Disclaimer: I do not own anything having to do with Harry Potter, Hogwarts, or the Wizarding World. If I did, I would not be writing fan fiction online and would instead be rolling in piles of cash. J.K. Rowling is a goddess and all originality goes to her, I merely twist her storylines and turn her characters

Draco:

"Merlin, Malfoy open the damn door! We have to meet with the prefects in an hour!"

Groggily, Draco sat up in his bed, stretching out his arms as he lazily smiled at the morning. Last night he must have gone to sleep happy, because for some odd reason he felt good today. He hadn't felt this happy in a long time.

"Malfoy! I will curse you until all of your hair falls out! Unlock this door right now and get going!"

Oh yeah! Last night Hermione and I became friends… I finally have someone in my life who gives a damn about me…

"Malfoy! I don't give a damn about your beauty sleep get your lazy ass out of bed!"

Registering the shrill voice outside of his door, Draco backtracked. Maybe they weren't the perfect model of best friends overnight. Everything takes time, I guess. Chuckling to himself, Draco made his way to the door at a leisurely pace. As he pulled it open, he was met by the tip of Hermione's wand, and with a face that could easily have made a weaker man wet his pants. Malfoy wasn't a weaker man though, and he hadn't yet met a challenge he didn't face head-on.

"What's with all the yelling, Hermione? Haven't you had your coffee yet?" Draco smiled to himself as her name rolled off of his tongue, liking how it still felt different (in a good way) and foreign (again, in a good way). He started to walk past her to the kitchen, where he pulled out the coffee beans and started making himself a cup.

"Malfoy! We have to leave this apartment in-" Hermione's voice cut off as she looked down at her watch. "In 53 minutes!"

"It's Draco, Hermione. D-R-A-C-O." Draco shook his head as he mockingly scolded her. "Friends call each other by their first names, and since I call you Hermione you should give me the same courtesy."

"I think I liked you better as a mortal enemy." Hermione grumbled, but she didn't call him any derogatory slurs, she he supposed that was a good start. This was turning out to be their nicest conversation yet!

"Tsk, tsk. That's no way to talk to the person who is making you coffee, now is it?" Draco ignored the glares she was shooting him from where she stood across the counter.

"I don't like coffee Draco." Hermione said, specifically accentuating his name as if to point out that she was indeed following his previous instructions.

"Oh well, I guess this will be for me then." Draco smirked, having known all along the cup he was making was for himself. He just wanted to get her riled up. It was, after all, quite amusing.

"You are absolutely insufferable, you know that?" Hermione rebuked half-heartedly, with a soft smile glancing her fair features.

"Thanks, I've been working on my insufferability."

"Prat."

"Know-it-all."

"Idiot."

"Prude."

They continued arguing with little quips, until they tired of the back and forth and started eating breakfast. Parting ways, Draco left Hermione in the kitchen finishing her toast, while he went to go get changed out of his pajamas. Hermione was already dressed when she woke him up, so he was the only one who had yet to get ready.

When he finished getting dressed, he walked back out into the common room to find Hermione reading on the couch. He smiled at how natural it was for them to exist together suddenly. He had no idea how she had done it, but somehow Hermione Granger had managed to worm her way into his life, and he wasn't sure if he ever wanted her to leave.

Hermione:

Looking up from her book, she noticed Draco (how weird it felt to call him anything other than Malfoy, even in her head) staring at her with a smile on his face.

"What, do I have food on my face?" She laughed at his shock when he realized she had caught him staring.

"N- no, no. Your face is good. Really good actually. It's um… nevermind." Draco trailed off, one of his hands reaching up to rub behind his neck as he smiled awkwardly at the conclusion of his reply

"Good! Then let's go!" Hermione jumped up from her seat on the couch, and started walking towards to door, looking back to see Draco making his way behind her.

The pair walked to the meeting room for the prefects side by side, considerably closer to one another than they had ever walked in the past. They journeyed in comfortable silence, and when the arrived to the meeting room started prepping in the same silent manner. As the last of the prefects trickled in through the doors, Hermione started the meeting.

"As you all know, this year McGonagall has been trying to have more school-wide events, in hopes of creating greater inter-house unity. The school-wide intramural Quidditch game last week went well, but really was limited to fans of sports. Hence, the Headmistress has asked us to organize an event she believes will better connect a more diverse spectrum of students." Hermione paused, letting her words sink in before she unveiled the nature of the event.

"On October 31st, we will be hosting an All Hallow's Eve ball!" Hermione exclaimed. McGonagall had told her this information a few day's before the information session on the second Dark Lord, and Hermione had anxiously waited to tell people until now.

"Draco and I have already distributed assignments to prefect pairs. These pairs are coupled by year, but not by house. We believe this will help make the planning more satisfying to all of the houses, and enable us to fulfill a greater range of requests for varying houses."

On this final note, there was a small flurry of activity as prefect pairs found each other, grabbed their assignments from Hermione or Draco, and made their way out the door. After the room cleared out, Draco turned to Hermione with a demanding look on his face.

"When were you planning on telling me we were hosting an All Hallow's Eve ball? I am Head Boy, you know. I'm supposed to know about this stuff." Draco demanded accusingly.

"When Headmistress McGonagall called the meeting to announce it, you were M.I.A., so she only told me. You were probably with, erm, Madam Pomfrey." Hermione replied meekly, aware that she should have told him after she found out. It was just… he was always gone, and they weren't even friends until last night so she never really stretched herself to seek him out.

"You still should have told me…" Draco grumbled, but he didn't press the issue any further as they finished clearing the meeting room and started on their way back to the common room. It was a weekend, so they had no place to be, and took their time.

"If it makes you feel any better, I gave us the most fun task!" Hermione turned her head to look at her blonde co-Head, and waited for him to became interested in what she was so excited to do.

"What?" Draco replied with zero enthusiasm, staring straight ahead as they continued towards the common room.

"Decorating the Great Hall!" Hermione clapped her hands a little bit, as she jumped up and down while they walked. She was really looking forward to the ball, and thought it would be a great chance for Draco to destress, and for her to stop worrying about this second Dark Lord.

"Sounds great, Hermione." Draco smiled half-heartedly, and she knew he was mustering up as much excitement as he could.

"Okay. Why are you so mopey?" Hermione poked his shoulder as he spoke the password to the Opal-Eyed guard to their common room.

"Because apparently you don't care that I'm just as much Head Boy as you are Head Girl." Draco, who she wasn't expecting to reply to her question, spoke quietly, but she still heard him.

"Draco, come on…" Hermione was flustered. That Draco was this upset was surprising to her, and she didn't really understand why he was bothered. "I didn't tell you because we weren't really on friendly terms back then, that's all."

"Back then? It was like, a week since then."

"Well, things changed, haven't they. We're friends now, aren't we? We weren't friends a week ago."

"Well…" Draco stumbled in his retorts, but quickly found his voice again. "Why are we friends, Hermione?"

Hermione, about to reply with some stereotypical "Because we are, that's why", stopped herself, as she reflected on why they were friends. If she was being honest, there wasn't a good reason why they were friends.

"I- I don't know Draco." She replied with the truest answer she could find.

"There you go again, calling me Draco." Draco's back was to her, they stood just inside of their common room, neither having moved since walking inside.

"Would you prefer I go back to calling you Malfoy?" Hermione, not used to be confused, was entirely perplexed. She didn't understand why Draco had a problem with her calling him by his name, or why he felt the need to question their friendship.

"No, it's fine… just, I don't know, it's strange, isn't it?" Draco turned to look at Hermione, his face full of questions, searching her eyes for the answer's she couldn't give him. "I mean, we went from not being on speaking terms to being on a first name basis…. Normally, most people don't skip that many steps."

"Well, then I guess we aren't most people, are we?" Hermione shrugged her shoulders, then looked away from Draco while she took off her jacket and hung it by the door, unaware of how simplistically she had just answered a major defining question.

Turning back to look at Draco, who's mouth hung open (just a little bit), she cracked a grin. "Care for some hot cocoa?"