This one was requested by the lovely DramioneMez ! I hope it's acceptable!

Description: It's Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger's 8th year at Hogwarts and they've been selected as the Head Boy and Girl. Living in the Head Dorms together has gone off to a rocky start so Professor McGonagall decides to take it into her own hands.

Lovebirds

The new Headmistress McGonagall sat at the teacher's table in the Great Hall where Dumbledore had sat. She was gazing at the Head Boy and Head Girl as they entered, arguing over some silly matter before going to their respective House tables. McGonagall smiled to herself when she caught them stealing glances at the other from across the Hall when no one was looking.

The Headmistress had been watching them grow for the last 8 years into the people they are now. Most would say that the two were polar opposites, but trust be told, they were more alike than even the two knew. Their arguments no longer held the malice of previous years, it was more of a harmless bickering.

So similar yet different, like two parts to one whole.

"What are you so sickeningly happy about?" Severus Snape drawled from beside her.

"How would you like to have a little wager, Severus?" She suggested.

"And what, pray tell, would this wager entail?" He asked.

"Just a little match making," McGonagall said mysteriously to which Snape rolled his eyes.

"Between whom?" Snape asked tired of her vagueness.

"Why the Head Girl and Boy of course," she said smiling when his eyes bulged.

"Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger? You haven't been getting into my potions, have you Minerva?" Snape asked feigning concern.

"Would that be a yes then?" She asked.

"You'll need to give me more information than that, I've had too many failed wagers with the last Headmaster to agree blindly," he said.

"Fine, I bet you 20 galleons that Mr. Malfoy and Miss Granger will be a couple before their graduation," McGonagall suggested.

"That's quite a lot, Minerva. You seem oddly sure of yourself," Snape said suspiciously.

"Is it a bet, Severus?" McGonagall said.

"Yes," Snape agreed finally.

All that's left to do is execute my plan and I'll be rich, McGonagall thought, Albus would be proud. The Headmistress smiled to herself as she resumed watching the future couple.

"I wonder what Headmistress McGonagall wants," Hermione Granger said as she and the Head Boy walked down to her office.

"How should I know? We got the same letter," Draco Malfoy asked exasperated by her fretting. "She probably just wants to assign us more duties or something," he said.

"Yeah..you're probably right, I just have an odd feeling," she said nervously.

"Well if you feel like you need to hurl, please do it in the other direction," Draco joked.

"Ha ha," Hermione said with a roll of the eyes. They came to the entrance and Hermione repeated the password McGonagall had told them in the note, "Lemon Drops," and the door opened to reveal a marvelous staircase.

They walked up in silence only to find that the Headmistress was no where to be seen.

"Headmistress McGonagall? Are you here?" Draco called.

"Did we read the time wrong?" Hermione suggested. He took out the note that he and the Head Girl had received yesterday about a meeting. She hadn't specified what it was about, just that they had to be there at a certain time.

"No we're here on time," Draco said confidently.

"Let me see," she urged.

"Why? Don't you trust me?" Draco said.

"To be honest, not really," Hermione said as he handed her the paper and she looked over it.

"Told you so," Draco said childishly.

"Very mature, yes we're here when she said," she said.

Just then, Minerva McGonagall walked into the room. "Oh my, I'm terribly sorry to keep the two of you waiting," she said apologetically.

"It's alright, Headmistress. We actually just got here," Draco said and Hermione nodded in agreement.

"Wonderful," McGonagall said sitting down at Dumbledoor's old desk, "now let's get straight to it. I've selected you two to partake in a new competition I've devised in order to test your intelligence. Unfortunately what the competition entails is classified, to the contestants along with others, as to prevent extra research or practice which could give one an unfair advantage."

The two listened intently, this was their chance to prove themselves once again as a competent student. It was a new challenge and the both of them were quite competitive in nature.

"That sounds wonderful! You can count me in," Draco told her.

"Me too! When does it start?" Hermione asked excitedly.

"It starts...now," McGonagall said before pointing her wand at them and casting a spell neither could hear before there was a bright light and everything went black..

McGonagall was bustling happily around her office, it had worked! Now all she had to do was to keep them safe and cared for until they complete their task. She heard angry tweeting coming from the bird cage she put by her doorway.

The lovebirds were finally awake.

"Ah good evening Miss Granger, Mr. Malfoy. I hope you slept well," she said politely. More outraged tweeting followed, "now I know you don't understand what is happening yet but allow me to explain," she continued and waited for them to quiet down.

"Now, in order to test your intelligence I've transfigured the both of you into birds-" she began before the white bird began chirping angrily, "Mr. Malfoy please let me finish," she said sternly to which he stopped, "thank you, now as I was saying. You will remain birds until you each learn to fly, the one who flies first will receive a reward of 10 galleons and their own painting in the castle."

The brown bird chirped to which McGonagall replied, "yes Miss Granger, I can in fact understand what the both of you are saying. However, others will not be able to as it was me who cast the spell."

Hermione Granger could not believe her ears, her Professor -her favorite Professor- has just turned her and Draco Malfoy, of all people, into birds! And not only that but they have to stay like this until they can learn how to fly? What on Earth had they gotten into?

"Alright now if you don't mind, I have another arrangement I need to attend to. Until I get back you can discuss strategies and such, either of you care for a biscuit?" McGonagall asked.

"Yeah because that's what we're concerned about right now, biscuits! I'm a bloody pigeon!" Draco exclaimed.

"Actually, Malfoy, you aren't a pigeon-" Hermione began to explain.

"Do you think I bloody well care what breed of bird I am right now?" Draco said angrily. Hermione shot him a death glare but didn't say another word, it wouldn't do anyone any good.

However, McGonagall appeared to be unfazed by his words, "alright well I'll leave it here if you change your mind." The Headmistress then put a biscuit in their cage before swiftly left the room with a secret smile on her face.

They two were quiet for a long time, Draco calming himself so he didn't lash out again and Hermione trying to process what had just happened. Draco did feel bad for lashing out at her, he wasn't mad at Hermione, he was just got angry because of the situation.

"Listen Granger, I'm-I'm sorry for..lashing out at you. I know this isn't your fault and I'm sorry," he said meekly.

Hermione looked at him in surprise, "oh uh thank you, Malfoy, I accept. I understand how you're feeling right now."

"Right," Draco said remembering that he wasn't the only one in this mess, she was probably just as frustrated as he was at the situation at hand. After a few moments of painful silence, Draco looked over to see Hermione spreading out her wings -wow how crazy does that sound- and lightly flapping them. "What are you doing?" He asked curiously and amused.

"Trying to test these things out, if I'm going to learn how to fly than it'd be better to have a feel for what I'm using," Hermione explained.

"That's actually a good idea," he said testing his own out as well.

"Just because that's rare for you to have a good idea doesn't mean it is for me too," Hermione said jokingly.

"Hilarious," Draco said without humor.

"Thank you," she said happily.

There was a long silence that ensued, it started by them simply being distracted by their task at hand by then they realized that they really didn't know how to talk to one another. At least without starting an argument. Neither of them wanted to stir up more anger in themselves or the other.

"Granger?" Draco said trying to get her attention.

"Yes, Malfoy?" She said looking over at him.

"I've been meaning to talk to you since we got back at Hogwarts. I would've sooner but you were always with someone or it wasn't a good time..or maybe I was just making excuses to put this off but mows as good of a time as any, right?" Draco said before taking a deep breath to steel himself.

"Ok, you have my attention," Hermione said encouragingly.

"I want to apologize, for being an arse to you and your friends all these years. Since the War..I at least like to think that I've changed for the better, I'm trying. I don't know if you'll ever forgive me and I don't blame you. Nothing can excuse my actions but perhaps I can help you understand them," he began before looking to her to gauge her reactions and to see if he should continue.

At her nod Draco continued, "my parents, my father especially, they've never hid their views from me. Father would certainly give me lecture after lecture about all of it, making sure I came out to be a true Malfoy as he called it. The only people they socialized with held the same views as them, so I've never been exposed to any different ideologies until Hogwarts. I was confused and angry that I didn't understand, I took it out on the wrong people"-he looked up at her-"by the time I got enough guts to admit to myself that everything I've known was wrong, the Dark Lord took up residence in Malfoy Manor. I had lost my chance, I took too long and I couldn't find a way out," he concluded feeling himself getting consumed by the memories of the past.

Things he's tried to block out coming out front and center. Lucius' disappointed face, Voldemort's disgusting face, Goyle's face among the many other's who were lost in the war. All the ways he could've gotten out of the Dark Lord's clutches that seemed so impossible during the time.

"Oh Draco.." Hermione said bringing him out of his thoughts. Before he knew it she had enveloped him in what he could only imagine was supposed to be a hug, but how exactly could a bird hug another bird? "I forgive you. I already could tell you didn't want to be apart of all that but I never thought of it like that..plus while we've been bickering like cats and dogs, you've never shown any malice or tried to hurt my feelings," she said.

Draco was kind of glad that they hadn't been human for this to take place, if she had hugged him properly when he was in this state of mind he might let her see too much of the emotions he kept locked up tight.

"Thank you..Hermione," Draco told her. He found it odd how she used his first name instead his last as per usual but he figured he'd try it that way.

After this they had chatted a bit, reminiscing old memories that weren't bad to think of. Such as when Draco had waited for Harry to get out of class just to insult him and the time Hermione had punched Draco. They laughed at their childhood foolishness before getting on the subject of their future.

"I'm still not sure what I want to do, I know Harry and Ron will be choosing to be Aurors so I've been tossing that idea around," Hermione confided.

"With all the three of you have been through, I imagine you'd be running the department before long," Draco told her. It surprised her how well he could talk about Harry and Ron without letting his old feelings for them get in the way.

"What about you?" Hermione asked genuinely interested.

"I want to be a Healer," Draco told her almost shyly.

"A Healer? I've never pegged you the type," she admitted.

He chuckled, "yeah well, I didn't either. It was my mother's dream before marrying Lucius, he didn't approve of her wanting to work and during..the last few years, she's shown me the little bit she knows as she had me help her patch up people," he told her, "I found that I quite enjoy it too."

She smiled at that. Who would've thought Malfoy would become a Healer of all things?

Eventually McGonagall came back and they went to sleep for the night, hoping that tomorrow they would have better luck.

A few days had gone by, McGonagall had let them out of their cages to try their attempts at flying. So far, they'd both failed miserably. Flying, they've found, is much more difficult than ordinary birds make it look. The Headmistress watched them amused for awhile before heading out to teach her classes. The two continued to try to fly and discuss different ways of figuring it out but no answers were found.

Harry Potter had come into her office after classes had ending, very concerned. He asked if she knew where Hermione and Draco were, as they hadn't been seen since the mysterious meeting McGonagall had set up. However, the Headmistress had assured him they were fine and were in fact would be gone a few more days as they were competing in a competition.

"A competition? What sort of competition?" Harry asked warily, the last Wizarding competition he knew of was the TriWizard Tournament.

"No need to worry, Mr. Potter, it is nothing dangerous. Just a battle of wits," she assured the boy.

"When do you expect them to be back?" Harry asked.

"It all depends on them at this point, not too much longer I'd figure," McGonagall said.

Harry seemed to accept this and made his leave, but stopped when he came across the birds sitting on her desk tweeting away. He looked at them for a few seconds.

"These are new, when did you get these birds, Professor," Harry asked. It was difficult to think of her as the Headmistress, even the thought of Dumbledore was difficult to bare.

"What? Oh not too long ago," McGonagall answered trying to avoid his questions without having to lie.

"There's something...oddly familiar about them but I can't place it," Harry said before shrugging it off and leaving.

Hermione and Draco had grown closer, even daring to call each other friends and calling each other by their first names regularly. McGonagall would, unbeknownst to them, listen in on their conversations to see where it was going. She had found that it was going quite well, however, she believed they needed a little push.

While they were going about their business, McGonagall having gone to teach her classes again, Draco noticed something.

"Hermione! Take a look at this!" Draco said enthusiastically from McGonagall's desk.

"What is it?" She asked hopping up beside him.

"It's a book on how birds fly!" Draco explained trying to get the book open.

"Really?" Hermione said excitedly before remembering something, "Draco, I don't think we should read it."

Draco looked up at her, "why not? We can finally get back to ourselves again!"

"Yes but this is still a competition of wit, not on how well you can read a book," Hermione said.

"Why not?" Draco argued.

"Because McGonagall likely took it out to see if we'd cheat or not," Hermione said.

"It's not cheating if we're using the resources available to us, she never said we couldn't," Draco said.

"That wouldn't be fair, we need to learn this on our own," Hermione insisted.

"But-" Draco began.

"You know what? Fine, you can go ahead but I'm going to figure this out on my own," Hermione told him frustrated.

"Hermione.." Draco said.

"What?" She snapped and he was taken aback.

"I don't understand why this is such a big deal," he explained feeling himself getting defensive.

"It's a big deal because it's wrong, Draco. Or do you not know the meaning of the word?" She said and instantly regretting it, especially by the look on his face. "Draco..I-" she began to apologize.

"No, you know what, Granger? You're right. Go on and figure it out on your own, I'm gonna win this thing," Draco said trying to cover the pain from her words with anger.

Draco then got the book open and began reading it, though he was having a hard time focusing. He was so angry that he couldn't focus on the words and ended up reading them over and over. Dammit Hermione, Draco thought, why do you always have do this to me?

Hermione hopped on over by his side and began reading over his shoulder. When he looked at her she spoke, "I'm sorry for what I said, I didn't mean it. We're going to do this your way."

He was shocked, he halfway thought it was going to end up the other way around. This made him smile, she was starting to trust him.

"Thank you, you're forgiven. You don't have to do this though if you're not ok with it," Draco told her.

"No, I'm going to trust you on this. Besides, I'm sick of being a bird, I want to be human again," Hermione told him.

By the end of the day, they could fly and McGonagall had changed them back without saying a word about the book on her desk. She just smiled to herself as they didn't realize that today was actually a Saturday, and she had heard the entire thing.

The two were wobbly on their feet at first, having gotten used to their bird selves and walked to their shared common room. Upon entry, they both flung themselves on the couches by the fireplace.

"Oh I've missed this place! McGonagall's office can get so boring," Draco said dramatically.

Hermione laughed, "it's good to be back."

Draco watched her as she got cozy on the couch and smiled, since the incident with the book he's been starting to see her in a new light. She was always so by the book and so stubborn about doing the right thing. While his way wasn't necessarily wrong, she had chosen his way for his sake. It was like that moment, that little bit of trust, had broken some barrier between them.

"What?" Hermione asked him, bringing him out of his thoughts.

He blushed at being caught, "oh nothing, I'm just not used to you not being covered in feathers," Draco said then laughed when she threw a pillow at him. His laugh was apparently infectious because she began to laugh as well.

Hermione quite liked seeing Draco like this, so carefree and light. It wasn't something she was used to seeing from him since she's known him. She had noticed that he'd begun looked at her differently, she couldn't describe it but it made her feel differently. It was a look she hadn't gotten before, she'd seen it directed at others.

It was how Harry looked at Ginny or how Neville looked at Luna.

Comparing her and Draco to those couples had made her question her own feelings for the blond boy and his towards her. Did Draco fancy her? More importantly, did she fancy Draco?

"'What?'" Draco said with a smirk, copying what she had said to him.

"Oh!" She said feeling her blood rush to her cheeks, she didn't even realize she was staring at him until she was caught, "well you do look quite differently." Hermione said trying to say the same as he had.

But oh, hers sounded much differently.

"Well is it a good different?" Draco asked. While he was keeping an amused facade, she could tell he was partially serious.

"Yes," she said choosing to look at the roaring fire instead of him.

"Don't worry, Hermione. I don't mind if you look," Draco said but she refused to look back at him. She simply make an unladylike noise.

"You don't look so bad yourself, you know," Draco said. Hermione then looked at him to which he purposely eyed her up and down, her cheeks became a darker shade of pink. "Did I just make the Hermione Granger blush?" Draco said in mock surprise.

"Shut up," she said trying to hide her embarrassment. Then, suddenly, he was right beside her.

"I was only trying to compliment you, you don't need to be so embarrassed," he told her, "it's only me."

"Only you?" Hermione said incredulously, "you're Draco Malfoy! The Slytherin Prince, the 'hottest guy in Hogwarts' and here you are complimenting me?"

"Yes I'm complimenting you. You're the Golden Girl, the Gryffindor Princess, the brightest witch of our age, the brains of The Golden Trio! No, why on earth would I not compliment you. You're bloody Hermione Granger!" Draco told her.

"Yes, because all of those I've gotten because I'm pretty," Hermione said with a roll of the eyes.

"Hermione, look at me," Draco said gently only continuing when she obeyed, "you are the single most beautiful woman I've even met. Inside and out. If someone doesn't think you're worthy of being called pretty by me of all people, then they're mistaken."

After that, neither were sure who started it, but their lips met and it went downhill from there. Both hearts racing. Hermione's hands tangled in his blond hair, his arms holding her closer to him. Before they knew it they were pulled apart gasping for air.

"Well Granger, I didn't know you had that in you," Draco joked before kissing her once more.

The next day the two of them walked into the Great Hall hand in hand, proudly showing their new relationship status. Money was being passed around by Teachers and students alike, it appeared McGonagall wasn't the only one who had a feeling about the two.

"Well Severus, it seems those two lovebirds have finally gotten together," McGonagall gloated.

Snape grumbled as he handed her the 20 Galleons and she smiled to herself. Now she had the money to give to the new couple, who had insisted that they learned together and would split the money and portrait. Their beautiful relationship will be forever kept here at the castle among the other paintings. Oh how she wished Albus was here to see it.