Disclaimer: All characters and settings belong to J.K. Rowling. Still *sigh *

A/N: I borrowed some of her lines from the book 6, Chapter 15. No harm done, I hope. This chapter has canon stuff in it, just written from another point of view (either from Draco's or Hermione's). Not as exciting as the first chapter, I'm sure, but necessary for the story to develop properly. So please, bear with me.


Hermione was spending even more time than usual in the library. She had started avoiding the common room like the plague after that fateful evening, and since she had so much work to do no one questioned her almost incessant need to retreat to her quiet, dusty tomb.

Tonight was no exception. Harry had joined her in her usual corner and he'd just relayed Ron's latest defensive words.

"I honestly don't care what he seems to think what went on between me and Krum. It's my business, and mine only," she was whispering as she rolled open a fresh parchment and started with her newest Arithmancy essay.

Harry stayed quiet, as he had been doing most of the time. It didn't particularly bother her, she figured he was trying his best to stay friends with both of them so he kept his mouth shut. She was thankful for that, she'd had more than her share of insults, apologies and half-hearted arguments. Concentrating on her essay, the next half hour was spent in relative quiet, only both of their quills scratching the parchment.

A small sound made her look up. Harry was concentrating on deciphering something from that nasty Potions book so he didn't seem to notice, but she thought she'd caught a flash of blonde disappear behind a bookcase a couple rows on. It went by so fast she thought it was only the flash of a lantern or some such illusion in her eyes. Shaking her head, she returned to her essay.

Her thoughts, however, became muddled as the sudden image of Malfoy sprawled before her on the ground tore it's way to the foreground. Her grip tightened around the quill as she remembered the whispered words she'd sent his way. She wasn't quite sure what the spell had done (for the first time in her life, mind you!) and she'd tried looking it up more, but hadn't found anything as of yet.

She'd come upon it in an old book written by some obscure wizard from the 12th century a day before the Quidditch match. All the description had said was "cleanse thy enemys by schowing them the druth". What that vile excuse for a wizard had said to her during their confrontation had stabbed her directly in the heart. Something had taken her over as she cast the first spell floating in her mind. Never before had Hermione Jean Granger cast a spell she didn't know the consequences of. Even if it was on Draco "The Amazing Bouncing Ferret" Malfoy.

She felt just the slightest bit of guilt. Might be that it didn't even work. But she'd felt a significant drain on her energy right after the spell had left her wand, and so she was quite sure it had worked. For most of the time, however, Malfoy seemed just as usual, if not a bit more tired. Harry had his own theory about that, but she'd dismissed it as nonsense. She wasn't sure if Malfoy was quite as evil as her two- well, now one best friend thought. Taking the Dark Mark... she couldn't quite believe in that yet.


Draco hoped against hope she hadn't seen him. What was he even doing, stalking her again like that? Not like the last time wasn't a painful reminder to stay far, far away from the girl. But need for new inspiration had drawn him to the huge hall of tomes, trying to find some literature upon broken magical items.

The Cabinet was just as stubborn as it had always been, he was no closer to finding a way to kill Dumbledore, with every passing moment he was afraid his parents would be punished the worse for his failures, and in addition to all that he'd developed a nasty little headache which only seemed to dissipate a little whenever he laid eyes on the insufferable know-it-all. Whatever that spell was she'd done, it didn't seem to have worked, so he'd pushed it out of his mind.

Stalking between the rows, his thoughts kept returning to that evening. He'd tried really hard to forget, but seeing your own emptiness mirrored in someone else's eyes had had a deep impact on the blonde Slytherin. The way she'd slowly walked towards him... Her eyes haunted his dreams now, besides the Cabinet and Dumbledore. Why he couldn't get rid of her, he didn't understand.

"-you need to be careful."

Draco's ears perked up at the sound of her voice. Since she'd been sitting with the Boy Wonder he guessed she was talking to him. Interested in what he could be up to, he strolled casually closer between the rows.

"-so-called Prince. I'm talking about earlier. I went into the girls' bathroom-" the rest of the sentence was drowned out by Madam Pince brushing past him, giving him a nasty look for idling between the books. He grabbed a bind and made a face as if he was studying it, deep in thought; in reality he was only waiting for the old hag to continue her rounds.

"They're all hoping they're going to get you to take them to Slughorn's party, and they all seem to have bought Fred and George's love potions, which I'm afraid to say probably work-"

"Why didn't you confiscate them?" Scarhead's voice interrupted her tirade. Malfoy scoffed silently. Obviously the girls wouldn't have the potions with them. Granger's next sentence confirmed it.

"They didn't have the potions with them in the bathroom. They were just discussing tactics."

Malfoy wasn't particularly interested in Pothead's love life, so he put the random book back on it's shelf, and continued his rounds, though making sure he could still hear her voice. For some freaky reason, it soothed his pounding headache just a bit.

"Well, just be careful what you drink, because Romilda Vane looked like she meant business."

He smirked again. He had half a mind to find that Vane girl and give her some pointers in how to get Potter to drink something from her.

"Hang on a moment, I thought Filch had banned anything bought at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes?"

"And when has anyone ever paid attention to what Filch has banned?" Her voice seemed distracted.

"But I thought all the owls were being searched. So how come these girls are able to bring love potions into school?"

"Fred and George send them disguised as perfumes and cough potions," Granger answered. "It's part of their Owl Order Service."

"You know a lot about it." Draco almost snorted at that. Imagine Granger, dealing in love potions. The image almost made him laugh. Almost. He barely heard most of the following, moving away from them so he could get into the row behind them. Hearing his name, though, made him walk a bit faster.

"-why couldn't Malfoy have brought the necklace into the school - ?"

"Oh, Harry... not that again..."

"Come on, why not?"

"Look, Secrecy Sensors detect jinxes, curses, and concealment charms, don't they? They're used to find Dark Magic and Dark objects. They'd have picked up a powerful curse, like the one on that necklace, within seconds. But something that's just been put in the wrong bottle wouldn't register - and anyway, love potions aren't Dark or dangerous -"

Easy for her to say that, Draco thought at precisely the same moment Potter mumbled his thought aloud. Frowning at a thought that occurred right after that, he leaned in closer-

"- so it would be down to Filch to realize it wasn't a cough potion and he's not a very good wizard, I doubt he can tell one potion from -"

- and again, he'd made some noise without meaning to. Granger's voice had stopped in the middle of the sentence. Peeking from behind some books, he could barely make out her and Potter, looking almost exactly at where he was hiding. Thank Merlin for Madam Pince appearing moments later at their table. He replaced his quickly drawn wand, breathing out slowly as he listened to the batty old librarian hissing at Potter. Just his luck to almost get exposed again...

What Granger had said, though... Filch was just an old squib, he definitely wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a normal drink and a, say, poisoned one. As the idea formed in Draco's mind, he smiled smugly to himself. The Mudblood could be useful sometimes.


The next evening found Draco holed up in the Room again. He'd just sent instructions to Rosmerta concerning his latest idea, but after poring through countless pages of old, dusty, fragile books he'd found no solution to the problem currently towering over him. He stared at the closet with disgust, before noticing it was after curfew. If he were caught outside he'd have more unnecessary detention to deal with, which in turn would take away time spent here trying to fix this monstrosity. So, sighing, he replaced the books into his hiding place amongst all the other hidden things, dusted himself off, and slowly exited the room.

Deep in thought, he made his way towards the bottom of the castle. Turning a corner in the fourth corridor, he was shaken out of his thoughts when the wheezing sounds of Filch approached. Before he could hide, though, the squib lumbered around the far corner, almost jumping with glee as he noticed Draco sullenly staring at him.

"Aha! Student out of bed! Do you have permission to be lurking in the corridors this late at night?" Filch enquired, jowls quivering with barely-contained glee as he jogged closer.

Thinking lightning-fast, Draco searched his mind for some plausible reason to be out this late at night. Then, a sudden snippet of a song Peeves had sung earlier that day swam to the forefront of his mind: Potty asked Loony to go to the party! And therein he found his answer.

"Well, as it happens I have been invited to Professor Slughorn's Christmas party and have simply been delayed with getting there. There's no harm in going to a party, is there now?" he lied smoothly. That didn't faze Filch.

"Oh, we'll see about that! Come with me, boy!"

"Where are we going?" Draco refused to budge.

Filch leaned in and grabbed him by the ear. Draco flinched, getting a too good a look up his captor's widened nostrils.

"We're going to your "party", and if I catch you lying about this, oh, the things I will do with you in detention..." the old man trailed away, dragging the taller boy by his ear towards Slughorn's distant office.


Hermione squeezed herself through the throngs of people at the party. It was becoming harder to avoid McLaggen the further the party went on, and so she toyed with the idea of leaving for good. Just as she'd decided upon calling it a night and started moving towards the door, a commotion from the middle of the room made her look that way.

A quite a strange gaggle of people stood together. Luna and Trelawney, who both seemed deep in conversation didn't notice how Filch had just dragged none other than Draco Malfoy to Harry, Slughorn and Snape. When Harry looked simply happily bewildered and Slughorn jovial, Draco was looking very unhappy, instead of his usual air of boredom. Snape was staring at Draco, though she couldn't quite see his facial expression. From the tension in his shoulders, though, it didn't seem her Potions Professor was particularly happy at seeing his favourite student there.

She wanted to move closer to hear the conversation, but exactly then someone decided to clap a huge hand on her shoulder.

"There you are! I've been searching for you all night!"

With an inner sigh and a roll of her eyes, Hermione turned around to see McLaggen's extremely annoying smile. She shrugged his hand off her shoulder.

"Yes, sorry, I've just been conversing with so many interesting people here! I do feel quite tired already, though, so I was just about to leave for the Gryffindor Tower. You're welcome to stay, though! Have fun!" She was quickly coming up with excuses as she tried to shimmy past him and toward the door. Cormac wasn't having any of that.

"Well, if you want to go, I'll go with you. It's not safe walking around the corridors alone at this time, anyway," he gallantly proffered his elbow towards her, almost knocking it into her ribcage.

"No, really, it's no problem, I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself," she crooned sweetly, trying her hardest not to puke.

"Please, I insist." Cormac was still standing there, elbow hanging out, smiling towards her like a puppy.

Seeing no other way out, she testily put her arm on his and let him lead her out the door and into the dark corridors.

After a few moments of him recounting his latest wonderfully difficult catches on the Quidditch field and Hermione's mind working overtime, trying to find a way out of this situation, McLaggen suddenly stopped. She was so immersed in her thoughts she barely noticed it and almost fell because of it. Always the unneeded gentleman, McLaggen helped her recover her feet and then pointed towards the ceiling.

Not again, Hermione almost screeched out as she saw the mistletoe dangling from the high beam. She'd barely escaped last time before the party, and only thanks to other people being close by. This time, though, the corridor was deserted. Swallowing hard, she peeked up at McLaggen, thinking how quickly she could reach her wand in her purse.

"Hermione, I -" he started, looking slightly uncomfortable. Clearing his throat, he continued: "Well, I... I really like you, you know. And... I know you've been avoiding me tonight, but I really don't know why when you invited me to this thing yourself."

She was trying her hardest not to roll her eyes whilst furtively feeling around in her purse behind her back.

"Listen, Cormac, I-"

"Shhh, no, wait. Let me finish. I really don't care for being made a fool out of, though. You invited me here. It's obvious you saw something in me. So, I'm going to try my hardest to make you see that something again."

And without a warning he pressed his lips to hers.

Hermione's eyes went wide with fear as she tried to push the tall boy away, but he instead wrapped his arms around her, squeezing all the breath out of her lungs. Her mouth involuntarily opened and McLaggen used that as an invitation to explore further. She kept struggling against him, trying to reach her wand.

A moment later McLaggen jumped back with a cry of pain. She'd bitten his lip, hard. His eyes darkened as he gently dabbed at the small cut, an evil grin appearing on his face.

"Oh, so this is how you play, little witch? You want rough, I'll give you ro-" he couldn't end his sentence, though, because at that precise moment Hermione had finally gotten her wand out of that blasted purse and sent him flying towards the nearest wall.

"Don't ever touch me again, you filthy bastard!" she spat at him as he slumped down, apparently knocked out.

"Oh my, and I thought I was the only one deserving of those insults," a very familiar voice drawled.

Uh oh, Hermione thought, whirling around.