Hermione walked swiftly down the corridors. As head girl, she was a strict follower of the rules, even if she felt like she might faint any second now. She had told Harry and Ron that she was feeling ill, it wasn't a lie, but she didn't tell them the cause of her illness: guilt.

She was heading towards the Heads common room that she shared with Ernie McMillan, she had decided to sit in her room and figure out her thoughts for a while. Ron and Harry had agreed since they were once again playing Quidditch with a few others, she just hoped they wouldn't come looking for her; she could barely look either of them in the eye.

She finally came to the portrait in front of the head dorms. It was a forest nymph sitting on the back of a unicorn, surrounded by trees.

"Password?" The nymph asked in a very soft, sweet voice. The unicorn began grazing on the grass beneath.

"Aqueous Animus," The portrait swung open and she ducked through the opening, swinging it shut; she didn't notice that it took longer to close than usual.

She made her way toward her room, but was stopped in her tracks by a drawling voice.

"Well hello, Granger, you let me in here but plan on being antisocial? Wouldn't have picked you for that," He smiled at her as she turned around.

"Malfoy, what the heck are you doing in here? Did you sneak in behind me? That's against the rules, I could take house points you know." She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes determinedly trying not to let his smile weaken her common sense.

"Oh, so you're calling me Malfoy again? That's a shame, I quite liked the way it crossed your lips when you were moaning my name." He sauntered towards her, stopping mere inches from her face. He brought his hand up to her cheek and brushed his thumb along it softly. "I liked it very much, Hermione."

She tried not to let him get to her, but it was no use. Her breathing sped up, and her heart beat increased. She was starting to blush, but suddenly common sense came back to hit her like a slap in the face.

"Stop it!" She hit his hand away with her own, "That was a mistake. I-I wasn't thinking straight, and now I am, and I feel horrible for it." Her voice cracked on the last few words, and she looked down to her feet.

Draco couldn't explain the feeling that went through him at that moment, but he reached out and touched her face again. He convinced himself it was all to do with his plan of getting her into bed. He certainly had to smooth talk her if he wanted any chance of that happening again. Yes, that's all it was. You keep telling yourself that.

Hermione refused to look at him, he held her chin and attempted to lift her head, she wouldn't move. "Look at me," He whispered, she surrendered and raised her head, but her eyes were closed.

He leaned forward, taking advantage of his control, and pressed his lips softly against hers. Her eyes shot open at that point, and she backed away, falling back onto the couch. She stared at him wide eyed.

"What are you trying to do to me? Does this amuse you, to mess with me?" She looked on the verge of an emotional breakdown.

"Stop feeling guilty about it. I know you don't want to be with Weasley," he walked and sat on the seat across from her.

"What would you know about Ron and I? He loves me."

Draco tilted his head to the side, "Perhaps so, but you don't love him, otherwise that day would never have happened. You wouldn't be trying to keep yourself away from me." He leaned back, satisfied with what he had said.

"I-you-I won't hurt him again. I was selfish, I didn't think of him. No matter what I feel for anyone else, Ron is good for me. I can't hurt him." She looked at her feet so she didn't have to face his piercing eyes.

"As much as I'd love to see the look on Weasley's face if he found out the number of ways I did you," she grimaced, while he smiled at the memory, "I'm not suggesting that you hurt him. I can keep a secret, but I do feel like we have something good going here." He waved his hand between the two of them casually.

She looked at him, her brows furrowing in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"We both want each other, in a purely physical way of course. I have a proposition for you Granger. We have 7 weeks of school left until we graduate and go our separate ways, correct?"

"Correct," she confirmed, sounding mildly interested, and a little confused.

"And we both have significant others that we are obligated to be with, correct?"

"Yes, that's correct Malfoy, but what are you getting at?" She was losing her patience.

"I propose that you and I conduct a secret relationship lasting until graduation, after which we both go our separate ways. We both want each other because it's so wrong, but I think by that time it'll be out of our systems, and then we can forget it ever happened."

Hermione looked at him with disbelief. "You want a relationship with me?"

"Well purely physical, since that's what we both seem to want. You especially." He smirked, remembering how much she had wanted it. She blushed.

Hermione was thinking. She couldn't get any closer to him, and that's all the last time seemed to do. She couldn't be certain she would be able to part from him if she had him for so long. No, she wouldn't do it. She couldn't do that to Ron, not again.

"I'm sorry, Malfoy. But I don't want that; now please leave before Ernie gets back from breakfast." She kept her tone as cool as possible.

Draco felt his stomach sink a little, but brushed it off. He couldn't hide the disappointment from himself, but he was certain to hide it from her.

He simply shrugged, "Suit yourself, Granger. But if that's the case, stop leering at me from now on." His face contorted back into his old scowl, and he walked out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

Hermione sat there, staring at nothing. Saying no to him was the hardest thing, but she had to do it. She couldn't lose her self control.

Several days after the encounter with Malfoy, things were tense. She hadn't felt as close to Ron as usual, so she had avoided her two best friends by spending most of her time in the library, which was when she wasn't doing her rounds or other duties as head girl.

She wasn't sure why Ron hadn't been more intent on finding her and demanding an explanation, especially since they hadn't been together for more than 5 minutes at a time in the past few days.

She still saw him in classes, but during that time she was too busy concentrating on the professors to talk much. She was also curious as to why he hadn't tried to find her so they could sneak off for some 'private time'. They had only taken their relationship to that level a few months before, and since then he had wanted to be with her that way as often as possible, but at the moment, he hadn't even asked. Strange.

She pushed the thought out of her mind and closed her large book. She had been in the library for the last few hours doing her homework, after she finished that it had only been 7pm, so she decided to stay a little longer and read for a while. She looked up at the clock on the wall next to her, it was now 9pm.

She packed up her books and parchments and stuffed them in her bag, pulling it onto her shoulder. It was so heavy she swayed a little while trying to recover her leverage. She looked around; the library was empty except for a couple of Ravenclaws who she knew were studying for an upcoming test. She remembered that Ernie would be finishing his rounds in about half an hour, maybe she'd go and help him.

After dropping her bag off in the common room, she began to walk down one of the dark corridors. No students were allowed out at this time, except for those who got a note to be at the library. The corridors were silent, the only noise coming from her light footsteps on the stone.

She had been walking for at least five minutes and had covered only one corridor. Ernie wasn't there, so she had decided to turn and take the long way back to the Heads common room. She rounded a corner when she heard the whispering of two voices, a girl was giggling. She walked in the direction of the commotion, only to hear a third voice suddenly speak up over the two, it was much louder than the other two and Hermione recognised it as Ernie's.

Happy to have finally tracked him down, she walked towards the voices and could see he was reprimanding two students who were clearly seeking private time in a small alcove hidden in the wall.

"-out of bed, let alone doing this. You know I live with Hermione, I can't just keep this from her, you're putting me in a horrible position!"

Hermione had been approaching a few feet away in the shadows, when she heard her name mentioned.

"Know what, Ernie?" She approached, looking at him, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Ernie's head shot toward her voice and he stepped back awkwardly, revealing the students in the alcove.

Ron and Lavender.

Their hair was messy, and their shirts had been hastily buttoned up, with buttons in the wrong holes. Ron looked at her, a look of shock, guilt and remorse on his face. Lavender looked at her feet, not wanting to meet Hermione's eyes. No wonder he hadn't been hassling her for sex.

Hermione was shocked, she felt her stomach get heavy. "Ron? Lavender? What-why-," she couldn't finish her sentence and could feel the tears coming so she ran as fast as she could to her room in the head dorms, Ron had chased her there, but she made it into the portrait just in time to slam it in his face.

She knew she was being a hypocrite, but she still felt betrayed. She never imagined Ron to do something like that, or Lavender. They were supposed to be her friends. Boyfriend. He was your boyfriend, Hermione. Same thing. They had made a promise as friends to be loyal and they'd betrayed it. You betrayed it long before he had. Maybe you were just supposed to be friends, not lovers. You rarely even acknowledge him as your boyfriend.

She sat down, feeling guilty, but slightly relieved that she wasn't as hurt anymore. Almost feeling relieved, her tears had dried up. She wasn't the only one in the wrong now.

She thought for several minutes. Her and Ron were always friends, and would always be, he was a constant in her life, just like Harry, just like books and a love for knowledge. When someone described her, those things were her description. She still felt mad at him, but then again, she was always mad at him for something, it's the way they had been since the day they'd met and she'd pompously told him his spell sucked. She couldn't help but smile at the memory, she was fairly stuck-up and pompous in her first year, and they'd still been her friends anyway.

The word 'pompous' brought her thoughts to a certain blond haired Slytherin, who was practically the definition of the word. She groaned at herself for letting them trail there, especially in this situation.

She decided sleep would be best, so wandered into her room and lay on her bed; surprisingly she got more sleep tonight than she had in the past week.