She wakes up feeling slightly unhappy. Part of it is because her covers fell off in the middle of the night, and she suffered through dreams of being frozen outside in the snow. The other, more dominant part, is that it is Valentine's Day. The most useless holiday ever, in Hermione's opinion. Why in the world would you dedicate a day to fluffy pink hearts and chocolate? Why not something more practical like books, or reading, or hell, Hogwart's library (extremely extensive and much more interesting than love, thank you very much)? The more she thinks about it, the more annoyed she becomes. Honestly, she's living in a world where chocolate and the color pink is more important than books. Groaning and rubbing her frozen feet, Hermione stands up, mutinously glaring at Parvati and Lavender, who are giggling together about how to deliver their Valentine's cards to Harry and Ron without being seen. It's enough to make her barf, but she doesn't, out of politeness, of course.

The Great Hall isn't much better than her feminine dormitory. Professor Dumbledore seems to have taken the jolly holiday to heart, and has set up a myriad of streaming pink, red, and white heart shaped bubbles to pop and reform in the air above their heads. The eggs have been enchanted to heart shaped and pink--she seriously is going to barf! What is with the color pink anyway? What about all the delicious hues of brown and blue and other less happy colors? Is everything just against her today? She huffs and settles down at her usual spot at the right end of the Gryffindor table, unnerved by her pumpkin juice, which looks more like a strawberry smoothie. And she wishes it was a strawberry smoothie, because that is one thing that muggles have definitely beaten wizards at. Just, damn their pinkish color. And this gets her to thinking about the merits of being a muggle, because they certainly could not enchant disgustingly beautiful and happy heart shaped, fantastic smelling bubbles to float around her head and pop on such a cheerful note it's almost like they enjoy their suicide. This gets her even more upset and she swipes at an innocent bubble circling her ear. Of course, the world hates her today so naturally, she misses the bubble and slaps someone in their face. And that someone happens to be Draco Malfoy. In a small recess of her mind which Hermione hates to admit exists, Hermione registers that the evil git's skin sure is soft and that acne has steered clear of this lucky boy. But it's not like that! She's thinking of his skin more along the lines of the way she thinks of Crookshanks. And before she knows it, she's about to pet him. Gross! Hermione snatches back her skin and glares at Malfoy in a way, which, if looks could kill, poor Draco would be undergoing a thousand Crucios right that second.

Obviously, poor Draco Malfoy doesn't really know why this weird muggleborn has slapped him and then acted like everything in the damn world was his fault. And he really doesn't want to put up with her self-righteousness and that nice scent that's wafting from her hair...and jeez, that is a really nice smell. He knows that it's totally inappropriate given the fact that Hermione Granger just slapped him (and it hurt like a sting from those damn blasted end skrewts, dammit! The girl has a strong arm!), but he's trying to lean toward her. It's not his fault he can't tell if she uses lavender or honeysuckle shampoo, and it's not his fault he just really wants to know, so he can buy it himself! Seriously, it has nothing to do with the fact that Hermione is pretty cute, actually. Well, when she's not reciting the properties of moonstone at top speed, anyway. Jesus Christ! Did he really just think that? His features rearrange themselves to give an equally murderous glare towards the girl who is by no means cute nor has really nice smelling hair (he gives a hearty sniff, because he still can't figure out which scent it is!). Normally, he would have just commented on her apparent insanity and thrown a "Stupid Mudblood" her way, but today is most definitely not his day. The night before, he had piled on miles of blankets because--and he's very sensitive about this--he has a tendency to kick his blankets off his bed and fall out of bed along with them. So Draco figured, hey, if I pile these blankets up, then there's no way I'll be able to kick off all that weight. That part of his plan worked. And left him sweating so much that he woke up looking like he had just climbed out of a swimming pool and into a downpour of steady rain. And then he found a heap of Valentine's day cards at the edge of his bed, and was immensely cheered up. Oh, he was ebullient alright, until he opened one up and noticed that it said: Hi Blaise! Oh my God, you're SOOooOOOo hot! I wish you would be my Valentine! Pleaaaseeeee go out with meeee! This is Joy from your potions class, XOXOXOXOXO! Gross. (And who cares if he would have said, Brilliant! if Blaise was replaced by All Mighty and Holy Draco Malfoy Who is So Much Hotter than Harry Potter and Blaise Zabini Even Though He's Kind of Like a Vampire Being So Pale and Stuff...) Being a mature and reasonable teenager, Draco Malfoy chucked the card into the blazing fireplace, and decided that Valentine's Day was the most useless holiday in the history of the entire world. Bet it was the bloody muggles that thought of this, he thought, knowing fully well that St. Valentine's was an accomplished wizard, having just covered his merits in Professor Binn's most wonderful class, History of Magic (and he did listen to his lectures, okay? Hermione Granger wasn't the only one immune to his incessant drone). It is enough to say that, Draco Malfoy stomped up to the Great Hall thinking that, with the addition of those stupid and annoying bubbles (how girly), it should most definitely be renamed to the Great Hell. Seriously.

And now Draco has just been slapped and enchanted by one certain Hermione Granger. Being in fabulous moods, the two of them have a glaring-each-other-to-death-because-we-both-need-a-bloody-scapegoat-because-we're-being-all-emo-today-since-we-don't-have-a-girl-or-boy-depending-on-our-gender-to-give-roses-and-pink-chocolates-too contest that results in a stalemates, and both of their eyes profusely watering.
Hermione loses though, but only because one of those evil and disturbing bubbles pops a millimeter away from her left eye. Draco feels stupidly triumphant.

"Honestly, Malfoy! Why'd you have to get in my way, you insensitive jerk!" glares Hermione, feeling quite contrary what with all that happened, and losing a glaring contest to Malfoy to top it all off! Idiotic soft skinned----JERK.

"ME? Woman, exactly who slapped an innocent passerby for no good reason? For no reason at all!" Draco shoots back, feeling quite contrary what with all that happened, and being yelled at by a really cute girl with nice hair (just because it was bushy didn't mean it probably wasn't soft...) on top of it all. Wait, what was he just thinking?

"I was not trying to slap you! You got in my bloody way, prick!" Hermione counters loudly, attracting a couple of annoying glances from nearby students. She stands up, the bubbles around her whirling about in an agitated flurry to get out of her way.

"So what were you trying to do? Hit a ghost?" Draco laughs maniacally, feeling slightly deranged and failing to realize what a ludicrous joke he just made.

"NO!" Hermione screeches, feeling like she wants to slap Malfoy again--and not because she wants to touch his baby skin! "I was trying to get rid of those damn bubbles." She sniffs and waits for him to call her an inane idiot.

"Ohhhh I see. Damn, they are annoying, aren't they?" Draco nods his consent, his anger dissipating a little bit. Totally understandable, really, trying to kill inanimate objects. In fact, he wants to pop a few too. He lunges for one above Granger's head and accidentally brushes her hair in the process. Aha! He was totally right! It is soft!

Hermione sits down in a huff and scoots back a little. "Don't touch my hair, Malfoy!" Do it again! Wait, no--aghhh.

Draco frowns. He though he was being subtle, too! "Why not?"

"Because."

"Because what?"

"Just because." She glares at him, daring him to challenge her again.

He takes up the challenge readily. Why can't he touch her hair, dammit? "Because what!"

"BECAUSE!"

"BECAUSE WHAT!"

"STOP BEING SO CURIOUS!"

"STOP BEING SO STINGY!"

"DON'T CALL ME STINGY!"

"DON'T CALL ME...CURIOUS!"

"Malfoy, what the hell?" Wow. Even Pansy, clueless-blonde-slut (seriously, it said so on one of her t-shirts!), can come up with something better than that.

"Well, I don't know." Draco turns a bit red, noticing that people are staring at him and laughing. And they aren't with him either, they're laughing at him.

"Obviously." They stand there in awkward silence, waiting for the stares to fade away.

"So why can't I touch your hair?" He ventures, trying to sound casual.

"Because."

Draco groans. This girl is just so...prett-ANNOYING. "Come on, Granger. I deserve an answer for being a victim of your insanely muscular arm."

She pouts, but can't help laughing. But this is only because she's going insane because the world hates her today! Normally, she'd never laugh at one of Draco Malfoy's jokes.

"What kind of logic is that?"

"Logical logic." He won't be deterred! If he can't figure out what shampoo she uses, at least he wants to be able to know why she protects her hair so protectively! It makes no sense, he knows.

She frowns, thinking about correcting his use of poor grammar. Hermione decides against it, because she doesn't want another shouting match with Mr. I-was-blessed-by-the-gods-to-have-heavenly-skin. Jeez, she's really going crazy. "Inherently, that's not very logical. But whatever! If you just have to know, it's because I thought you'd make fun of me, okay?" It's a lame reason, she knows. But hey, it's true.

"What? Why would I make fun of your hair, Granger? It's so soft and it smells great. By the way, is your shampoo lavender or honeysuckle?"

They both freeze at that. Oh my God, what did I just say? Draco thinks.

Oh my God, what did he just say? Hermione thinks.

"Uh--I mean--"

"Honeysuckle--" blurts Hermione.

"Ohhh, thanks," squeaks Draco (in a very manly way, of course).

"No problem." There's more awkward silence. And, ironically, they both start talking at the same time again.

"Happy Valentine's day--"

"Happy Valentine's day--"

"Thanks! It's my favorite holiday!" Ten minutes earlier, Draco Malfoy would have been lying through his teeth.

"It's mine too!" Ten minutes earlier, Hermione would have shot herself rather than say that.

"Oh, you have a bubble in your hair." Draco reaches over and pops it.

Hermione blushes (What! But she never blushes!) and mutters, "Actually, they're kind of okay. If you know what I mean."

Draco blushes too, the contrast with his vampire skin making him look like someone has painted two blobs of pink on his face. But that doesn't matter, because Hermione thinks it's so endearing how he looks. "Oh, I do."