Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, they belong to J.K Rowling. I only own the plot.

A/N: Thanks for all of your lovely reviews. I really appreciate them.

Chapter three - Detention

Hermione's mouth fell open. "What?" said she.

"Don't look at me like that," said Draco, "I know, this is not what you or any other person on this school would have thought of me, but I am," stopped Draco.

Hermione was overwhelmed with surprise. Was Draco Malfoy in her room? And did he just apologize to her? After all these years where he had mocked her and now he was claiming to be sorry for it. Hermione couldn't believe it nor could she make any sense of it.

Draco continued, "I am sorry, I don't know if it'll make any difference, but I really am."

Hermione took a deep breath and walked over to the window next to her bed, she let out a deep sigh, then turned around, now facing Draco. She looked into his eyes, making a note to herself that his eyes weren't really like sapphires, they were more greyish and at this point they begged for forgiveness. She didn't really know how to handle this. What did he want from her? Why should she care?

"What do you want from me? Why have you come here? To tell me you're sorry? What do expect from me? To forgive you?" said Hermione.

Draco looked away to avoid the look in Hermione's eyes.

"I...I...," started Draco.

Hermione was getting impatient and was annoyed by Draco's unfamiliar insecurity. "Draco whatever it is you're trying to say, say it dammit!" snapped she.

Draco looked hurt and somewhere inside Hermione regretted that she had snapped at him, when he was obviously having such a hard time pouring out his heart, or whatever, "Oh, why am I such a soft-hearted person," thought Hermione, annoyed at herself, she didn't want to pity him, not after all the suffering he had put her through.

Draco looked back at her, directly into her big, brown eyes. Hermione waited for him to speak, and even though she told herself that she didn't care about why he was suddenly apologizing, she couldn't help, but to feel a bit curious.

Draco looked like he was seriously considering his next words, but instead of opening his mouth and speak, he suddenly grabbed Hermione and pressed his lips against hers. Hermione was so surprised and shocked, she didn't know how to react, she couldn't think, she wanted to push him away, but couldn't, she just felt his lips against hers and they almost paralysed her.

His kiss was like poison, running through her veins, taking over her body and her mind, she couldn't breathe, and finally she pushed Draco away.

"What are you doing?" asked Hermione very frustrated.

The hurt and insecure look on Draco's face had disappeared and had been replaced with his usual smirk.

"You liked it," said Draco with his annoying voice.

"I did NOT!" said Hermione, obviously lying.

"Oh yes, you did! You kissed me back," said Draco.

"No!" said Hermione, even though she knew that they both knew that she had loved it and had kissed him back, "Okay, so what if I did? You kissed me first!" said she. "Oh yeah, nice going Hermione, really nice! That wasn't lame at all," said a voice in her head.

Draco laughed and Hermione knew he had been thinking the same thing.

Draco walked over to the desk and leaned against it, Hermione could see that he took all the time he need to make Hermione uncomfortable by the awkward silence. Draco let his eyes rest on Hermione.

"I always knew you wanted me," said Draco, smirking of course.

"Excuse me," said Hermione, "I want you? Blasphemy! Honestly, who do you think you are? You make my life a hell, then you show up in my room, apologize and start kissing me and you say that I want you. Give me a break, like I can't see this is just another one of your filthy tricks. Do you think I'm blind or something? I won't take part in your evil games anymore! Now get out of my room, before I report you!" said Hermione angrily.

Draco looked unaffected, and he walked over to her and stood right infront of her, "Can't say I'm surprised," he said and leaned forward and was now whispering into Hermione's ear, "you didn't deny wanting me," Draco smirked and placed a little kiss on Hermione's left cheek.

Before Hermione could do or say anything, Draco was already under his Invisibility Cloak and had left the room.

Hermione was left stunned, she had not expected that last part, she had thought Draco would have... well anything else, but what he did.

There went several minutes before Hermione pulled herself together, she sat down on her bed and tried to concentrate on what just happened and on what she should do now, but her mind was a mess and she couldn't find any sense in anything, so she gave up.

She went into the bathroom and splashed some cold water in her face, then she dried her face with a towel and when she looked up, into the big mirror hanging above the sink, she found that she couldn't look herself in the eyes. "What have I done?" she asked herself, "why have everything been going so wrong for me lately?".

She gave up finding the answer. She considered skipping the rest of the day's classes, but then she thought that then she'd have to give Harry and Ron some kind of explanation, and she couldn't really think of anything good, and she thought it might be nice to have something to do, so she wouldn't have to deal with herself right now.

Hermione kept to herself the rest of the day, she avoided Harry and Ron, and Malfoy by all causes, she just couldn't bare to face any of them right now, and she was relieved by the end of the day when she lay herself down to sleep.

She lay silent in her bed, just staring out in the darkness. "What am I going to do? What am I going to do? Think, Hermione, think!" said a voice in her head. It was sort of ironic how she had always had all the answers ready, but this time she couldn't come up with any solution, after all this wasn't really a problem listed in the books.

After hours of tossing and turning in her bed, Hermione's eyes finally closed and she began her journey into her sleep.

It seemed like she had just closed her eyes when dawn sneaked into her room through the window. She opened her eyes slowly and yawned, for a minute she had forgotten all about yesterday and was ready to face a new day with a smile on her face, but then it all came back to her and a gloomy expression appeared on her face. Instead of getting out of bed, she felt more like just hiding under her blanket all day, but then she finally convinced herself that she couldn't hide in her room forever and then she got up.

Hermione took off her the blue, cotton dress that she had slept in and got dressed in her Hogwarts robe, and got ready for the day. At breakfast she had her usual pumpkin juice and some cereal. She was sitting quietly eating her meal when her two best friends came laughing over to her.

"Good morning Hermione," said Harry smiling, while Ron looked down, as if he had done something wrong., "'morning Hermione," he said.

"Good morning guys," said Hermione and forced herself to smile.

Harry sat down next to her, and Ron who had found some acceptation in her smile, but still felt a bit insecure sat next to Harry instead of sitting on Hermione's other side. The three of them were quite for a minute, but then the two guys started talking about the upcoming Quidditch game at the school, Gryffindor versus Slytherin. Hermione, who didn't really care that much about Quidditch finished her breakfast quickly and left the guys and headed for the library.

On her way to the library she was walking fast, looking at her feet when she suddenly bumped into a person and dropped all of the books she was carrying.

"Hey," she said and bended down to pick up her books, but looked up when she heard a familiar voice.

"Watch where you're going, Granger," said Draco with an evil little smirk, it was he she had bumped into.

"Idiot," said Hermione under her breath while she watched Draco walk away.

She collected her books and went to the library.

While going throw some random books in the cold library she decided not to tell anyone about Draco's kiss, whether it was because of denial, believing that it would just go away by itself or if it was because she had actually liked it, but knew that it was a ridiculous, completely insane and disgusting thought to think that she might have a chance with him.

At some point Hermione looked at her watch and realized that she was almost late for class, so she hurried through the dark halls and found her way to the Charms classroom.

Professor Flitwick had just entered the room when she came in and she quickly found an empty seat.

She felt like the hours went more slow than ever that day and she felt like she was walking around drowsy and isolated from everyone else in a bubble, but the bubble bursted when she, after lunch, on her way to the next class saw Professor Snape. He was in the other end of the hall, walking in her direction. Hermione who had forgotten all about the detention he had "promised" her the day before, now remembered it and found herself trying to come up with a plan to avoid him now, she could turn around and run, though then she'd be late for class and a student running would probably also catch his attention, so that wouldn't work.

"Argh, think, think, think!" said Hermione nervously to herself, her heart was pounding faster, "okay, maybe he won't notice me if I just walk right by him, looking the other way," thought she, "yeah right, as if Hermione!".

She decided to seek cover behind a couple of Gryffindor 3rd years nearby, but just before Snape passed by them, one of the 3rd years recognized Hermione.

"Oh hi, Hermione," said a blond girl.

Hermione frowned, but quickly put a fake smile on, "Hi," said she, trying to keep her voice down, hoping that Snape had not heard them. Too late.

"Oh, so that's where you're hiding, Miss Granger," said the tall, dark professor.

"I wasn't hiding," said Hermione way too fast and made it sound like that that was exactly what she had been doing.

"I hope you didn't think that I had forgotten about your detention," said Professor Snape.

"No sir, of course not," said Hermione politely, though that wasn't what she was thinking.

At this point the 3rd years had left Hermione and she was now standing alone with the Professor in the hallway.

"Hmm, right," said Snape nodding suspiciously, "dungeons, 3 o'clock. Today! Now go, you're late!" said Snape and left Hermione.

"Well, so are you!" said Hermione quietly and then hurried to class.

The rest of the classes that day also seemed to be a drag and Hermione had only just thrown herself down on her bed, when she remembered the detention. She hadn't even thought of what she'd be doing, but probably something hard and something that would take a long time, after all it was Snape's detention she was dealing with.

She didn't have much time to get to the dungeons, so she hurried down the stairs, through the cold hallways and down to the slimy dungeons. She assumed he had meant the Potions classroom, so she went there and hesitated knocking on the door. She collected her thoughts and herself and then she knocked.

"Enter," said a deep voice from the other side of the wooden door.

Hermione entered carefully.

"There you are, good, I thought I was about to waste my time on giving you extra detention for being late," said the Potions master.

Hermione didn't answer, she just stood quietly and waiting for him to reveal her punishment. She knew he was enjoying this and he took his time, finishing going through the papers on his desk.

Finally he looked up, "You'll be labelling potion-bottles," he said.

Hermione was a bit surprised that he hadn't come up with something more mean, "ah well, that can't be that hard, I'll be done in no time," she thought to herself.

"Of course, this is only what you'll be doing today. I have something else for tomorrow," continued Snape.

"Oh yes, of course. I won't only be serving detention today, right, but for the rest of my life," thought Hermione and nodded.

Snape made a gesture for her to look the way his arm was pointing, and Hermione looked. She saw eight desks covered with bottles in different colours.

"Okay, that might slow me down a bit," thought she.

"These will be the bottles you'll be labelling. There is a list of which colour is what. I won't be here to keep an eye on you, I have better and more important things to do," said the Professor, "oh yes, and you'll be serving today's detention with a student of mine, who's being punished for roaming the hallways after dark," said Snape pointing at someone behind Hermione.

Hermione turned around and saw that her new detention partner was the blond junior Malfoy.

"Hello Granger," said Draco smirking.
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Hmm, seems like Draco is definitely up to something, huh? So, what do you think? Please review.