A/N: Basically, this is an expansion and exploration of the idea I wrote about in my piece Classmates. In a way. I have no idea where this is headed, so I guess we'll just have to find out as we go along! Any ideas or suggestions or reviews would be welcomed with open arms!
She was doing it again. That thing she had promised herself she wouldn't do ever again.
She was looking at him.
She didn't mean to! It wasn't something she did on purpose. But she couldn't seem to stop. Hermione knew he was out-of-bounds, don't even consider, hands-off property. Thoughts of the kind her brain had been entertaining of late were definitely against the rules! But it didn't help that he didn't throw the insults that he used to. And if he did they were only in teasing. Teasing! What had the world come to that Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy would tease each other and share gentle smiles instead of throwing insults and lunging for each other's throats? If only he wouldn't smile like that at her, or look at her with those amazing eyes, or have that wonderful, silky hair. Then, she could go back to hating him and the world would be right again.
But no.
She just had to take Advanced Arithmancy. And so did he. And they just had to be 2 of the mere 8 who had done so in the whole school. And they both just had to have scheduling problems. And the Professor Vector just had to be kind enough to let two of her advanced students take their class during her regular Arithmancy class full of third years. And she just had to have them sit in the back corner, in two desks pushed together, isolated from the rest of the little third years.
So it was all Professor Vector's fault that Hermione was stuck in this sticky situation without a solution. All Professor Vector's fault that threats and curses and glares and hexes and insults had evolved into pranks and half-threats and hitting and then into teasing and jokes and playful banter and pouts and smiles.
Yep, all Professor Vector's fault. If only she hadn't 'fixed' their problem at the beginning of the year…
Or maybe if the school just didn't have Arithmancy to begin with.