Disclaimer: I own Draco's awesome sexiness.... I wish. I own nothing.

Hermione awoke to pure darkness. Groggy and uncomfortable, she sat up. She reached up and rubbed her face, noting the long creases imprinted onto her forehead from the folds in her sweater sleeve. The usual scent of perfume which filled the bedroom she shared with the other seventh year female Gryffindors was replaced by the musky, familiar scent of thousands of pages, all filled with knowledge yet to be explored. She lifted her sore body off the library bench and sighed. This is the secound time this week Hermione had fallen asleep in one of the back study rooms of the library. Partivi and Lavender noticed her absences but didn't tell anyone. They simply giggled when she walked into the bedroom with messy hair and ruffled clothing, turning to each other to whisper about "Hermione's mystery man" before curling back up in the sheets of their four post beds.

Hermione let them believe whatever they liked. It didn't affect her at all, and they had plenty good reason to assume as much. Often they would find her gazing off. It got so bad while she was in the common room that she had moved her studys into the library, but obviously that hadn't helped at all. In fact, the girls were not that far off in their assumptions that there was a boy involved, yet Hermione didn't have any urge to set the story straight. She was confused enough about it all.

At the end of their sixth year at Hogwarts, Voldermort made his final attempt to kill Harry once and for all. A great battle ensued, and many people lost their lives. Eventually it came down to Harry and Voldermort, yet Dumbledore realized that Voldermort had grow amazingly in power and the only way to kill him would be to use a very old, ancient magic. The spell required an even trade - the loss of one good soul to destroy one bad. Dumbledore sacrificed his life to save Harry's, and destroyed Voldermort in the process. Ever since, the death eaters had been trying to find a new, powerful leader, but so far nothing had happened.

Many of the people associated with Voldermort then lost interest, as if a spell had been lifted from them after the Dark Lord was defeated. Many of the Slytherins became more civil people, and conflicts between Slytherin and Gryffindor became less frequent. Yet old feelings die hard, and some people never gave up their grudges.

Hermione dragged her tired feet up the stairs to her bedroom and collapsed upon her bed. As much as she tried to force them out, images of the week prior pressed themselves into her mind. Finally she drifted into sleep.

FLASHBACK

Draco Malfoy sat in the back of the potions classroom, his feet up on the desk and a smirk on his face. Hermione entered the room and groaned at the sight, not wanting to have to serve her detention with the prat. It was bad enough that this was going to set her back on her history of magic homework, but to have to deal with him? She set down her bag wordlessly and sat down, waiting for the professor to arrive and assign her a job.

"Resting already are we? Don't you think you should be getting to work Granger?" Draco said smugly.

Hermione sighed, and turned around to face him. "Oh and how exactly do you expect me to when the professor isn't here?" Draco simply smirked.
Hermione glared at the Slytherin, really not in the mood to deal with his additude today. "Shouldn't you be working then as well? Its your detention too."

Draco smiled wider and sat upright in his chair, leaning onto the desk. "You see now that is where you are mistaken. I don't have detention. Do you really think Snape would have given me, his favorite student, a detention?"

Hermione realized he was right, but then what was he doing here? "So why don't you just leave and get out of my hair?"

"Because I promised Professor Snape that I would oversee your detention." Draco continued to smirk. "So I suggest you get to work, or else I may have to tell the good professor that you were not cooperative and that you should be assigned one more, possibly over next weekend's Hogsmeade trip?"

Hermione was furious. Did she seriously have to listen to this twerp? She had half a thought just to walk out of the room, but Draco was right, she didn't want to lose all her nights to detentions. "Fine Malfoy, what do you want me to do?"

"Well," he said, standing, "you can start by brewing this potion." He handed her a piece of parchment with the professor's neat handwriting on it. It was one of the most complicated potions she had ever seen.

"What does he need this for?"

"None of your business. Now start." He gestured to the cauldron in the front of the room. "And get to it, or I might just tell the professor you were wasting time." Hermione hoped he was joking, but didn't want to push him. She needed this week for homework. Reading over the ingredients list, she got to work.

An hour and a half later she stood up and eyed the potion. It was a deep red color, like blood. Creepy as it was, she had measured everything perfectly and it was exactly the color it was supposed to be. At first while she was working on the potion, Draco had been looking over her shoulder, knocking over ingredients "accidentally", and sneering at her. Yet for the last hour or so she had not seen him. She saw him now, his head on his desk, fast asleep.

'Great,' she thought, 'this is my chance to get out of here. I'll just bottle the potion, put it on his desk, and leave before he wakes up.' She did just that, setting the bottle in front of the sleeping Slytherin, and snuck out the door.

The next day in potions class Harry and Ron were fooling around, playing with a feather that they had charmed to dance. Hermione giggled silently as the feather began to do an odd version of "the robot". There were doing a fairly good job of hiding it from the professor, which ammused the Gryffindors to no end. Yet just as the class was ending Snape caught sight of it doing a swan dive into Ron's bag.

"Potter! Weasley! Granger! My desk, now!" Harry looked at Ron and sighed, and Hermione gathered her books before she approached Snape's desk.

"Yes professor?" Harry asked.

"Potter, Weasley, I understand you seem to think that my class is a time to keep yourselves entertained with immature charms. I do not appreciate dancing feathers in my classroom."

Harry and Ron nodded.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor. The next time I see anything like that, it will be you who is dancing in the front of the class. Understand?" All three of them nodded. "Good, you are dismissed." The Golden Trio turned to leave, but Snape called out again.

"Granger! When exactly do you think you're going?"

Hermione gulped. "Um, Herbology?"

"I never dismissed you. Five points from Gryffindor"

"But..."

"But what?" Snape challenged her, but she said nothing. "Good. Now I hear you only did half your work at last nights detention. You are assigned another tonight. Same time. Maybe this time you can do the entire thing."

"But proffessor!"

Snape simply looked at her, daring her to argue. Silently she picked up her books and left the room.

Reveiw! I know its a bit of a slow start, but the plot will pick up quickly. And so will the romance...