They were so close.

Hermione looked up at Draco and then looked away. Her eyes were drawn back to his and she forced herself to again look away from those piercing grey eyes. She didn't know what was happening. Something in the air had changed. It felt like all of the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. Her stomach felt like it was tied up in knots. It was getting harder to breathe. The world felt like it had been stopped by a time-turner. She looked up at Draco and he had that same look in his eyes. She flashed back to the way Harry had looked at Ginny.

Now she was just being silly.

They were so close.

She could count his eye lashes and she spared a thought for how beautiful they were. He was beautiful. It occurred to her as a strange thought but it was true. She found him beautiful. The pale skin, those grey eyes, his hair that was beginning to become un-gelled and stick out at odd places. Beautiful. Before she knew what she was doing she was leaning towards him and he was leaning towards her. Hermione knew what was about to happen and suddenly she began to panic.

She couldn't kiss him.

Really she couldn't.

So close now. Hermione could feel his breath on her cheek. Draco had stopped just mere inches from her mouth, his lips hovering just above hers. Just out of reach. She studied his lips wanting nothing more than to lean up and touch them with hers. She just couldn't. Her eyes were once again drawn to his. There was so much she wanted to ask but she couldn't think of the words. She was afraid. Terrified actually, of what it would mean if she did this. Of the way that he was looking at her right at that moment. The way she was looking at him.

Her heart was pounding in her ears. She could feel it reverberate through out her whole body. All of her senses seemed heightened. She could hear him breathing, his breath smelled so sweet, and he looked so handsome. So very handsome. What was she going to do? Her mind and body were all pulling her in different directions. Her heart... well her heart wasn't involved in this. Absolutely not, not even a little. This was teenage hormones. Nothing more. It could never be anything more.

She just couldn't.

She wanted so badly to touch him.

Hermione reached up and cupped his face in her hands and he leaned into her touch. His skin was so smooth. She wanted to kiss him. They stared at each other for a few moments and she hoped that he would understand what she had to do. It took every ounce of strength she had to pull herself away from him but she did. Her hands fell from his face and she got off the couch before she did something that she would surely regret.

"Good night Draco," she said quickly as she made her way up the stairs without looking back.

Hermione reached her dorm, walked inside, and then she shut the door and leaned against it. She didn't know what had almost just happened. It left her feeling confused and breathless and she didn't like that. She told herself that she had done the responsible thing. Hermione Granger could not kiss Draco Malfoy. She let out a long drawn out sigh.

That wasn't all of it.

Kissing... well kissing was kissing... it was all of the things that came along with it that she worried about. You didn't kiss someone that you didn't like. You kissed someone you fancied and she didn't fancy him. Couldn't really. He was a Slytherin and she wasn't. They were so completely different. Teenage hormones, that was all it was.

Hermione walked over to her bed and put on her nightgown as her mind continued to race a mile a minute. It felt like her feelings had changed over night for him and she had barely noticed. One moment he was Malfoy, who she hated and who hated her in return and the next he was Draco, a man that she wanted to kiss. Desperately had wanted to kiss. She pushed the regret away and told herself that she would have regretted it so much more if she would have given in and kissed him. She had done the right thing.

It just didn't feel that way.

Draco laid back on the couch, ran his hands over his face, and let out a heavy sigh. What had he just done? He replayed what had happened over and over in his head. He had come so close to kissing Granger. Hermione Granger, of all people in the world. For a moment he fiercely wanted Pansy Parkinson there so that he could block out the earlier events. He had to admit that he was embarrassed that he had been rejected by her. Rejection wasn't something that he felt often.

Or desire.

At least not like this. It had all washed over him like a flood in that moment when he was so close to her lips. When she was looking at him with the most beautiful look on her face. Confusion, he'd made out that one, felt quite a bit of that himself. There were other things that he wasn't so sure of. She was so... breathtaking. In that moment when he almost thought that she was going to kiss him his heart had plummeted to his feet.

Draco quickly changed into his silk pajamas and then laid back on the couch and covered himself with a blanket. He could see the snow falling outside and he watched it for awhile thinking about her. She was stuck in his head, like usual, but now it was so much worse. Again he replayed things in his head. The way that she had touched his face had been so tender. No one had ever touched him like that. Ever. His heart began to pound as he thought about it. He told himself that regardless of that he ought to banish these feelings that he was having before they got him into trouble.

Feelings.

That was a complicated thing in itself. Draco usually had feelings of fear, that was an easy one. Fear of failure, fear of his father, fear of the Dark Lord. He also felt anger, anger which he usually took out on his classmates. Any other feelings were somewhat alien to him. It was as if someone had dropped all of these other feelings in his hands like a tangled ball of yarn and expected him to sort them out.

Well, he couldn't.

Part of him was determined to push all of those feelings down so deeply that they could never be unburied. The other part of him wanted to simply figure it out along the way. He finally began to drift off to sleep wondering if pursuing Granger was a good idea. He wasn't even sure if she was pursuable. It was Granger after all. Still, it was harmless wasn't it? So what if they kissed. There was nothing wrong with that. She was single, he was... unattached. It wasn't like doing anything with her meant anything.

Nothing at all.

Completely meaningless.

Right.

Hermione sat at the breakfast table staring blankly into a bowl of fruit flavored oatmeal. Two days had passed since she'd nearly kissed Draco. Two days of being driven to complete distraction. She wanted to talk to him but they hadn't had a moment alone together. She wasn't sure if she was avoiding him or he was avoiding her or no one was avoiding anyone and Harry and Ron just had bad timing. Regardless of that she wanted to talk to him. Last night they had all been in the Common Room together and she had managed to procure a game of Wizard's Chess with him. He had won. She had been too busy concentrating on the fact that their feet were touching under the table to think about anything else.

It wasn't even that their feet were touching in any other way that normal peoples' feet touched. Her feet had been planted firmly on the ground and his feet had been in front of hers with their toes touching. Just that simple physical contact had made her mind fill with thoughts of him. She had spent the last few days trying to analyze what had happened and how she felt and she had given up. Nothing was making sense and there was no equation that could help her figure it out.

Speaking of equations she still had arithmancy homework to do. A trip to the library after breakfast might not be a bad thing. She had managed to finish her essay on Potions the other day and she was quite proud of the finished project. Ron and Harry however were hopeless. Those two had stayed up long after she had gone to bed trying to get a start to their homework. Hermione yawned. It was still rather early, she wasn't even sure that Ginny would be awake anytime soon. Draco had still been fast asleep when she had crept through the Common Room.

Hermione had nearly gone over to him and woken him up but she'd changed her mind at the last minute. The more time she spent away from him the less confused she would be. She was halfway finished with her oatmeal when she heard footsteps approaching the Great Hall. She looked up and tried to keep her lips from forming in a smile. Draco was walking towards her. She turned her attention back to her oatmeal and tried not to let her feelings show. She was suddenly feeling all giddy inside.

Through the corner of her eyes she saw him walk around to her side of the table. She had a moment of panic as she wondered if he was going to sit with her. He did. She resisted the urge to move over as he sat down right beside her. Their elbows were almost touching. Hermione felt herself turning red.

"Good morning," she said as she stuffed a spoonful of oatmeal in her mouth.

"Morning, Granger," he said. Hermione casually watched as more food appeared on the table before them. Draco grabbed a plate and piled some eggs and bacon onto and then began eating.

The silence was getting on Hermione's nerves. She had no idea what to say or what to do. She couldn't say that she'd ever been in this position before. Did she talk about her feelings and make a huge fool of herself or did she simply pretend that it didn't exist? Well, she needed to square it all away and that's just what she was going to do. If she made a fool of herself then so be it.

"About the other night."

"Yes?" Draco asked turning towards her. He was giving her that intense look again. She wanted nothing but to roll her eyes in exasperation and tell him to stop it so that she could have just a little piece of mind. He wasn't cooperating.

Her mouth suddenly felt very dry so she took a sip of her tea, mentally preparing her words.

"I've gotten quite fond of you lately."

Oh yes, wonderful way to start.

"I'm fond of you too Granger."

Hermione looked over at him and tried to keep a goofy look off of her face. He was fond of her. It made her want to squeal like a school girl and she wondered when she had turned into Pavarti and Lavender. She really wanted to bang her head against the table. What could she possibly say now? She had no idea where the conversation was supposed to go now, despite the fact that she had started it to begin with. Well. They were fond of each other. That was a good thing. You should be fond of your friends. Friends, friends, friends. Exactly what they were.

"Would you like to come to the library with me and get some homework done?" she asked, opting to ignore the other conversation altogether. Anything she said now was just going to get her into trouble and make her feel silly. But one thought kept running through her head.

He was fond of her.