A/N: So this week has been a 'I was too busy to answer to all the lovely reviews' one. I apologise, especially since I wanted to reply to every single review of this fic!

Without any further ado, but with a lot of beta love to niffizzle, I present you this small-ish chapter.

"Did anything happen between you and Draco?" Pansy started the conversation while wriggling into the space between Ron and Hermione.

"Good morning to you too, Pansy," Hermione sarcastically answered. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You haven't had a fight that ended with wands pointed at each other in more than a week," the other witch stated matter-of-factly as she helped herself to a cup of tea. "Why is that?"

Hermione shrugged non-comittically. As of now, no one knew about the predicament she and the Head Boy had landed themselves in, and Hermione wasn't keen on sharing.

When Hermione still hadn't answered, Pansy let out an over-dramatic sigh. "Too bad. I had hoped that all of the explosive energy between you two would escalate into frantic shagging."

"Pansy!" Hermione hissed. She placed her cup on the table with so much force that the coffee spilled. First Pince, now Pansy.

"What? We are all adults here. Or are you afraid of what your friends would say?" She pointed at Ron next to her, who was very much dedicated to his toast. Harry wasn't awake yet, and the rest of the table was largely occupied by first and second years. "Draco wouldn't say anything, trust me. And you know that as long as he eats, Ronald is as good as deaf and blind for everything else around him."

"It's not that. I know Ron has taken quite a liking in you," Hermione admitted, smiling at the slight pinking of Pansy's cheeks. "And you and I are starting to get along. But Malfoy and I are like magnets pushing each other away."

"In many ways, yes," Pansy agreed. "You are very much alike in some aspects of your personality and both hate to let someone else take the lead. But magnets also have a pull towards each other." A slow smirk spread across her lips.

Hermione rolled her eyes. What a ridiculous thought. And yet, that conversation kept reappearing in Hermione's mind throughout the course of the day.

"So this is actually not the worst position it could leave us in," Hermione stated carefully, only a few hours after her encounter with Pansy.

"Says you. I, on the other hand, am feeling very uncomfortable."

Hermione stood by her statement. Draco Malfoy was a surprisingly comfortable person to lay on.

When the effect of the potion had caught them, he had been taking a nap on the sofa in the common room. After stumbling over his broom yet again and cursing him to the ninth circle of Hell, Hermione had been catapulted forward, landing her on top of him.

Now, she had her head resting below his chin and could hear his heart beating steadily.

"I could get used to this. You're snuggly." She was teasing him but not lying. The fabric of his sweater was soft against her cheek, and he smelled like he had just showered. For a moment, she enjoyed the situation so much that she forgot the catch of being in it with Draco, that she snuggled deeper into him.

"Stop wriggling!"

Hermione laughed. "Are you afraid of a bit of snuggling?"

"While I have no empathy for you Gryffindors insisting on so much body contact, I am not afraid of it."

She wriggled on.

"However, I can't control my purely physical reactions on a witch moving all over me," he seethed through his teeth.

Hermione stopped dead in her movements and raised her head as far as she could to look him in the eyes.

He smirked, probably at her facial expression, and Hermione commented on the prospect of Draco Malfoy reacting to her in any typical male way with a juvenile, "Ewwww."

A second later, she realised just how juvenile it was and pressed her lips together.

His gaze found hers, they both stared at each other — and then both of them erupted in laughter at the absurdity of their situation.

Somehow, laughing with Draco — and both of them being fine about it — was strangely intimate. Shaking in hilarity, Hermione rested her forehead against his clavicle, simultaneously feeling the low rumble from his laughter vibrating not only in her eardrums but also against her body.

"Stop!" he demanded after a bit. But she couldn't — just as that one time when Harry had been hiccuping an entire D.A.D.A. lesson due to a Charm in the previous lesson gone totally wrong, resulting in some interesting spell casting. Oliver Wood, the poor, new Professor for Defense, had been totally helpless, and the entire situation had been so comical that Hermione cried tears of laughter under her table before she gracefully cancelled the faulty magic. Professor Wood hadn't been amused by her interference, but she couldn't care less at this point.

It was the same for her now as she lay in the Heads' common room on top of Draco Malfoy. Life was too short not to laugh oneself silly in situations like these.

"The pull has lessened, so stop," her fellow Head Boy tried again but to no avail. Then, he practically pleaded, "Hermione, please."

Him saying her name, connected to a beg, did funny things to her already chaotic insides, making her laughter trail off. "I'm sorry," she brought forth. "Physical reactions again?"

With effort, he shook his head. "It's alright, really. But I'm not getting any oxygen into my lungs like this."

Suddenly, Hermione realised that he was right. With them shaking in laughter, she had put her entire weight on his ribcage, effectively hindering his breathing.

"Oh, sorry!" She jumped off of him, the endorphins from the laughter still running high. That was the only explanation why she then asked, "A Firewhisky to calm down?"

He stood, too, stretching and taking a deep breath. It was then that she noticed again that she was almost a head smaller than him — and had more wiry muscles that she hadn't taken the time to analyse yet.

The luxury of tasty nutrition had helped her to gain soft curves on her hips and belly that she felt very comfortable with, while it apparently had given Draco hard planes and the form of someone who played Quidditch on a regular basis with great success.

"That seems like a good idea. I think I have a good one still in my bedroom. I nicked it from my father's stash on my last visit at home. Wait right here, and I am going to fetch it." His smile was relaxed and open, and she was so overtaken from the sudden impact of the person Draco Malfoy had become that she could only nod.

Asked later, Hermione couldn't have given a report of what exactly they did on that evening. Just that they drank plenty of expensive whisky, sat on the sofa and talked, laughed, decided that they had shared enough weirdly intimate encounters to call each other by their first names like the adults they were — and talked some more. About family, friends, the past, the present, and the future. In hindsight, this was the breaking point of their relationship. A tabula rasa, so to speak, a clean slate.

The young wizard soon turned into a permanent resident in Hermione's thoughts. Like the final puzzle piece, the evening brought everything together, and too often, she was reminded of how opposite yet similar the two of them were. Not only had she gotten used to his presence, but she had also seen sides of him she had blatantly ignored until the incident. Or maybe he just had opted to share them with her now?

He was a diligent study and knew the Hogwarts library like the back of his hand. He had outgrown the insecurities that had plagued him in the years before and yielded his wand with an ease that Hermione admired. But he could also be pushy when it came to things he wanted and had to have the final say in everything — both traits Hermione knew too well she equally possessed. And like her, his mind worked faster than his heart, leaving no space for empathy at times.

All this taken into consideration, she came to one final conclusion: Draco Malfoy was rather attractive to her.