A cold autumn seemed have appeared very quickly in the year of 1995. Everyone's noses were rosy when they came back inside from Hogsmeade, their scarves wrapped tightly around their faces.

Draco felt Pansy's cold hand grasp his; he thought about pulling away from her, but rather just accepted it to avoid a mess.

Draco figured out a bit ago how she really felt about him. When he'd asked her to the Yule Ball last year, she blushed like mad and went to brag to her friends about him liking her. He couldn't deny that his heart used to flutter when she spoke to him, except that was the thing; it used to.

Now, he spent his time trying to avoid her attempts at going to Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop with him. Unfortunately for him, Pansy cornered him outside of Zonko's. Draco could only imagine the look that probably marked his face with the realization he was by himself; Crabbe and Goyle had just been behind him, but disappeared when he needed them most.

During the trip to Hogsmeade, Draco had managed to avoid Pansy -well, really he'd forgotten all about her; the new merchandise at Zonko's had put him in a new state of mind. Pansy had managed to not let him slip through her fingers-literally.

She still had a tight grasp of his hand which started cramping up. Draco went to pull away only to have her look up at him with sad doe eyes and he knew he couldn't hurt her feelings.

Of course the pair had been heading to Madam Puddifoot's for some tea, even Draco knew he couldn't deny the tea. Although, it was what Draco had seen on the way there that mostly peaked his interest.

Potter, Weasley, and Granger all went into Hog's Head; which is actually a really normal thing to do. What wasn't normal was the fact that several students had followed them in there.

What's wrong with a few students going into business, you ask? Hog's Head wasn't much of a business; the inside was filthy and only the grimiest of people would bother going in there. Draco never heard a student talking about how good the butterbeer was there, and that was because no one from Hogwarts ever paid any attention to it. So why were groups of students going in there?

"Pansy, lets go to Hog's Head instead."

Pansy's head whirled over to him, her black bobbed hair flipping across her face. The previous grin that she'd had was replaced when her lips parted in shock.

She asked him, "Now, why would you want to go in there? I heard it was absolutely horrid."

Draco gestured to Cho Chang and a few of her friends walking into the bar before saying, "I want to see why they're all going there for. More than a dozen have gone in."

"Yeah, but look at who it is; they're friends with Harry Potter which means that they're all probably crazy, too." Then she continued, "Now, come on, I want some tea."

Draco huffed, but followed her anyway.

As the few weeks went by, Draco never gave another thought about Hog's Head, but then came the day when he saw the same group of students huddling around each other. At first, it didn't seem suspicious, but then he'd watch them walk through the corridors in small groups, all heading the same direction.

It was the third time they had started doing this when Draco finally followed them along the corridors. Twenty or so minutes had passed and all they did was joke around and gossip; not once had they made any type of advances. Then, one of the girls looked over her shoulder and scanned the room with her eyes, which landed on him before she quickly looked away.

They know I'm following them; they're waiting for me to leave.

So that was what Draco did, or rather, pretended to do. He turned right around and went pass the corner, but that was the furthest he had gone before leaning up against the wall to listen to their whispers.

"He knows!"

"No, I think he's only suspicious about us; we'll have to be more careful."

"We need to tell Harry so he can inform the rest."

"He's gonna flip out, but I agree."

A round of footsteps followed their words so Draco tip-toed past the corner. No-one was there. He walked all along that corridor and the next, but he could never find any of the group.

Draco kicked the side of the wall (in which had him holding his foot and cursing for half a minute) before heading towards the Slytherin's common room.

After that day, Draco made it his personal job to find out what they were up to. Each time they began grouping up, he'd follow. Each time they came to the same exact hall. Each time they would just disappear.

He couldn't figure out where they went or why he could never find them. It wasn't like he could walk among them either. Draco even mentioned it at the Slytherin's table and they all said he was just plotting against Potter like always. Everything was so frustrating.

He had a meeting with Hermione a few days later, they were going to work on their potion some more. That was another thing that made Draco consider kicking the wall again; almost every time he looked around for her she was nowhere to be found, and even if he had managed to catch up with Hermione, she would postpone going with him. So far he'd only been able to work on their project twice since Hogsmeade. Twice.

So, when Hermione finally showed up to the library Draco couldn't help but sigh in relief. She pulled out a chair beside him and murmured a greeting before digging into a book.

"So, you actually showed up?"

Hermione looked up from her book and said, "Why wouldn't I?"

"Well," Draco started, "you usually tell me you're busy and can't come."

"Sorry, I keep getting caught up in stuff."

Draco grabbed her book and slid it away from Hermione; then told her, "Actually, I want to talk."

"What about?" she asked.

"I want to know what you've been doing."

He tucked her bangs behind an ear and looked into her eyes. The act felt foreign to him, and apparently to her, too. She stared at him with a frightened look on her face, her skin was now a ghostly white. Draco needed her to trust him; even if it was for just a minute.

Hermione finally replied, "I've been doing what I usually do-reading, schoolwo-"

"No, no, no," Draco interrupted. "I meant that I was curious on why you keep bailing on me."

"Oh," she muttered before pulling away from his touch. "It-It's not-It's nothing, really."

Draco shook his head and quipped, "It apparently is something; after all, you've been spending most of your time working on whatever it is."

Hermione gave him a pleading look; he knew she wanted him to just drop it, lock up the conversation with a key and swallow it. Draco wasn't going to let it go. He'd worked so hard on figuring this all out, if he could just get Granger to come out to him then everything would all come together. He could snitch on Potter (which he presumed whatever they had been up to was against the rules, so therefore, very snitchable) and it would be so nice to see that attention-seeker finally get in trouble.

All he needed was for Hermione to spill the beans. It couldn't be that hard, could it? He just had to continue playing his cards right. After all, the Malfoys were known for manipulating people to get exactly what they wanted, even the most in-convincible of people.

Draco thought himself to be a very charming boy and Granger happened to be a teenage girl. One thing that Draco knew about girls was that they loved attention from a boy.

Hermione had completely stopped responding to him, his last statement had been left open and she was already back to reading. Draco was going to fix that.

He leaned closer beside her and whispered into her ear, "You're a smart girl; you know what I want, now."

With that, Draco tilted his head down and pressed his lips to the skin just below her ear. He moved his mouth down with wet, closed kisses. He felt the quickened pulse beneath him and opened his mouth ever so slightly, brushing along shivers that came from her.

He wanted to admit that he kind of liked doing this, but she was just some over-achieving mud-blood who he needed answers from; this was not something he would let himself enjoy.

His lips moved along Hermione in a weird, new feeling. The closest Draco had ever come to kissing a girl along her neck was when some of the older Slytherins would brag about their latest shag. Not that he hadn't shared a few pecks with Pansy in the past, but those were short and childish.

Draco used his tongue, stabbing the flesh with only the tip of it. A sigh of content had him smiling against her. If Draco kept this up, Hermione would be like Play-Dough in his hands, allowing him to play with her however he wished; she'd finally confess everything to him.

That thought was diminished quickly though, his hopes going along with it.

"Stop."

Draco pulled away from her, silently asking what was wrong. He almost didn't need to have her tell him. Why did he think she would allow this? Hermione was Potter's best friend and there was no way she would betray him at the hands of his enemy. Their enemy.

Hermione grabbed her belongings and stuffed them into her bag. He watched her with every movement, silently wanting her to stay, to confide in him with everything she had been holding back. Not for her benefit, no, he couldn't care less about how Hermione felt.

Draco Malfoy was a selfish person and he wanted answers.

"Don't go yet, I-"

"You're right, Draco; I am a smart girl," Hermione spat. "I know exactly what you want and you're not getting it -in fact, the information you want doesn't even exist. Face it, Malfoy. You were wrong and there's nothing here for you to use as leverage against Harry."

"You're such a liar!"

Hermione paid no more attention to Draco. She simply scampered out of the library with a handful of books threatening to slip from her grasp; leaving Draco to continue working on the potion by himself.


Hermione was really considering hexing Malfoy. That stunt he pulled in the library was not going to just fly pass her, everything wasn't going to be all fine and dandy between them (although, things between them had never been 'okay', but they had managed to stop yelling at each other when they met; the quicker they worked, the quicker they got away from the other). No, she was going to make it very clear to him how displeased she was.

Who did he think he was anyways? Trying to manipulate her into telling him about DA. Worst of all, he kissed her; it wasn't on the lips, but his mouth on her neck was just as bad. He wanted her to forget that she hated him, forget that she was even keeping anything a secret. Malfoy made Hermione want to scream.

She brushed her fingers along the spot he had been kissing not too long ago. It felt sensitive and tingled at even her own touch; she wasn't sure if she was just imagining the new feeling or if he had made her continue to feel like that. Hermione wished he had never touched her, but she wasn't going to deny that he had some sort of practice.

With who, though? The only people who seemed to like Malfoy were the Slytherins and she didn't think he spent his nights kissing Crabbe. Maybe it was Parkinson. Now that she thought about it, it had to have been Pansy; she was almost always with him and Hermione had noticed them being affectionate towards the other a couple of times.

That led to more questions, though. Were the two of them dating? If so, had Draco really just done such an act of betrayal? Hermione and Draco were all alone in that section of the library; no one was prying into what they were doing. Draco could've very well shagged her (not that she'd let him) and no-one would have known.

Hermione kind of liked thinking that she had that type of leverage against both Pansy and Draco. They were not going to tease about her Muggle parents no more.

"There you are," shouted Ron, who had just walked into the Gryffindor common room. "Harry and I went to the library to find you, but all we seen was that stupid Malfoy."

Hermione made a face at the mention of his name, something that seemed to have caught their attention.

"What is it?" asked Harry.

Hermione wondered if she should tell them about Draco. Not because she wanted to protect him-oh Merlin, no-, but she thought that if Harry knew, then he'd confront Draco and get himself into more trouble with Umbridge. Then, she thought about how Harry and Ron deserved to see how badly Malfoy wanted to know their secret.

"Something happened with Malfoy today," she started. "He's not going to stop until he knows what we're doing."

Ron asked, "Well, what happened? What'd that twit do?"

"You see, he tried to-well, really he-Draco tried to make me let my guard down and forget that I was keeping everything a secret from him."

Harry looked at her strangely before wondering, "What do you mean by 'tried to get you to let your guard down'?"

Hermione felt a fiery warmth on her cheeks, she wasn't too sure about fully explaining what had happened to them. Harry and Ron were like her brothers she never had, she wouldn't tell her brother about letting a boy kiss her neck. If she didn't tell them, though, she knew that they would press on until given an answer.

"Draco made some advances on me and tried to coax me into spilling the beans while my guard was down."

Harry had an expression of realization come across his face that was soon followed by a snarl. Ron on the other hand just sat there with his brow raised and a dazed look in his eyes; he was trying to figure out something in his head.

Finally, he asked her, "What do you mean by 'advances'? Did he try to like, jinx you?"

"No, you daft idiot!" Hermione shouted at him. "He got really close to me and touched my hair and then started having a-basically a make out session with my neck."

"Did you enjoy it?" Ron fumed.

Hermione gagged and said,"Of course not! I pushed him away and left as soon as I figured out what he'd been trying to do."

"Good," muttered Ron. "Malfoy is gross."

Harry finally broke into the conversation and announced, "No matter how 'gross' Malfoy is, that doesn't change the fact that he knows we're meeting up and that he'll do whatever is necessary to find out."

"How did he even find out?" Hermione wondered. "No one else has noticed."

"I don't know, but we need to tell the group to start being more careful."


After the moment between Draco and Hermione in the library, Draco found himself constantly snapping at anyone who tried to interact with him. At one point, he even jinxed some first year's face to break out in boils. That burst of anger also landed him in detention with Professor McGonagall later that night.

He hadn't told anyone about the game he tried to play, about how he had tried to lead Hermione into a mind of deception; no, Draco did not want to further embarrass himself. How would Crabbe and Goyle take to Draco getting so intimate with a mud-blood, even if it was fake? Or Pansy? While the two dimwits would probably just tease him for it, Pansy would be heartbroken.

Draco shook his head and soon forgot about the thoughts that were unimportant. What he needed to worry about right now was how to get Granger to confess. Draco should've been smart; he should've just decided to play someone else, but now Hermione had lit some kind of spark in him and the smoke from it reeked of determination. Granger humiliated him and now it was going to be his turn to humiliate her. No matter what it took, Draco was going to make her come out to him, make her betray Harry, make her feel as he did.

Professor Flitwick walked in front of Draco, but he was so short that Draco could only see the top of his head bouncing below his desk. Draco was leaned back in the chair and didn't really care about anything his professor had to say. That was until he stood right beside him, shouting in his ear at a really loud volume; in which Draco snorted at his attempt to not get overlooked.

"I'm not going to teach you how to perform this spell, but I do feel like you should know a bit about it," started Flitwick. "Legilimency, often pronounced as legilimens, is a type of charm that can be used to look into the victim's mind to see their thoughts, emotions, and memories."

"Sounds like a way to be friends with someone," joked one of his peers from the back of the classroom.

Draco didn't find the joke very funny, but it did make him think a bit. Perhaps, he had gone in the wrong direction when he tried to do something a bit intimate with Hermione. Draco had gone too far. Hermione wasn't used (or he assumed) to kissing or hardly anything that had to do with relationships, for that matter; the only memory Draco had of Granger being with someone was when Viktor Krum took her to the Yule Ball last year.

Instead of pressuring her into something that she wasn't comfortable with, Draco would have to ease Hermione into something much more trivial; she wasn't like other girls, Hermione didn't obsess over having a boyfriend, so his original idea was not going to work. No, Draco was going to do something different.

He would form a friendship with Hermione.