her.


Yeah, that was dumb, oh well, review please so i know whether to continue or not.