HELLO ALL! I know I've been slow, sorry! I've had a lot of work to get done, but here's another lovely chapter! ENJOY!

The rest of the winter break was surprisingly peaceful for both Hermione and Draco. They hadn't felt so comfortable around each other, even before their kiss or Draco telling her that Ron was cheating. Hermione wasn't going to accept what he had told her about Ron, but she was tired of being angry about it. They were able to peacefully coexist for the rest of the break, and they were both very happy about that. However, in the comfort of their beds at night, they each thought a great deal about each other- in ways they never had expected. Hermione was consistently dreaming about Draco, sometimes multiple times a night. Sometimes they would be on the couch, her head resting on his chest and his arm around her shoulders. Sometimes they would be on the floor and he would be on top of her, kissing her softly. Every time she woke up from one of these dreams, she felt slightly unsettled, and thought about the dreams for a while. She figured that it was just because they were spending so much time together. Meanwhile, Draco was having similar dreams of a slightly more risqué genre. Most of the time they started with Hermione slipping into his room in the middle of the night, wanting to get into bed with him. She would be scared of the dark, or of a storm, sometimes had a bad dream, and she would stand, shivering in his doorway.

Dream sequence

"Draco?" Hermione would whisper through the darkness, clutching her silky robe close to her neck with a shaky hand.

"Granger? What are you doing in here?" he would say groggily, sitting up in bed.

"I've had a bad dream and I don't want to be alone tonight… do you mind if I sleep in here? I can get on the floor…" she told him, stepping gingerly towards him. He groaned and rubbed the sleep from his face.

"No, just come here, the bed's big enough for you too. I can put pillows between us." He offered, moving over to create room for her. She hesitated for a moment, then joined him in the big, green bed. When he began to put pillows between them, he suddenly felt a hand on his wrist. He turned to look at her. Her eyes sparked in the moonlight and she was staring at him, giving him a look he had never seen on her face before.

"What…?" he began to ask her. But instead of answering, Hermione very confidently and silently moved to straddle his waist, then gently pushed him to lay back on the pillows. His breath became shallow as she leaned in and kissed him softly. And the second their lips touched, Draco always woke up, his pants uncomfortably tight and his heart racing. He was beginning to wonder what was going on in his head regarding Hermione Granger.

Hermione decided that the first thing she needed to ask Ron when he came back to school was about the alleged affair with Lavender. She didn't believe Draco that Ron was in fact cheating on her, but she knew she could not continue with her relationship without asking Ron about it. When he came back, January was nearly over. They went for a walk around the lake, and surprisingly, Ron was the one who began the conversation.

"I missed you, you know." He told her. Hermione nodded, giving him a small smile.

"Ron, I have to ask you something." She said, wanting to get it out and over with.

"Sure, anything." He answered.

"Did you- have you- talked to Lavender Brown since you dated her?" she asked him unsurely. He looked at her, eyebrows furrowed.

"No, why? I haven't even seen her since then." He told her.

"Oh, okay, no reason." She said, laughing lightly, as if it were something silly. Ron shrugged. Hermione knew that it wasn't true, what Draco told her. Ron wouldn't do that to her, she knew. She just wasn't going to talk to Draco about it, considering they were managing to coexist.

Soon enough January rolled around and Hermione had fallen back into her routine, although she continued to have frequent dreams about Draco. She was starting to wonder if this meant something, but she generally just tried to keep away from him, hoping the dreams would fade. However, twice a month she was forced to interact with the beautiful boy, and tonight was one of those nights. It was nearly the end of January, which meant the bi-monthly head's meetings was taking place. She and Draco would have to run the meeting together, and all of the prefects would be jammed into their common room.

Once all of the prefects had arrived, Draco cleared his throat loudly to cut off the chatter, and all of their heads snapped in his direction, the room falling silent.

"Alright, we're going to try to keep this short and sweet, we know that it's late and you have other things to do on a Friday evening." Draco said lightly, smiling at the group.

"We don't have much to talk about tonight, it's really just a follow-up from the issues we discussed last time. It seems as though the problem of wandering in the dungeons has been eliminated, so good job, Slytherin prefects. Have we seen progress with classrooms?" Hermione asked, directing her attention towards a pair of Hufflepuffs who were responsible for making sure no one used the classrooms after hours, considering a month ago Hermione had caught a couple having sex in the transfiguration classroom late at night.

"Yes, we've been doing rounds, and we put nightly enchantments on the doors, so there haven't been any problems. Uh- we were thinking we could start talking about the Valentine's day dance?" one of the girls suggested.

"Ah, right you are, February is coming up. Have we got any ideas?" Draco asked, directing the question to the whole group now.

"Well, we have some great ideas for decorations, floating pink bubble hearts! We found them in Hogsmeade, and they're perfect! As for food, we were thinking of having a chocolate fountain!" the same Hufflepuff girl commented.

"That sounds like a great idea, but I think we should probably have some other food as well. And drinks?" Hermione asked.

"We could have the three broomsticks bring drinks, they're famous for their love potion." Someone in the back suggested.

"While we're at it, they could bring some appetizers with the drinks." Draco added, scribbling all of this on a piece of parchment. The discussion about the dance continued for a while, and all of the plans were made by eight, at which point people started to clear out. All they had left to do was go and actually make the plans official. While most of the boys left, including Draco, some of the girls hung back to chat more with Hermione about the dance.

"Oh I'm so excited! I can't WAIT for this dance. I'm hoping that George will ask me, I've been mentioning it in big groups, hoping…" a girl named Katie confided in Hermione.

"I'm sure he will, Katie, I can't imagine he'd want to go with anyone else, I've seen how he looks at you in class!" Hermione smiled.

"What about you, Hermione? Ron must have something planned!" Katie gushed, giggling. Hermione giggled along with her, though somehow she didn't have that bubbly, happy feeling she usually did when she thought about herself and Ron at dances.

"Yeah, I'm sure he's got something planned, for sure!" she smiled, though this time it was an empty one.

"Well, I can't wait to work more on this with you! I'm going to go out with some friends, wish me luck with George!" Katie squealed, heading to the door.

"Good luck! Bye!" Hermione called after her, waving. Once Katie was gone, Hermione was left to her thoughts, mainly about why she was feeling weird about the upcoming dance. Trying to shake off the feeling, Hermione headed upstairs to grab her things before going to a party at Gryffindor tower.

Two weeks later it was a week before the dance, and Hermione was frantically trying to find Draco to finalize the plans. They had been killing themselves trying to confirm all of the food and drink orders, the band, the decorations, the tables and chars… the list went on and on. And the final plans were due tomorrow. And it was already a quarter to twelve. Hermione sat in her room, trying not to think about the dance, reading a romance novel from her late mother's collection. Finally, she was getting into a rhythm of reading, and things were steaming up. The woman was watching a man take a shower, and when he noticed that she was watching him, the woman bolted, running from the room. Before she made it to the stairs, the man had caught up, only a towel wrapped around his waist. Hermione's insides tightened as he pinned her to the wall, her eyes scanning the pages frantically, yearning for more. Soon they were undressing each other, and Hermione sunk into the pillows of her bed, tentatively reaching down to rub her wet folds. She let her eyes droop shut as she massaged her wet clit, and she let her mind wander. She tried to think of Ron, though she was becoming turned off thinking of him, so she thought of an ideal man… Sculpted chest, broad shoulders, a defined jaw, crystal blue eyes… floppy blond hair falling into his face… Hermione's eyes whipped open as she realized who she was thinking of. Throwing the book across the room, she pulled her covers up close to her chin and sighed. Then she heard the water running in the bathroom. Looking over at the clock, Hermione realized it had been over an hour, it was 1 AM. Hermione slipped out of bed, and slid into silk pajama bottoms that matched the silky top she wore. Grabbing the folder for the dance, she headed to Draco's room. His door was closed, and she tentatively knocked. She heard a few rustles and the door suddenly opened, so fast that her hair blew behind her shoulders. Draco was leaning on the doorframe, looking fairly tired as if he had had a long night.

"Listen, Granger, it's not a good time right now, it's late and I'd like to get some sleep." He told her, walking back into the room.

"Draco, I've been looking for you all over the place, and these plans are due tomorrow morning, we have to finish this now." Hermione said, stepping into the room without thinking. Draco sighed as he took his silver watch off his wrist.

"Fine, we'll talk about it now." He said, beckoning her further into the room. Hermione couldn't help but notice how different Draco's room actually was from the room she had imagined for him. It was surprisingly un-slytherin aside from the bed. He had a fluffy green comforter and striped green sheets. It looked about as comfortable as her bed was, so she sat down. If it was possible, this bed was more comfortable than hers, and she sank into the fabric. The rest of his room was decorated with posters of bands and quidditch teams, and the only photo he had was one of himself and his mother on his desk. His room was also incredibly clean. Hermione was used to the pig pen that was Ronald Weasley's bedroom, but this room was spotless.

"Well?" Draco asked her. Hermione opened the folder.

"Right, yeah, so we pretty much just have to make sure everything's been taken care of and I need to get the confirmations for all of the orders from the Three Broomsticks from you…" she said, looking intently at the folder. What she didn't realize was that Draco had been getting undressed while she read.

"Okay?" she asked him, looking up. Draco was standing there without a shirt, throwing the discarded one into the laundry.

"Wha-what are you doing? Would you- why are you- stop changing, we're talking about business!" she said, flustered and turning red. A smile tugged at the corner of Draco's mouth.

"Why, Hermione, is it distracting you?" he asked, conveniently standing in a way that showed off every defined muscle in his chest. Hermione gulped.

"N-no! No, of course not!" she said, trying to look down again, to hide the burning red of her face. Draco couldn't help himself from smiling now. He knew he had her embarrassed and he knew she thought he was attractive, and he wanted to play with that.

"What, you've never seen a shirtless man before? I was under the impression that you and Weasel had gone down that path… although Weasel isn't exactly a prime specimen." He said, voice dripping with satisfaction at what he was doing to her.

"Well, just stop doing that or I'm going to leave!" she said forcefully, trying her hardest to get his shirtless image erased from her head.

"Alright then." He said, and with that he took a seat next to her on the bed- so close that his leg was touching hers. So close that she could feel the warmth radiating off of him. He was leaning closer to her, and she could smell his cologne, intently looking at the papers she held.

"Oh for goodness sakes, Draco, put on a shirt!" she burst, her heart beating so fast she thought he might be able to hear it through her skin.

"Alright, Granger, don't get your nickers in a twist." He laughed, grabbing a grey t-shirt from his dresser and throwing it over his head. Hermione forced herself not to look. They finished their brief meeting in less than five minutes and Hermione left still a little red in the face. Why was she so confused about Draco? Why did she feel attracted to him? Silly girl, she thought, it's because he's god such an amazing body, that's all! She didn't like him. He tried to poison her against Ron, the person she loved! And she wasn't going to give this another thought.

Review please lovelies! Hope you liked it!