Pansy was surprised that none of the other Gryffindors were treating her worse than usual. In fact, some of them were actually being a bit nicer to her. Their collective misery seemed to have brought them closer together. But what really surprised Pansy was that Ron hadn't told anyone what she'd done.

She knew that if she had been in his position, she would have been telling everyone she could. She didn't understand why he wasn't.

Maybe he's just a better person than you are. The annoyingly persistent voice in her head whispered. She supposed that she should get up to thank him, but she was having too much fun sitting by the lake and wallowing in self pity.

She was plucking out grass and repeating Dumbledore's words in her head when two people plopped down beside her.

"Blaise!" she exclaimed and tackled him in a hug. "I've missed you."

Blaise had been her friend for years, or as close to a friend as she could have. She knew that if he ever had to pick between her and Malfoy, he'd pick Malfoy.

"Hey Pansy." he ruffled her hair. "Long time no see. This house exchange thing's been taking up all my time."

"Yeah, don't you hate it too?"

"Nope." Blaise was looking past her head. It was on;y then that Pansy turned and noticed the other figure that had sat down next to her.

"Patil." Pansy said coldly. "What are you doing here?"

"She's my friend, Pansy." Blaise's voice was sharp.

He likes her. A lot. She realized. She instantly softened her tone.

"You're the other student who got switched to Hufflepuff aren't you?" She glanced at Blaise and he grinned back at her, appreciating her effort at being nice.

"Yep. Anyway, we'll get straight to the point, we heard about the Gryffindor thing and we already know that you did it- don't look so shocked, Blaise knows you pretty well and I'm smart enough to figure it out. And we heard that Malfoy dumped you as well. So since Blaise won't shut up about how dejected you must feel right now and I can't tolerate his whining, we've come to offer you our help."

"I don't want reveng-"

"We're not offering you revenge. That's the Sytherin way of doing things. We're offering you help in making friends. Trust me you'll love your new house if you manage to make friends. This was all Blaise's idea." Padma beamed at Blaise proudly.

Pansy whipped her head around to look at Blaise. "Hufflepuff is getting to you, Blaise. I like it."

"Granger." Draco sat down in the seat across from her and threw a quick glance around the library to see if he could spot Madame Pince.

"I'm studying, Malfoy."

"Yes, I can see that but that assignment isn't due for another week."

"Malfoy, I saw you in the library working on it last Monday." She grinned broadly at him and he was stunned into silence for a few seconds. Her behavior had been off ever since she'd fixed his nose.

"Just come with me, Granger."

"What? No. I'm studying."

"Granger." He did his whiniest and most petulant voice. "Granger, I'll whine until you listen and you'll never get anything studied while I'm whining."

She huffed and slammed her books shut but Draco could see the smile tugging at her lips as she put her books into her bag.

She's so...fierce. He thought to himself as he leaned back in his chair and watched her.

He snatched the bag out of her hands. "I'll be carrying that, thank you." His face dared her to argue with him.

"I'm capable of carrying it myself, Malfoy." she narrowed her eyes at him.

"I know you are. But my mother taught me manners. Just stop arguing for once in your life." he scowled at her.

She shrugged. "Whatever you want. It's pretty heavy anyway so this just benefits me."

They walked in silence back to the Slytherin common room. It didn't feel awkward at all, they were used to patrolling the corridors at night together. He led the way up to the boy's dormitory and knelt in front of his trunk.

"I have something for you."

"If it's another snake, Malfoy..." she sounded weary and he chuckled.

"Relaaax, Granger. It's something you'll like." He pulled out four books from his trunk.

"I had mother send me these from the Malfoy Manor library." He sounded slightly embarrassed and defensive. "because you lent me your book on the Swarthog and you fixed my nose and I don't like being in debt to anyone. You won't find these books anywhere else, they're pretty rare and I know you like reading so..."

His voice trailed off.

"Thank you..that's really sweet of you."

"I'm not sweet, Granger." He looked disgusted but he sounded pleased.

She reached out to take the books from him but the second they touched her skin she felt a searing flash of pain and dropped them on the ground. She examined her hand, it had turned an angry red colour in the place she'd touched the book. She nursed her hand close to her chest.

"Here, let me see. There must be some protective enchantments on the books to stop mud- those without pureblood from touching them." She thought she heard a flash of disgust in his voice and wondered if it was aimed at her. She'd thought that they were past that by now. She didn't think that they were friends, but she'd hoped that he had at least begun to see her as an equal.

"I can fix it myself, Malfoy." she said, more sharply than she'd intended to.

"You don't need to do everything yourself, Hermione." He sounded exasperated and angry. It was the first time he'd called her by her name and he didn't even seem to have noticed. It had just slipped out.

She held out her hand and he took it, examining the angry burn. She did her best to ignore the sudden flurry of butterflies in her stomach. It's only because I'm not used to him being so close to me. She told herself.

When he took her hand and brushed his lips across her palm she couldn't stop her sudden intake of breath.

"Murtlap essence," he muttered, " and dragonhide gloves when you touch them."

His face was close to hers and he was still looking down at her hand.

She acted without thinking and pressed her lips on his. He widened his eyes but after a moments hesitation, he cradled her face with both his hands. The books lay forgotten on the floor.

When they finally pulled apart, Hermione's face was as red as Ron's hair from blushing so hard.

"I should go. Thank you for the books." she levitated them out of the room and hurried out after them, leaving him standing there in shocked silence.

Ayyy thank you all for the lovely reviews. Draco and Hermione finally kissed! Yay! Tell me what you think?