Hermione PoV

Several weeks had passed since the incident. But he came back to class, almost making me ruin my potion. He sauntered into the room, giving a fake hero's smile, but I think his limp was real. He scowled when he saw me though. What nerve. How can he be angry at me, he was the one who was trying to jinx me. How is it my fault he crashed? I scowled into my potion and carried on stirring with a vengeance now. I had just begun to carefully cut up my roots into symmetrical slices when a bag dropped down on the spare desk next to mine, and someone dropped into the previously empty seat. I turned to the newcomer to ask why they would make such a startling noise when I was doing some precision cutting, when I saw who it was. Malfoy. Why was it this lesson that the only spare desk was next to me?

"Would you mind not knocking my arm; I'm trying to cut up these roots." I said through gritted teeth, hoping he would get the point and shut up and sit still. He practically growled, sending shivers down my spine.

"Shut your trap Granger, I wouldn't be here if i didn't have to."

"Who said you had to? No-one wants you here." I said under my breath, but he heard me.

"Snape said I had to. This is the only spare chair, and I'm to work with you for the rest of the lesson as it's too late to start my own damn potion. Happy? I'm sure not." I scowled at this. Just my luck wasn't it. I tried to look for Harry and Ron for some backup on this, but Ron's potion was emitting large puffs of dense grey steam, and he and Ron were shielded behind it, unable to see the ugly development my lesson had taken.

"Don't you worry, I'm not happy with it." I told Malfoy, turning back to my root chopping and carefully measuring out the next slice.

"Get on with the potion then." I slammed the knife down, over the roots, cutting an uneven chunk off.

"Look what you made me do, you git." Fuming I tried to rectify the uneven chunks, while Malfoy sat and sulked in his chair. After I'd done the best I could and chucked them in the potion and began to stir again I said:

"You could measure out those." I indicated to the neat line of bottles in front of where he sat. "The measurements are on the board." He didn't move. I wanted t scream at him, but I didn't.

"Why would I help the likes of you?" He quipped. My hand shook as I stirred, but I kept a careful count. When I had finished, I sat down to wait for five minutes and began to measure out the liquids myself.

"What was that supposed to mean?" I asked, proud that my voice only shook slightly, and my hand was steady.

"You know what it means, you filthy mudblood. You're the reason that I'll be hobbling around for a week, and the reason I've been stuck in the hospital wing for the last three weeks. The reason my nose will be slightly off centre for the rest of my life. You jinxed me so I'd crash, so sorry if I don't feel like doing your fucking dirty work." He was seething by the end of his little rant and I blinked confused.

"You think I jinxed you? It was the other way around, you crashed before you finished the jinx on me. Ron saw you staring at me muttering while you flew, and I felt funny before that when you were following me. It's your own damn fault you crashed so I think measuring some ingredients is the least you can do." I wanted to slap the bastard and put his head straight. Euch.

"Wait, what?" He looked at me confused.

"Harry and Ron told me that you had jinxed me, that you were concentrating too hard to focus on where you were flying. You did try to jinx me, right?" He shook his head.

"No, no, no. I never jinxed you. Why would I? There was no reason to. No, you jinxed me. I remember when I woke up. Well, it's a little fuzzy, but I distinctly remember you, looking at you and then I crashed."

"I didn't jinx you, and you didn't jinx me. Sound right?"

"Mmhmm. You got that right" He said. I stood up and began to add the measured ingredients to the potion, stirring gently again. We passed the rest of the lesson in relative silence, working together fluidly to create the perfect potion. We only spoke when necessary, but there was something unspoken behind it all.

At the end of the lesson the bell rang and we handed in a sample of our potion. We had packed up out things and Malfoy began to speak.

"Look Granger, I..." He was interrupted by Zabini, though, who ran and jumped on him and mussed up his hair grinning at his friend's reappearance.

"Come on Draco." He said happily. "Let's go get you some lunch." Malfoy looked at me, then shook his head as though he had just been imagining something ludicrous, and followed the Slytherins out of the dungeon. Harry and Ron hurried up to me and began threatening to kick Malfoy's ass if he had done anything more to me. I shook my head and followed them as they bickered about the best way to get Malfoy expelled.

Draco PoV

So she hadn't jinxed me. That didn't mean that I was allowed to talk to her like she was human and not scum. Before Blaise had jumped me, I was going to tell her that maybe we could be friends. As soon as my friends descended on me I realised how stupid I was being. A mudblood Gryffindor and a pureblood Slytherin do not mix. Ever. I hated that my damn free will was being stamped on by society. I wanted to get to know the innocent little brunette, but I can never, so it was back to being cold blooded and smirking a lot. There was only one conceivable way that i could continue without pouncing on her. I had to ignore her completely. That was fine by me. I don't know why I had become so infatuated by her; it wasn't like she was stunningly beautiful like Pansy, or easy like Parvati. But Pansy was sticky and annoying, and Parvati was all about the publicity. Granger, now she had personality and her face wasn't half bad to boot.

It was just so damn hard. Every time I saw her reading, or laughing, or smiling, or simply just being it was like a kick in the teeth. Like the world was laughing at me and saying Ha you can't have this, because you're a Slytherin. My friends had noticed how sullen I had become. They tried not to mention it, but it was obvious that they were becoming annoyed. My new favourite haunt was the library, because I was most likely to see her there, studying or reading, or just getting away from her friends. I lived for those moments and I was starting to become sick of me. Sick of the pussy-whipped, useless, jackass me.

So I had to do something about it. No-one can blame me. I was about to go mental. I had to contact her in some way or form. So I wrote a note. I didn't write my name. I didn't want to frighten her. I sent it late at night so that Potty and the Weasel wouldn't see.

The first note I sent went like this:

My Beautiful Brown-Eyed Vixen,

You've enchanted me and I want to talk to you. I can't though, no matter how much I wish. Don't pity me, or be frightened of me. Just reply to this, please. I need to know you are there.

I got a reply as well, that made me smile more than anything that day. She said:

I've never had an admirer before. It's kind of nice. Tell me, how old are you?

That was the beginning of our connection. It got me through the days, and the nights. The only questions I never answered were about my appearance or my name. I answered everything else as artfully as possible. I was worried she would figure it out. She's one smart witch, my Hermione.

Hermione PoV

The notes were beginning to freak me out a little. I just couldn't work out who was sending them. They always arrived at 11 at night and they were lovely. The person was witty, intelligent, funny and most of all interesting. He appealed to me and we clicked. I couldn't think of anybody with his personality. All I really knew was that he was in my year, not in Gryffindor and had some classes with me. He never said which ones, but I had a plan. The most identifying feature that I knew about this person was his handwriting. So all I had to do was spend some time in class looking around, walking up to the teacher, leaving the room, anything to walk past a few people. I could even bump into people and knock parchments to the floor. If I was as smart as I claim, I can figure out whose handwriting it is. Plus I knew it's a boy and they're not in Gryffindor. That left only about 14 boys to analyse. Easy.

Until I tried, anyway. I had looked at all six of the Ravenclaw boys, and none of them fitted. That worried me a little, because my person was intelligent. So I managed to look at the Hufflepuffs. No luck there either. I had hoped from the beginning that it wouldn't be a Slytherins, because I had a feeling I may get a little cursed looking at their writing.

On Monday I discovered it wasn't Zabini.

Tuesday I bumped into Nott, and hoped it wasn't his as he was quite rude to me.

On Wednesday I found nothing.

The same on Thursday.

Friday was potions, so I wouldn't have any luck there as no-one was writing. I was getting tetchy at my failed attempts so I ended up sitting on my own in potions, Harry and Ron a couple of desks behind me. The Slytherins were late and Snape was annoyed with them. When they did turn up it was just Zabini and Nott. They conferred with Snape, who allowed them to sit down with no repercussions. The two Slytherins plonked themselves on the desk in front of me. Zabini was carrying a pile of papers in his arms. Snape clapped his hands loudly to stop the class's outbreak of whispers. In doing so, he made Zabini jump and the papers flew everywhere, some landing on my table. I had managed to grab any that looked like they could fall into my potion.

I looked at one of the pieces of parchment in my hand and almost screamed aloud. This was it; this was my person's writing. I looked to the top of the page for a name and scrawled in the right handwriting was Draco Malfoy.

I collected the papers together, and finished the lesson in a hurry, not allowing myself to think.

Was I happy or annoyed? Was he messing with me? Laughing at me with his friends as they joked about my responses? I wanted to cry, or scream, something to let out the torrent of unknown emotion that was rushing through me.

A.N I know there wasn't much action or speaking in this, but I needed to lay the groundwork and most of it was based around their thoughts and feeling and seeing the world changing as they addresses everything. If you love it or hate it, just leave a review.

Disclaimer: I own nothing; it's all J.K Rowling's. Lucky her.