It was later. Substantially later. March first. A seemingly innocuous date, but a rather significant one for a certain Ron Weasley. Hermione had picked this day to truly reconcile with him. They had been back on speaking terms for months, of course, but their relationship had remained somewhat frosty, and she had no desire for this to continue. So, at the last Hogsmeade visit, she had bought him a bag heaping full of Honeydukes' chocolate to give to him for his birthday. She had been saving it for the evening, but things hadn't really panned out as expected.

So, here she was now, sitting next to his bed in the hospital wing and trying not to cry. He had almost died after drinking poisoned mead, and they would have never had a chance to mend their relationship. It was too much, and she began to sob quietly into her sleeve. No one would hear her; Harry had gone to talk to Professor Dumbledore, and Ron was asleep.

"Hermione?" Ron said groggily, propping himself up on his forearm and rubbing his eyes. Hermione began to cry in earnest, and he tried to comfort her awkwardly. "It's alright, I'm not dead. Very alive. That's me."

"It's just–" Her voice was wobbly with tears, but she pressed on. "If you'd d-died, and we'd b-been fighting, I just couldn't–" Ron got up gingerly (Ha. Gingerly.) and sat beside her on the chair, putting his arm around her shoulders.

"Well, I guess we just can't fight anymore." That made her laugh, shakily. She pressed her face into his shoulder, and he just felt so warm and safe that she wanted to stay there forever. He seemed to be okay with that.

Ron mumbled something into her hair.

"What?" She lifted her head and smiled at him. His ears turned bright red.

"I, er, love you."

"I love you, too," she answered, almost automatically. Relief flashed across Ron's face, and red faded from his ears. Ron was speaking platonically, right? She certainly was. It would be incredibly awkward to have to spurn his advances, especially right after they had made up.

He was staring into her eyes with almost painful intensity, and she had a very bad feeling that he was going to try and kiss her. She didn't want that to happen, but she couldn't seem to break away from this trance-like state, so she just stared back at him. He gently raised a hand to brush a stray tear off her cheek, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

He leaned in. He must have taken her closed eyes as an encouragement, and her strained expression as one filled with nerves, or butterflies, or something similarly mushy. He was wrong. There was no mistaking where he was leaning to, and for what reason. Hermione pushed him away, as gently as she could manage. She felt like crying again. She swallowed.

"Ron, I'm sorry, I can't do this." Her voice was barely above a murmur. His ears were aflame again and he couldn't meet her eyes.

"You don't by any chance mean just not now?" His voice was even smaller.

She shook her head and took a deep breath. This had to be definite, without room for misinterpretation, and it had to be tactful. "Ron, you're my best friend. And I hope this doesn't make things awkward between us, but I just don't feel the same. I understand if you need some time, but I want us to be friends again." She forced herself to look into his eyes. He didn't seem to be taking it too poorly... "Do you want me to go?"

"I, yeah, I, er, need some time," he said morosely.

"See you later?"

"Yeah. Later."

She half-ran out of the hospital wing, and even made it most of the way to Gryffindor tower before bursting into tears for the nth time that day. It was too much, it was all too much. She had almost lost Ron, only for things to be potentially ruined between them all over again because of bloody unrequited love. She wished she could reciprocate his feelings. It would be easy, loving Ron. It would be like their friendship, full of laughter and warmth, but it would lack a spark. And Hermione Jean Granger deserved a spark, a madcap romance.

It wouldn't do, stewing on this all day. There was nothing to be done. So, upon returning to the girls' dormitory, Hermione retrieved her books and set off to the library. Just because her best friend had almost died didn't mean they didn't have an potions exam in the morning.

Things went back to normal. Or, as normal as they could ever be at a magical school in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes, it would hit Hermione all over again just how strange this all was, and how lucky she was to have been born into the wizarding world. It was still amazing to cast spells, to live in a castle, and even to have friends that she spent almost every waking moment with. Although recently, with the impending end of the school year, quidditch had been picking up, and so had homework levels, and Hermione found herself spending long hours without said friends at the library. Not that she minded.

Today was shaping up to be just like any other. Harry and Ron were out on the quidditch pitch, and Hermione was headed to the library. However, when she got there, she could see that she wouldn't be getting much studying done. There were students occupying almost every table, and their cumulative whispers created a sheet of white noise that not even Madam Pince's shushings could stamp out. To make matters worse, Hermione could only see a few empty seats in the whole place. In fact, there was a whole table vacant, save one chair. Its occupant was probably the reason for that.

Sighing, Hermione pulled out the chair across from Draco Malfoy. She gave him a forced smile as she sat down and pulled out her books.

"Malfoy, yesterday was the last time I am ever covering prefect duties for you," she said, looking at her notes instead of at him. Hmm, with all his missed prefect work, his steeply dropping grades, and his loss of interest in quidditch, maybe Harry had a point. Perhaps he really was up to something. "Although, I might be persuaded to change my mind if I knew exactly why you couldn't be bothered to show up. Busy doing something important? Or someone important?"

"No, I haven't even got a girlfriend," he snarled. She felt relief flood through her veins. Not because she was interested in him, obviously. It was just, this meant he could still be plotting something nefarious. Besides, it was nice to know that he wasn't doing any better than her in the relationship department.

"And how about that quidditch match last Sunday?" she asked.

"What about it," he drawled, not even bothering to make it sound like a question.

"You weren't there. I know for a fact you weren't in the hospital wing, because I went to get something from Madam Pomfrey right before the match." It had been tampons. But that wasn't important. "And Slytherin's backup seeker is rubbish. Whatever you were up to must've been pretty crucial in order to let your team get steamrollered by Hufflepuff."

He didn't answer. Then, he took a deep breath, and when he spoke, it was in a monotone, and it sounded like the words were causing him great pain.

"Will you help me study for the transfiguration exam this week?" Her heart skipped a beat. Hermione, play it cool. There was a fairly good chance he was using this to distract her from needling him further. But she really did feel bad for him; he looked exhausted all the time, and his skin was sallower than usual. Maybe she could even use this opportunity to make him let his guard down. She couldn't make this seem too easy, though.

"Why would I help someone that has been nothing but rude to me for six years, even when I've reached out?"

"I'm going to fail the course if I don't get some help, alright?" He looked so terrified, so vulnerable all of a sudden, that she didn't want to drag this out any longer.

"Alright. I'll help you."

So she did. Malfoy really wasn't that awful at transfiguration. Well, of course he wasn't, he had been in the running for Valedictorian just months ago. That was distant memory now, what with how school was going for him this year. He only needed to get back into the swing of things. After a few minutes of awkwardness and quite a few darkly muttered comments from Malfoy that were just too low for her to hear, they got into a good rhythm, and actually made quite a lot of progress. It wasn't until an hour later, when Hermione's stomach rumbled, that she got up to leave.

"Malfoy, I think you've gone an entire hour without insulting my blood status," she said as she packed up her things. Not including whatever he had been muttering under his breath the first few minutes of it. She didn't want to know. "I'm impressed."

"Don't get used to it," he sneered. "Don't get used to this. This was a one-time thing, Granger. I'm not going to spend all my time with a mud– A muggleborn. Okay?"

She nodded, and left, somewhat in shock at his decision to opt out of using the slur. He had still spit the word harshly, as if it were an insult, but it appeared as though he was actually making an effort. Maybe she hadn't been so keen on it initially, but Hermione would have been perfectly fine continuing to study with Malfoy now. She liked that his views were shifting a little more into the realm of tolerant (a girl could dream), but she also liked the little brushes of her fingers against his as she pointed out a line in the text, or when their arms brushed as they hunched over the table. The fact that she even entertained these kinds of thoughts just demonstrated how much she still clearly hated herself. She deserved better, so much better. Someone who was not even phased by her blood status, not someone who would still vaguely insult it, and someone who actually wanted to spend time with her when they weren't in danger of failing out of transfiguration. But the spark was undeniable. It was what she had been missing with Ron; it was what she craved. Still, she couldn't do this to herself.