Leaving the hidden room behind, Hermione quickly found herself trotting behind Malfoy, attempting to keep up with him as he fled the area. Clearly, he was looking to avoid speaking with her, she decided, and she found she was content to do the same.

They were thwarted in their endeavor not to interact with one another by the time they reached the caves, less than five minutes later. Pansy Parkinson was there again, snogging a Slytherin student Hermione did not know. It was not the same boy they had caught her with last time.

"Back with the Mudblood again, Draco?" she jeered, speaking to Draco, but looking toward Hermione for a reaction. Hermione chose to maintain eye contact with Pansy rather than watch the Slytherin boy adjust his tightened trousers. The boy scampered away as fast as he could before the prefects could ascertain his name and deduct house points.

"Believe it or not, Parkinson, some people come down here for other things besides slagging themselves out," Draco countered calmly. "Ten points from Hufflepuff."

Pansy rolled her eyes and adjusted her blouse, which had been shifted to the side to reveal the corner of her hot pink bra.

Eyes flickering to where the couple had been tangled around one another only a moment ago, Hermione stressed fairness by adding, "Ten from Slytherin, too."

At this, Pansy's eyes shifted to Hermione. She cast her a withering glare, "So, Granger, here you are again with Draco. Don't pretend as if you don't wish he'd snog you senseless down here… it probably would be the most action you've ever had." The pug-faced girl made a noise of disgust. "As if you'd ever touch a Mudblood, Draco!"

"Enough of your bile," Draco growled.

A simpering smirk drifted onto Pansy's face. "Admit it, you miss me… and I'm a lot more interesting than Miss Frigid Schoolmarm, here."

"Get back to your dorm, Pansy," he insisted.

Leveling her chin, the witch's vaguely seductive smile became something more feral in an instant. "Be careful, Draco. Just because the Dark Lord's gone, doesn't mean Mudbloods are fair game now. Imagine what your father would say..."

"I'll thank you to allow my business to remain my own," Draco reprimanded sharply. "Now... go back to your little badger hole, Parkinson."

With a hiss of displeasure and her nose in the air, Pansy stalked from the caves, her skirt sitting crookedly on her swaying hips as she retreated.

Admit it, you miss me…

Pansy's words ricocheted through Hermione's mind. So there had been something between her and Malfoy! Irrationally, she wondered how much Draco had given – or taken – when it came to Pansy Parkinson. Then, with a jolt she reminded herself that it was none of her business.

And she really did not care.

Right?

"Granger!"

Hermione started. "Yes?"

Draco shook his head and testified, "You've been staring at the wall."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Are you ready to head back up to the tower? Patrol is done."

"Right."

As they began to climb, the topic she had been dreading came to light: "So… Potter has a map of Hogwarts that shows where people are and what they're doing at all times. That explains a lot."

Hermione focused a glare at him, "It's not fair to use something I said under the truth-compelling powder against me."

"I'm a Malfoy. I don't play fair."

"I'll keep that in mind…"

"This map. Do you still have it?"

"No."

"And you wouldn't tell me, even if you did have it," he assessed. He did not seem annoyed; rather, it seemed as if her answer had garnered his approval.

They reached the fifth floor corridor that led to the base of Ravenclaw Tower. Draco stopped nearby the balcony she once found him smoking on with Nott and Zabini.

"Go on up without me. After the incident in Ravenclaw's study, I need a smoke."

"There is no smoking on school grounds, Malfoy," she reminded him sternly.

He shrugged, pulling a discrete packet from the pocket of his robes. "Take points if you like, I'm going regardless."

Puffing up like a popinjay, Hermione trailed after him as he stalked out onto the little balcony, fiddling with his wand and the packet. His hands seemed to be shaking somewhat; perhaps he really did need to alleviate some anxiety... still...

"Put that away," she demanded.

He did not answer.

"Please put it away," she tried.

The corners of his mouth tugged up at her attempt. "Nice try at manners, Granger."

"You are going to kill yourself smoking those."

He rolled his eyes, selecting one of the white cylinders and twiddling it between two slender fingers. "We have had this conversation before… almost word-for-word."

"If you don't put that away, I'll…" But Hermione did not know what she would do if he didn't, so the idle threat was rather unimpressive in the end.

"You'll what?"

She pursed her lips.

"The only way I am not smoking this cigarette is if you knock it out of my hands and give my mouth something better to do," he professed, gesturing with the unlit cigarette.

She gaped at him, while he merely raised a blond eyebrow and eyed her speculatively.

"I'll take that as a 'no,' then..."

"How can you...?" she stuttered. "Didn't you want to never even speak of it again?"

He lit the cigarette with the tip of his wand and sniggered loudly at her protestations.

"This isn't… ! You're not funny!"

"That's where you're wrong," he corrected, almost bored, "I'm hilarious."

Hermione contented herself with glaring at his cigarette. What on earth was he doing, trying to get her to kiss him again? Hadn't he said – only about two hours ago – that they were going to try to keep their one snog a secret? She was trying to keep her temper, but he was just so maddening sometimes!

She reflected on McGonagall's words when she had been asked to keep an eye on her fellow Ravenclaw prefect: Sometimes, in order to initiate a transformation into becoming a good person, all we require is the means to prove we are that person, already.

What scared her most, was she was beginning to see it…

'Everyone knows where my family's loyalties were during the war... I don't wish for my family's stigma to be attached to me for my entire life, you know... Keeping up the mask of indifference grows tiresome… I understand what it's like to have the war change the fundamentals of who I am.'

Narrowing her eyes, Hermione queried, "Why did you ask the hat not to be re-sorted back in with the snakes?"

'I like you better like this, when you're in desperate need of a hairbrush.'

Draco looked thoughtful. Meanwhile, tendrils of white smoke curled upward from his newly-lit cigarette. Extinguishing the flame at the end of his wand, Draco eyed it carefully before stowing it back in his pocket. Hermione felt sure he was stalling, contemplating just how much he should tell her.

How very Slytherin, she thought dryly.

"I think I've had enough of spilling my guts for one night, Granger."

'I kissed you because you looked like you wanted to be kissed, but mostly because I really wanted to kiss you.'

Though Hermione would rather have purposely not handed in several important essays instead of admitting to anyone that she had snogged Draco Malfoy and liked it… the truth was, she really did want to kiss him again. Badly. She suspected it would not give her a panic attack this time, so long as she was able to emotionally prepare herself for it.

He pressed the cigarette to his lips and seemed to visibly relax with the second inhale. When he exhaled deeply, hot smoke spilled into the night sky.

Her head screamed, No!

Her heart pattered irregularly and whispered, Absolutely yes…

Hermione made a conflicted noise of frustration and barreled over to him, slamming into his body. Her hand instinctively grabbed at the Ravenclaw tie fastened at his neck to pull his face down and she jammed her mouth onto his. He hastily dropped his cigarette, his hands newly occupied with posessively clenching around the fabric on the shoulders of her school uniform.

He tasted a bit like smoke, but mostly like desire.

It was truly a fascinating experience, kissing Draco – now that she was in the right frame of mind to enjoy it. His pale blond lashes lowered as his eyes shut just a split-second before hers. Hermione noted the purple bruises on his eyelids that indicated he had not been sleeping well for some time.

When she closed her own eyes, it was to savor the way his lips pressed against hers needfully. His tongue cherished her mouth in a deeply sinful way that reduced Hermione's knees to water. She could feel her blood pounding through her so quickly, it almost felt like it was singing as it coursed through her veins.

After a moment of fervent kissing, he lightly bit her bottom lip. To her embarrassment, the action elicited a small whimper. Even she was unsure whether the noise was the result of pleasure over the way he was worshipping her mouth, or mild terror over what they were both giving in to. Sensing the conflict, Draco gently wound one hand around the back of her head and the other onto the small of her back, pressing against her. He was warmer than she would have supposed.

They must have been snogging for longer than she thought, because when they finally separated, his cigarette had completely burnt out. He flashed her a mischievous grin and reached for another.

"I thought you said you wouldn't smoke if I kissed you!" she blurted accusingly.

"I said I wouldn't smoke that cigarette, not that I wouldn't smoke at all."

Hermione glared at him and stamped in frustration over the loophole. She made a show of wiping off her mouth as though clearing an area of infection, then cast him a mean look before she retreated. She made her way toward the first step of Ravenclaw Tower, gratified that at least he was not following her.

...He was so infuriating!

But damn him, he could kiss…

She went straight to bed, feeling she had been played like a fiddle. Curtains drawn around her four-poster, Hermione ran her fingers over her lips more than once, tossing around for a couple hours before finally descending into merciful sleep.

.

.

"What happened here?" Sue gasped.

The following morning, as the Ravenclaw girls were heading down to breakfast, they came across a series of extensive scorch marks on the wall of the first floor corridor outside the Great Hall. Hermione thought of the basilisk attacks from her second year and for a split second, the cruel hand of fear gripped her tightly.

Padma looked around to make sure no one was listening, and answered, "A group of second years attacked a sixth year who had been forced to use the Crucio on them last year…"

"That's horrible," Lisa whispered, staring at the scorch marks in alarm. They went almost twelve feet up the stone wall.

"You were here last year," Sue murmured. "Don't you remember how awful the Carrows were? They didn't give you much choice but to obey. Older students were forced to practice Crucio on first years with some frequency."

Daphne's jaw tightened, "It's not like we had any other option. It was either do that, or they would threaten your family. For whatever reason, they seemed to think the Slytherins enjoyed torturing the younger students the most."

"Daphne," Padma said slowly, "did you ever have to…?"

"Yes."

Lisa and Padma looked horrified, but Hermione jumped to her new friend's defense, "No one escaped the war without being reduced to emotional rubble. We all had to do things we weren't proud of."

"I just can't believe it was a group of second years," Sue voiced, casting the wall a suspicious look, as if it were to blame.

"That's nothing," Padma gossiped conspiratorially. "Hogwarts will have hushed it up, but last week a third year Ravenclaw boy attacked a Slytherin fourth year because the Slytherin's father killed the kid's brother. He was right in it with You-Know-Who…."

"There's no power in Voldemort's name anymore," Hermione scoffed, feeling sick to her stomach.

The other four girls blanched. Lisa spoke up, "We aren't all as brave as you, Hermione. Not all of us fought against him. Some of us just kept our heads down and wished it would all be over."

Hermione did not know what to say to that. She was very glad when they turned into the hall and she discovered Ron sitting at the Hufflepuff table with Seamus. It seemed Harry and Ginny had not made an appearance yet. She excused herself from her dorm-mates and headed over to sit with her fellow ex-Gryffindors.

"Morning, Ron… Seamus," she greeted cordially as she plopped herself down in the seat opposite the boys.

"Hey, Hermione," the Irish boy replied.

"Morning, 'Mione," Ron answered, happily enough. His plate was loaded with sausages and toast.

"You seem like you're in a good mood," she observed, helping herself to a muffin.

"Undefeated champ, right here," Ron bragged, puffing out his chest.

Seamus rolled his eyes, "He's insufferable."

Hermione started, as usually it was her that called Ron insufferable. It was strange to hear it coming from someone else. "What exactly are you undefeated at?"

"Hufflepuffs have a game room off the common room," Seamus explained. "There's just an enormous wall stacked up with board games. The older students use it to get to know the younger ones that come in and everyone pitches in to replace the pieces that break or get lost. 'Lotta solidarity amongst badgers…"

"Anyway," Ron illustrated through a mouthful of sausage, "there's a chess league that meets every week. Never been beaten yet!"

"Well you did defeat McGonagall's enchanted chess set in first year," Hermione conceded, taking note of which preserves and jellies were spread out on the table. She selected a greengage jam and dragged the jar toward her, cutting her muffin in half with her butter knife. "We already knew you were brilliant."

This seemed to be the right thing to say, because Ron's eyes lit up and he grinned widely at her. "Coming from you, I'll take 'brilliant' any day."

Pleased that their friendship seemed to be intact once more, Hermione dug her spoon deep into the jar and lifted out a dripping heap of translucent green-gold preserve. She let it fall onto the upturned face of her muffin, spread it around with the back of the spoon, then popped the spoon into her mouth to clean it. She abruptly felt a pair of eyes fixed on her, so she looked up, spoon still in her mouth. Draco was staring at her from the neighboring Ravenclaw table. Upon seeing she had noticed him watching her, his mouth turned upward into a lascivious smirk.

She pulled the spoon from her mouth immediately and looked away, her mind burning with thoughts of their liplock from the previous night. An unwelcome heat coursed through her. It was lucky that Harry and Ginny made an appearance then, because they sat opposite her and blocked Malfoy from view.

Ginny wailed, "I'm staaaaaarving!"

"You have come to the right place then," Seamus assured her.

The rest of breakfast went on without incident. Afterward, Hermione and Ron got up to leave for Defense Against the Dark Arts. As they made their way up toward the fourth floor, Ron mentioned the scorch marks on the wall from the attack. "Crazy, that. You'd think everyone would have had enough of attacking each other after last year."

"That's just the problem, though. People aren't sure how to behave anymore." She shook her head sadly. "Everything's changed now. I mean, sure, they rebuilt Hogwarts and Gringotts has finally reopened… there aren't any missing persons reports or body counts in the Daily Prophet… but people still aren't the same. How could they be?"

"They did get rid of all the dragons at Gringotts, I heard," Ron mused. "At least, that's what Bill said. Charlie was psyched, he always hated that the dragons were cooped up down there and, well… you remember."

"I'm pleased they released the dragons, too," Hermione admitted, recalling their harrowing escape on the back of one only a handful of months ago.

"But I know what you mean. Last week, George started talking about re-opening Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, you know? But the moment he set foot into the place, he had a mental breakdown and Mum had to take him to St. Mungo's because he punched through a window and wrecked his hand…"

"That's awful!"

"Yeah," Ron agreed soberly. "It'll be a bit longer before he can get to a good, stable frame of mind. Meanwhile, Mum is glad to have him back home, but she gets all teary whenever she sees him. She cries over Fred more than George does, I swear…"

"That's awful," Hermione commiserated. After a moment of silence where the two friends sank into reverie, she told him honestly, "I know you didn't want to, Ron, but I'm so thankful you and Harry came back with me this year - even if we aren't all Gryffindor anymore… and I'm really glad you have something like your chess league to help keep your mind off things, too."

Ron's eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled, launching into a play-by-play explanation of how he won his most recent tournament the previous evening. Really, Hermione thought, it's heartening there can still be joy over something simple after so many things were destroyed…

They were almost to the door for Defense Against the Dark Arts when she heard herself being summoned, "Miss Granger!"

Hermione and Ron turned to see Professor McGonagall striding toward them, her robes billowing impressively.

"Good morning, Weasley," she greeted. A passing group of third years looked startled at their notoriously strict headmistress smiling at Ron and Hermione familiarly. "May I borrow Miss Granger for a moment?"

Even Ron looked surprised McGonagall was asking his permission rather than telling him, even if it was just a courtesy. "Er, of course, Professor. I'll see you inside, Hermione."

He disappeared within.

"I'll only be a moment," McGonagall assured her in a low voice as she drew Hermione aside. "I wanted to know if you were keeping an eye on Mr. Malfoy, as I asked."

"Oh!" Hermione blushed, wondering if what they had been doing really counted as 'keeping an eye' on him. It was more like she was keeping her lips on him. "Yes, of course. So far, I haven't noticed anything overly suspicious…"

Privately, she added, Unless you count the fact that he seems to have performed a complete upheaval of his blood prejudices in mere months and is now interested in snogging a witch like me.

"I understood his father was released from Azkaban yesterday on a temporary house arrest," the headmistress continued. "Considering Lucius's influence on his choices in the past, I was concerned about Draco's reaction."

Hermione was surprised. "He never mentioned it. We don't really talk about our personal lives."

Unless we are compelled to do so by a magical powder made several hundred years ago by one of the Hogwarts founders… But Hermione knew she did not want to tell McGonagall about Rowena Ravenclaw's secret room. It seemed private somehow – yet another secret between just her and Malfoy.

The headmistress regarded her sternly. For a moment, Hermione was reminded of Albus Dumbledore and his piercing blue eyes that seemed to discern the truth from even the most meager of lies. "Thank you, Miss Granger. I'm pleased you have nothing to report. I will see you Friday in class."

Glancing up as McGonagall retreated, she saw Malfoy, Zabini and Nott striding down the corridor to class. They broke apart at the classroom door: Zabini entered first and did not even look at Hermione, but Draco cast her a lingering leer that savored of knowingness. Determined to ignore him, Hermione made to follow.

Nott held out a hand to pause her entry a moment and reminded her, "Remember, Granger, the library after dinner. By the section on medieval goblin rebellions."

As if I could forget, she thought, a little nervously. Outwardly, she only nodded once.

She watched Nott continue down the hall, presumably to his own class, before heading in after the boys to take her usual seat next to Ron. Preoccupied, Hermione glanced sideways where Malfoy and Zabini sat at their own table, and knew she had some questions of her own for Theodore Nott.

.

.

Author's Note: Hello, lovely readers! I'm glad people seem to be enjoying this fic so far. I love reading what you're thinking and reacting to the story... thank you so much to everyone who dropped me a review.

I also wanted to say a quick thank-you to zen8 for contributing the game room idea I ended up using in this chapter for the Hufflepuffs. Another thank-you is also due to I was BOTWP for doing some beta work on the first bit of this chapter (any mistakes after the first break are my own). Thanks, guys!