The week went by like any other: the normal Malfoy, being annoying and trying to get my attention, Ron with his hateful glares at him and Harry, as level-headed as usual. Then there was me, knee deep in books and homework and classes like it always has been. Nothing was different; there was no variance.

The only thing that changed was how I interacted with Malfoy. When I would go on patrols, I would always make sure to go alone—the thought of having to drag him around was too much, and his words about my friends still stung slightly. I ignored him in the mornings and went to classes alone.

It had been almost a week and a half since I had yelled at Malfoy when I was in our common room, doing more homework, when he came in through the portrait. I glanced up for a moment and kept working, not expecting anything from him. He had tried to talk to me before, in a friendlier manner than usual, but I would keep the conversations short and choppy for what I thought was to both of our benefit. Apparently, I thought wrong.

"Damnit, Granger!" He yelled out of nowhere. My quill slipped all the way across the parchment mid-sentence, leaving a line of black from one end to the other.

"Malfoy! You just completely messed up my Muggle Arts essay," I whined.

"Muggle Art," he scoffed. "You think I care about your essay on Muggle Art?"

"I wouldn't expect you to, actually," I said, my temper rising. "You and your stupid-"

"Granger, I was kidding," he said, putting his hands up in defense. I stopped. Was he trying to be nice or something?

"Listen, I guess I shouldn't have shouted. It's just… I don't…" He was stuttering. I raised my eyebrow, slightly amused.

"What, Malfoy?"

He gave me a look and finally dropped his bag down on the floor, then walked over to me.

"I hate it that you won't talk to me. It's annoying as hell. Please, just stop acting like you're in a coma or something."

I set down my quill and looked at him. "Do you know why I did that?" I asked.

"Yeah, I guess," he said sheepishly. "I'll just shut up about your friends, okay? If you do the same for mine. I just want to be… civil. I want some kind of agreement here. I mean, we're going to be living here together for a while."

I had to admit, I was taken aback. Here was Malfoy, apologizing (kind of) and asking to compromise. Suddenly, I felt dumb for not being the one to initiate a treaty.

"You're right," I said quietly as I looked down at my feet, some of my hair falling into my face. "I should've—Well, doing what I did was kind of immature," I admitted, tucking a stray curl that had fallen behind my ear. I looked up at him and smiled slightly, putting out my hand.

"Truce?"

He stared at me for a moment, biting his lip. I expected him to cringe at the thought of touching my "Mudblood skin" or whatever it was that those Pureblood idiots thought. Then he stepped forward, so that we were only about a foot away, and took my hand. Our eyes met and I froze. Even though we had stopped shaking, neither of us let go. I couldn't tear my eyes away from his. There was something stirring behind them that I could barely see, but it was also something that I couldn't figure it out. Staring into his gray eyes made me think of the green sweater that I had "borrowed" from him, that first morning over coffee, how he saved my life on the lake…

"But Weasley, I don't know if I'll be able to ever not hate that git," he said jokingly. I let go of his hand and blushed. I must've been holding it too long.

"W-well, I feel the same about Marcus Flint, actually," I said, also trying to ease the atmosphere. Malfoy, to my surprise, nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, I actually don't really like him either…" He said and shrugged. Then he nodded his head towards the door. "Patrols?"

I was surprised, but I let myself smile. Maybe this could actually go somewhere good instead of downhill. I stood up and followed him out the door.

Everything went fine, fine as in the usual but better: with arguments that were light-hearted and more like debates than anything else. On top of that, he made an astonishingly little amount of innuendos (a nice surprise as compared to before). I also noticed that he hadn't used the word "Mudblood" to refer to me, not even once.

"So… Why does The Weasel—I mean, Weasley—why is he so protective of you? Whenever he sees me and you even five meters near each other, he always grabs you away from me. It's like I was going to mug you or something," he snorted. I could hear the irritation dripping from his voice.

"I don't know, I guess he's always been a bit like that," I shrugged. I didn't understand why he would care at all about what Ron was doing. "What, are you jealous or something?" I snickered, deciding to tease him a little.

Malfoy rolled his eyes hastily. "P-please, Granger, don't push it," he sputtered. "A truce does not entail me falling in love with you."

I laughed a little and looked away. Of course not, what was I expecting? It wasn't as if I was thinking he would anyway, that was just way too far fetched.

I steered the conversation away from Ron and on to other things, trying to get my mind back on track, trying not to notice how he smelled of apples and spices and pine trees. Once patrols were over, we went to dinner in the Great Hall to our house tables. I sat next to Ron and Harry, both of whom greeted me warmly. The next thing I knew, dinner was done and I was walking back to my dorm. I saw Pansy Parkinson, Marcus Flint, and Theodore Nott in the hallway, hanging around. I checked my watch—the students should be getting back to their rooms eventually.

"Curfew's in about an hour," I reminded them plainly. "Make sure you aren't out after hours, otherwise that's a deduction of ten points for each of you."

Pansy snickered. "Yeah, or what, Mudblood?"

"She'll probably breathe on us or something," Nott sneered. "With her tainted Muggle-born germs."

I ignored them and told them again that being out after hours was punishable. Pansy rolled her eyes and nodded her head, signaling for them to leave. As they passed, Marcus Flint slammed into me and sent me falling onto the ground.

"Ten points from Slytherin for harassing the Head Girl, Flint," I said angrily as I sat up, rubbing my shoulder.

"In your rightful place, Mudblood, wallowing around on the ground," Flint jeered. "You watch yourself, or you're the one that's going to get punished." He leered at me in a disgusting manner, making me shuffle back instinctively. There was something in the way he looked me over that made me shudder.

Before I could even get to my feet, Malfoy had come over to my side out of seemingly nowhere.

"You okay? Did he say anything to you? Flint, I mean."

I looked at him in surprise as I gathered myself and stood up. I saw his hand come out for a second, as if to help me up, but then he put it back by his side again awkwardly. What was getting into him lately? He wasn't really supposed to help me up or ask about my health.

"Well, nothing that different from the usual, I guess," I shrugged. "The usual as in the whole 'Mudblood' stuff that I hear all the time."

Malfoy didn't say anything. He looked away for a moment and then back at me.

"Let's go back to the dorm, I'm tired," he said, stretching. I held back a smile; when he stretched, he looked sleepy, and it reminded me of how cute he looked that one morning many days ago. I shook my thoughts of that image and got back on topic, my usual Head Girl mentality taking over.

"Me too, but we have to go on patrols," I reminded him.

He groaned loudly, like a disgruntled child. "Fine," he said. "Where today?"

I shrugged. "By the library?"

We headed off in that direction, Malfoy with his hands in his pockets, trudging along. On the way, we encountered a few stray students, two of them snogging in the corner and another just wandering around. I told them to get back to their common rooms, but Malfoy just stood there and said nothing. It seemed that he was getting more and more tired by the minute. As we rounded the corner, I saw Ron come out of the library with a book under his arm.

"Hermione!" He said happily, coming over to greet me. Then he saw Malfoy and his expression hardened.

I glanced at Malfoy and saw that he now looked fully awake, as if he had never been sleepy at all. His gray eyes were glaring at Ron.

"So, 'Mione," Ron said, tuning back to me, "what're you doing around here? Came to study with me? If you were, then you're a little late, and you shou—"

"She's Head Girl, she's going on patrols," Malfoy drawled mockingly. "I would've assumed even you could have guessed that."

Ron sneered at Malfoy. "Yeah, I guess so. Otherwise, why the hell would she be walking around with you?"

Malfoy took a step forward and opened his mouth, but I stopped him. "Anyway, Ron, what were you studying for?" I asked, attempting to change the subject.

"Potions. I thought I would try and study ahead a little for once, because you do that all the time so it must be a good idea…" He said a little shyly and shrugged.

I smiled. "That's great of you, Ron," I said sincerely. "If you need help with anything, just tell me."

"Actually," he said, opening the book, "I was a bit confused about this-"

"Curfew's in fifteen minutes, get the hell back to your common room, Weasley," Malfoy commanded. I turned to him, but he was still glaring at Ron with nothing less than hate.

"I was talking to Hermione, not you, ferret," Ron retorted angrily.

"Ten points from Gryffindor for insulting Head Boy," Malfoy sneered. "Now get the hell out of here. You're wasting our time."

"I can talk to her as long as I fucking want. You got a problem with that?" Ron said, stepping closer to him.

"Yeah, actually," Malfoy replied, taking a step towards him in return. They were now about two feet away from each other, glaring daggers I could tell that this could get bad, very soon.

"Well what are you going to do about it? Take away points?" Ron said mockingly.

"I'll do a lot more than that. Whatever it takes for you to shut the fuck up," Malfoy growled venomously.

"Stop it," I demanded, stepping in between them, a hand on each of their chests. "Calm down, you two. Stop fighting."

They stepped away from one another, but continued their hateful stares.

"Ron, you should get back to the Gryffindor common room," I said quietly. "And we should get back anyway, Malfoy."

I could tell that their animosity wasn't going away, so I forcefully pulled Malfoy with me away from Ron. Once we got around the next corner, he shook my hand off from his arm.

"I don't need you to pull me along, Granger," he said angrily. I scoffed.

"Are you sure about that?" I said, turning to him and crossing my arms. "Because I was under the impression that if I didn't pull you away from Ron back there, you would have ripped him apart."

"Well maybe I would have," he retorted.

I sighed. "Don't get mad at me, Malfoy. I'm not getting involved in this."

He said nothing and continued walking, fists still clenched. I didn't understand what was going on between them, but it was obviously going to get vicious fast. It was inevitable that eventually, one of them would snap.

We walked in silence for a little while, and once I assumed that he had calmed down, I spoke up.

"Hey, you still sleepy?"

He turned to me with an unreadable expression on his face, as if he didn't understand what I meant. "Well, not anymore really."

"So you were just pretending earlier?"

He opened his mouth and closed it. "No. I don't pretend."

I raised an eyebrow. "Really, now? I guess you forgot that one time back in third year where the hippogriff slashed you in the arm, and you complained for weeks and weeks that it was the most painful—"

"Alright, alright," he huffed. "So that was one time. Big deal."

I continued to call his bluffs the entire walk back to the dorms, which I enjoyed thoroughly. It seemed that he couldn't quite get around me, which he admitted himself:

"Okay, you got me. Again."

I smiled slightly and said the password. The portrait swung open, and the lady gave me a wink. I rolled my eyes and walked in.

"But only because I'm sleepy," Malfoy added as he walked into the room.

I turned around, a disbelieving expression on my face. "But you-"

Before I could finish, he put up a hand and I stopped. Then he just smiled slyly and went upstairs.

It seems I had forgotten that he wasn't called the Slytherin Prince for nothing.