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Some Things Are Meant To Be

The best is yet to be

The past is like a river flowing out of sight;

the future is an ocean filled with opportunity and delight./i

-Anna Hoxie

Mornings were most definitely the worst time of the day. They were usually cold, no matter what the weather, and it was often then when bad news was delivered. Often this happened through the mail which was received but today bad news was going to come in a different form.

Hermione Granger had dragged her self out of bed having a night greatly lacking in sleep. Her close encounter with Draco had left her speechless and with a lot on her mind. Her mind was already complex and she couldn't deny that every night when she went to bed she spent the first hour or so thinking over the days events. But last night took her hours to get to sleep following a night full of constantly waking up with new thoughts.

It was highly unusual for Malfoy to act in the way he did. Not only did he come exceptionally close to her, risking her 'dirtiness' rubbing off on him, but she was almost positive that what happened between the two could have been classed as flirting. She'd probably run a hundred reasons through her head of why he did what he did.

He could have been doing it to prove that he could have even Hermione in the palm of his hands, giving up when he realised, or so he thought, that it hadn't worked. Maybe he was having a momentary lapse of craziness; that could certainly explain his odd behaviour. The answer could have been that he was doing it simply because he was a guy; every guy needs a bit of closeness with the opposite sex once in a while and maybe he was getting bored.

But, there was always that stupid little voice at the back of her mind which was telling her it was stupid to run all these reasons through her head. It constantly told her that he was Draco Malfoy and none of these reasons could explain his behaviour because he would never, in his opinion; sink that low. So the only reasonable explanation would be that…maybe he was flirting because he found him self attracted to her.

Hermione shook her head and rested her head on her hands as she stared down at the plate in front of her. She couldn't bring her self to eat; the problems just kept building up. Firstly she found her self waking up in the hospital wing from a nasty bump on the head to a world which she could not remember. It wasn't even as if she had to learn everything all over again because she could remember nothing (something she was beginning to wish had happened), she had memories; just the wrong ones. Next she finds that one of her best friends is now friends with their worst enemy and part of Slytherin house. Then she is told that she is best friends with the Slytherin pug herself; Pansy Parkinson and, to top it all off, her other best friend is nowhere to be seen. Oh, and just to add more complications to the equation; the headmaster of whom she was sure she'd soon be counting on to sort out her problems, was known in her world as the evilest person to walk the earth.

Truth be told, she hadn't had a lot of time to search for Ron; or other pupils which she knew. If she wasn't in a lesson she had been spending a lot of time in the hospital wing; recovering from traumatic headaches.

She pushed a sausage around her plate and took a proper look around the room. She found it so odd when she saw Seamus Finnigan sat at the Ravenclaw table talking animatedly with Blaise Zabini, and when she glanced to the Hufflepuff table to witness Cho Chang and Theodore Nott engaged in a heated game of exploding snap. Shaking her head once more she stood and turned to leave before coming to a sudden halt when she noticed a head of bright red hair mingled with the exiting crowds. If it wasn't Ron it had to be Ginny (only the Weasley's hair was that red) and at that moment she didn't mind which one she ran into.

Flinging her bag over her shoulder she ran from the great hall and was soon crammed between the many bodies of students rushing to their first lessons. Dodging people along her way she saw the red head and realised it was Ron straight away. Calling his name turned out to be a useless task as her voice was absorbed by all the noise, so instead she squeezed through the last couple of people and pulled firmly on his robes.

Ron came to a stopped and spun around to see a girl smiling back at him. He ran a hand nervously through his hair and he looked down at her with a wonky smile on his face. His hazel eyes looked questioningly at her but the girl stood in front of him didn't seem to want to speak. He knew who she was, Hermione Granger, Head Girl; but he'd never spoken to her in his life. So why was she suddenly approaching him.

Hermione guessed right away that Ron and she were most definitely not friends in this version of Hogwarts. The lanky red head proceeded to stare at her in a way that you would a stranger that had stopped you in the street. Hermione sighed.

"You don't know me do you?" she asked in a defeatist tone.

"Hermione Granger," Ron stated rather than asked. Hermione gave a small smile.

"But we're not friends?" she asked slowly. Ron tilted his head slightly and narrowed his eyes before shaking his head.

"No, we're not," he replied. "We don't speak in fact." Hermione was slightly taken aback by the way he was handling this. If a random person asked her if they were friends she would have been greatly concerned. Ron, seeming to have realised what her confused look meant, answered her thoughts. "I do, however, know about the bump to the head which you received and I'm assuming it has something to do with you thinking we're friends?"

Hermione nodded slowly, never removing her gaze from her once best friend. He seemed so different in this world; more grown up. Her eyes wandered down his body and she noticed he seemed lankier than the Ron she knew, possibly he was less lean. His hair was also slightly longer and glasses were placed upon his long nose which gave him an air of intelligence rather than made him look geeky. Her eyes came to a rest on the symbol on his chest; the one of Hufflepuff.

"So, you're a Hufflepuff?" she asked slowly. Ron nodded and gave her a polite smile. "Right," she said quietly. "Well it was nice to meet you Ron," she said with a curt nod before turning away. She heard a quiet mumbled "good-bye Hermione" as she turned the corner.

She found it very difficult to hold back the tears which stubbornly fell from her tired eyes and she rubbed a hand across her wet cheeks before entering the room of her first lesson.

Surprisingly enough the day sped by and in no time Draco found him self relaxing in front of the fire in the heads room. He was spread across the floor so that every muscle in his body was relaxed and he had a book held above him. His eyes skimmed the page as he'd read it many a time before and was only re-reading it now because he needed something to set his mind on. Granger seemed to be interrupting his thoughts as of lately and he found it extremely unhealthy.

A pureblood such as him self would be flanked for harbouring such thoughts for the mudblood; thoughts of lust nonetheless. The close proximity of which they had last night experienced had his head in a complete jumble. He found that he couldn't quite despise the girl as he once did and had to admit that the simplicity of what happened last night excited him; it was so forbidden. However, he vowed for nothing of the sort to happen again and found that focusing his mind on other things actually helped quite a bit.

Even so, it was hard to keep his mind of off the feisty Gryffindor when she entered the common room and stood over him.

"Can I help you with anything?" he smirked but scolded him self when he realised another thing this could mean. Way to keep your mind off it.

"I found Ron," she replied quietly as she took a seat near the fire.

"Weasley?" Draco asked as he too rose and took a seat across from her. Hermione nodded and gave an upset sniff; her voice broke when she spoke.

"He's in Hufflepuff and we aren't friends," she told him with watery eyes. Draco's mouth twitched, itching to form an amused smile which he refused to let show. But Hermione seemed to have noticed. "Is something funny?" she snapped.

"I just find it very amusing that this world seems to have placed him more perfectly than the real one," he told her cockily. Hermione would have jumped straight to Ron's defence but instead narrowed her eyes at Draco.

"So you think this isn't the real world then?" she asked slowly. Draco mentally slapped him self; she was meant to be the one to cave first. He supposed he would have to push his stubbornness aside for now.

"No Granger, I don't for one second believe that this is where we are meant to be," he said slowly and seriously. Hermione nodded and oddly smiled.

"I'm glad you've come around," she said with a raised eye brow. "So are you going to help me figure out what's going on?" Draco sighed.

"Listen. Just because I don't think this is where we are meant to be, it doesn't mean I am right. I just think it would be pointless to waste our time trying to figure out something that isn't even there." He looked Hermione in the eye and waited for her reaction. It was true; he was beginning to give up. He believed whole heartedly that he wasn't meant to be where he was, but if that was the case he was pretty sure everything would be back to normal by now. Any anyway, what could have possibly happened to make them end up this way?

"…and the things I saw seemed so real." It seemed Hermione had been speaking whilst Draco was lost in his thoughts but he was snapped out of them by her raised voice.

"You saw what, when?" Draco asked confused. Hermione huffed annoyed.

"When I had a headache Draco," Draco clocked on to her use of his first name but didn't mention it; it reminded him of the previous night. "When I experienced the headache I could see things. It was as though I was lying in the hospital wing unconscious but I could see and hear everything going on around me."

This caught Draco's attention and he leant forward curiously. "What did you see?" he asked slowly. Hermione swallowed and took a deep breath.

"I saw Harry come into the hospital wing and sit by the side of my bed, he was talking to me like you would someone who was in an unconscious state of mind until something started happening with you. He called for Pomfrey and suddenly everything around me felt so odd. It was as though if I reached out I could actual feel the table by the side of my bed and I was certain if I could get Harry or Pomfrey's attention everything would be back to normal," she dropped her gaze. "But I couldn't. I couldn't move at all; it was as though I was paralyzed.

Hermione looked up again to see Draco staring at her with wide eyes. They'd taken on that shade of navy again and Hermione tiled her head to him. "Is something wrong?" she asked.

"No," Draco said quickly shaking his head from his state. "I mean yes, I suppose something kind of is wrong. Or right," he was making no sense to Hermione. "What I'm trying to say is, I had that same vision during my headache; right before I woke up."

Hermione chewed on the inside of her cheek and relaxed back into her seat. If she thought all of this was odd to begin with it was now completely wacky! There was no way something like this could be happening unless they had some how been transported to a world in a different dimension and even that wouldn't explain the visions. Or how they got there.

"We have to do something about this," she finally said. "How can you possibly be sitting there saying that there's nothing we can do about it when you yourself experienced these visions?" her temper was beginning to rise.

"It's just a coincidence Hermione," Draco told her simply. "And I'm going to believe that until you somehow come out with an alternative explanation."

"Oh you really infuriate me you know!" she said heatedly. "Why can't you just admit that not everything in the world is simple and sometimes things happen which are out of the ordinary? The world isn't just a straight line; there are kinks and bumps along the way."

"Listen," Draco leant over the arm of his chair so that he was closer to Hermione and lowered his voice to a deathly tone. The storm was evident in his eyes but Hermione refused to be intimidated. "I've had enough kinks and bumps in my road to know that the best way to deal with them is to go around them. You have lived in a perfect little world and are to naïve to understand the problems that are out there; so don't be so patronising and lecture me on the complexity of the world."

Hermione's eyes flickered to the fire and then back to Draco who was still staring at her with raised eyebrows, as though waiting for a response. "I'm sorry," she mumbled as she dropped her gaze and turned to face the fire. "I guess everything's just got me kind of confused. I won't bother you with this anymore. But," she looked at him again. "If I get evidence I want your help; I'll probably need it." She gave him a wonky smile and he couldn't help but smirk as he held out his hand.

"Deal," he stated and watched the argument in Hermione's eyes as she wondered whether to shake his hand.

Deciding she would she clearly and firmly said, "Deal."

Inside Draco was having an argument with him self. Everything she'd said did make sense. He was acting as though this was just a coincidence but really, was that possible?

"Oh," Hermione suddenly exclaimed as she dug deep into her robes pocket. She pulled out what appeared to be menu and handed it to Draco. Looking down at it he recognised a very long list of songs. "Vold-I mean Riddle gave it to me; we're to choose the best for the ball."

Draco slowly nodded as his eyes followed his finger which skimmed down the list. Stopping on a song he particularly liked by the Weird Sisters he stated the name and a low base filled the room. He looked up and smiled at Hermione who nodded her head enthusiastically when the beat kicked in.

"Oo, I like this already!" she said excitedly swaying to the music in her seat. Draco watched amused as she appeared to slip into a world of her own with her eyes closed and her head bopping along to the beat.

"Do you dance Granger?" Draco asked over the music. Hermione flickered her eyes open and noticed that Draco had stood and was removing his cloak.

"E-excuse me?" she stammered. Draco chuckled slightly.

"I said do you dance?" he repeated with a charming smile which Hermione had never seen grace his lips before. He should do it more often, she found her self thinking.

"Of course I dance," she replied with a roll of her eyes. It wasn't a lie, she was in fact a very good dancer; a very good ballroom dancer that is.

"Come on then," he motioned for her to stand with a mischievous glint in his now sky blue eyes. "Show me your stuff."

Hermione blushed madly as he pulled her to her feet which suddenly felt four times to big for her body. "I urm," she looked to the floor. "This isn't really my kind of music to dance to," she told him as she looked up. Draco flicked his wand and the music stopped.

"Then what is?" he asked curiously with a small smirk. Hermione picked up the list of songs and scanned through 2 feet of parchment until she came to one she recognised. Stating the name clearly the room was filled by the noise of a brass band starting up. A small smile spread across Hermione's face; she loved this music.

Draco narrowed his eye before chuckling slightly. "I think you must be the only girl of your age which listens to this type of music," he said. Hermione smiled but refrained from answering as she let the music sound around her, having an odd calming affect on her nerves. She opened her eyes and glanced at Draco, noticing that he seemed oddly uncomfortable with this music.

"Draco, can you dance?" she asked.

"Of course," he replied quickly. "Just not to this. I mean, how would you dance to this noise?"

"It is not noise," she said sternly but with amusement evident in her voice. "It's the music to which you ballroom dance," she said matter-of-factly.

"Ballroom dance?" Draco mouthed with a look of disgust on his face. However, when he turned to voice his disgust in her choice of music he saw that Hermione had taken to twirling lightly across the floor. He found him self transfixed with her delicate footwork and the way her hair flew out behind her. Before he could stop himself he found himself muttering, "Teach me."

Hermione stopped her dancing so suddenly it was as though she'd forgotten another person inhabited the room. She turned to face Draco with a confused look on her face. "What?" she asked.

Draco was positive she couldn't have heard him over the music and thought to change what he'd said but again found him self self-consciously, this time more confidently, stating "teach me."