A/N: things are changing..at least I think they are :) Yes, he is rather unlikable... this chapter is kinda weak, than the usual. But it needed to be here to make the next one flow better

Chapter 16

October 13th

McGonagall stood infront of both Heads, Hermione and Ernie. The three of them had been brain-storming ideas of what they wanted to be done for Hallowe'en. So far anything she suggested was shot down; from a costume contest to who can do the best pumpkin carving. But Ernie was more than adamant on how no one older than ten would be interested!

"We could make a haunted house! You know, turn the Great Hall or the Room of Requirement into this large, dark, scary atmosphere"

"Oh yes because we don't have enough nightmares from the Second War!" Hermione snapped. 'What is with boys and wanting to scare everybody?!'

"It's Hallowe'en Hermione, people are meant to get scared out of their wits! This is your only chance to do it and not get blamed! You just don't want to get scared! So what, you want to do something lame like...a dance?!" Ernie shuddered. "Honestly, you girls and your dances."

Hermione narrowed her eyes at his condescending tone. She never would suggest such a thing, she hated dances, ever since that terrible experience from the Yule Ball all those years ago and Bill and Fleur's wedding had been interrupted by Death Eaters; Hermione swore she would never part-take in another dance for as long as she lived.

"Enough you two!" roared McGonagall. She was leaning over her desk, glaring at the two students before her.

"If I didn't know any better, Mister Macmillan, I would say you are in the wrong house! This behaviour of yours has gone on long enough!"

Hermione smirked. For once, McGonagall actually sided with her Gryffindor student. 'Sprout would be positively thrilled to hear that I'm sure!'

"Now Miss Granger, I understand your discomfort, but the War has ended some time ago." McGonagall lamented; Hermione's smile faltered a bit. "Not that I am particularly comfortable with the idea myself..."

"So what," Ernie began with a sour look on his face, "You suggest we go with a dance then? Would that make everyone all merry?"

"How about a tally?" Hermione said, looking from McGonagall to Ernie, "I mean if we give the students the choice, it will be a guarantee that they will enjoy it," she added in her usual bored tone, "we give them the options here, and whatever is the popular choice, we will use."

McGonagall pointed a finger to Hermione, "A splendid idea, Miss Granger! I leave it to the both of you and the Prefects then. Of course I want the two of you to ask those not belonging to your own house, for obvious reasons..." she trailed her gaze over to Ernie. "Return to me on Monday morning with the numbers!" She said as she wrote away on some parchments.

Ernie shrugged, "Great," he muttered, not really that excited.

Hermione took the parchment from McGonagall and looked down at the list of activities. Costume Contest (without magic!), Best Pumpkin Carving (without magic!), Anonymous Candy Grams (to be sent during class hours), Haunted House in the RoR, and a Dance (costumes & dates optional).

McGonagall grinned, "Excellent! I trust only good things to come out of this. Dismissed."

Ernie was the first to get up and leave, with Hermione not that far behind him.

"Sure you don't want my help?" Theo said, as prepping himself up for the upcoming Quidditch game. "Rumor has it, she's not that happy with you." A half smile played on his lips as he adjusted his emerald robes.

Draco snapped his gaze over to Theo, who raised his hands up defensively, "Well actually, I heard it from Pansy. She and Daph were talking and...well..." he cleared his throat, "just be prepared"

"Wonderful" Draco muttered, carrying on with his own preparation.

Theo tsk'd, resting his Beater's Bat onto his shoulder, "Mate, come on, you had to know that being... well being you wasn't going to get you anywhere! It's what Blaise is banking on!" He raised his other hand, waving a finger, "Granger is different. Needs to be treated different."

Theo then took a seat down on the bench, "she's not like... well the girls of our house, who enjoy that over-confident, 'I'm in control' personality you have, and have no shame in being well, easy." His lips twitched into a wide grin.

'Sure she does,' Draco thought with a smirk. He could count on one hand all the times he could recall her flushed face from his proximity, or how hungry she got when she kissed him, because of it. Okay so he may have over-stepped a boundary yesterday, but it wasn't anything a few choice words wouldn't fix.

"Drake," Theo warned, catching the knowing look on Draco's face.

"Look, I've got it all figured out," Draco replied adjusting his gloves, "So can you just drop it? You're starting to annoy me." He added dismissively, as he needed to have a clear head if he wanted to win this match against the Gryffindors, and this conversation wasn't helping.

"Mate I'm just trying to help," Theo sighed, grabbing his broom, "The key word to your success is... respect. Once that happens, then will those knickers drop. Believe me, it did with that Ravenclaw bint! Best twenty Galleons I ever earned!" and with that, he trotted off toward the doors leading to the Quidditch field.

Draco groaned, nope, that definitely didn't help his focus. "Prat"

Hermione was in the library, staring down at the small list of students she had asked for the Hallowe'en festivities. So far, dancing was the front runner by twenty names, followed closely by the haunted house. Most liked the candy gram idea for during classes, a few opted for the pumpkin carvings, as the costume contest was left completely blank.

"Why does everyone rely on magic so much?"

If she had lifted the magical restriction on the last two options, for obvious reasons - anything goes when it comes to magic, it would turn into some crazy mess, and probably even to unnecessary duelling, of who has the better one.

She ran a hand through her hair to itch the back of her scalp. Why can't things ever be simple?

"You're not going to see the game Hermione?" called the soft voice of Luna Lovegood.

She offered the blonde a small smile, "Can't. I have this assignment, you see" She dropped her gaze down.

Luna's eyes trailed to the parchment, "I don't recall ever having one like that, is it for an extra-curricular credit? No wait, I see a lot of names... could it be that you are starting a tutoring class? It's very impressive and rewarding if you are. I've always admired your smarts Hermione, you would have made a good Ravenclaw!"

Hermione bit down on her lip, 'So people keep telling me.' She folded the paper from Luna's view before finally meeting her gaze.

"Listen Luna, whoever sent you here to get me, just don't. I can watch the game perfectly from here," Hermione said turning to look out the floor-to-ceiling window just a few feet away from her current position. But Hermione had no intention of watching the game whatsoever.

"No one sent me to get you, Hermione." Luna's voice had transformed into something more off-putting. It was here that Hermione caught sight of the bundle of books in her grasp. 'Ah, of course,'

"But you know," Luna went on, running her fingers along the cover of one of the books, "you're not doing yourself any favours by hiding in a library; that is, if you don't want to be bothered. Anyone can find you here."

"I'm not trying to hide from anybody," Hermione sighed, not really wanting to sound rude. She slowly got up from the table, "And in answer to your question, I am going around asking what everyone would want for an activity on Hallowe'en." She waved the parchment at Luna.

"How fun. But you know, you should think about what I said about hosting a tutoring program. A lot of people had learned a lot when we had the D.A.!"

Hermione nodded slowly, but said nothing. Rebelling against the Ministry was far different than aiding students in their studies; not that she didn't want to help others... she just had enough on her plate already.

Luna motioned to the parchment, "You can put my name down for all options, they are all very fascinating,"

"All options?" Hermione echoed with a confused look. Giving the students the freedom of having more than one choice, wouldn't be much of a tally, but Hermione didn't have the heart to tell Luna otherwise. 'What Ernie doesn't know won't hurt'

Luna shrugged, "We can choose more than just one can't we? So I vote for all of them. It will be very exciting on which activity wins"

And with that, Luna left her. There was a distant sound of a whistle being blown, drawing Hermione's attention to the window. Fourteen blurs of red and green were now whizzing around in the bleak Autumn sky. Shaking her head, Hermione just turned around and left.

The rest of the day was spent asking as many students as possible, with the acception of the Slytherins, of course - where the haunted house was now the front runner with at least thirty names over the dancing. The candy grams were a favourite for students, suggesting that they want both; Hermione had promised to speak to McGonagall for such a suggestion.

Hermione hated to admit it, but she was glad something other than dancing was winning, even if it had to be a haunted house! 'Ernie will be happy!'

She had just finished asking fourth-year Hufflepuff students, and was now in her room, fixing up the lists to made it look cleaner and easier to add up the totals - which of course was only visible to her eye - as she didn't want people picking options for the sake that everyone else did.

"Dates optional?" Ginny furrowed her brows, as she examined the piece of parchment resting infront of her. She had been debating on picking dancing and the haunted house for quite sometime, as both were equally fun in her opinion! 'If only I could see what other people want...'

"What is the point of having a dance if you don't have a partner? The ones who dance alone get mocked, you realize that, don't you? No matter what the age is!"

She smiled at Ginny's method for picking her choice. Ginny had closed her eyes and used her finger to make her choice. Once her finger made contact with the parchment, she immediately scribbled her name.

Her name flashed for a brief second and then it vanished, the number seventy-two appeared at the bottom of the page. Hermione let out a sigh of relief before taking the parchment back, as Ginny returned to scratching Crookshanks behind the ears, before turning her gaze to Hermione.

Hermione sighed, "Trust me, if I had anything to say about it, we wouldn't have the option to dance at all!"

Ginny raised her eyebrows at Hermione's sudden outburst, "But I thought you liked dances? Or wait, I get it. You don't want a dance because then that would mean Draco would ask you to go with him!"

Hermione cleared her throat, "For your information-"

"Speaking of him!" Ginny said over Hermione's voice, "Did you catch the game?"

"Couldn't be bothered" Hermione sighed, placing the parchment on her nightstand for safe keeping. "Too busy getting numbers for the upcoming Hallowe'en festivities, you see." She motioned to the parchment, "Only got the fifth years to go!"

Ginny's widened her eyes, "Wait a second, you were doing this all day? I thought you just came up with it now! Huh, you know Harry was wondering where you ran off to..."

"Yes well you see, McGonagall gave Ernie and I only have this weekend to reach to every student. Big school, different schedules, not enough hours in the day. Thankfully we have the Prefects... which reminds me, I'll need to speak to Ernie to see if he got through to the Slytherins. So you see? I can't afford the time to dilly-dally around some stupid Quidditch pitch!"

"Except everyone else did, can't really get your numbers if there's no one to be found! We lost by the way, in case you didn't already know!" Ginny added with a shrug. "People are saying Malfoy cheated, bewitched the Snitch to avoid Harry at all cost or something, cause he caught it no sooner than five minutes after the game started."

Hermione raised her brows. She remembered Harry having to catch the Snitch quickly, but that was just in fifteen minutes. Hermione shrugged her shoulders, pretending not to care.

"Really? Well I have you know, I ended our arrangement just yesterday. So it's not like I promised him anything if he won the match," 'Wouldn't put it passed him if he expected something out of it' she felt her body tense up from the idea. The man was relentless when it came to getting something he wanted, but Hermione was prepared for the fight!

Ginny's lips frowned slightly, at watching Hermione's expression, "You ended your arrangement with him?" She had to admit, she was rather upset at hearing the news, "Right when things were getting good? What happened?"

Hermione took in the sound of Ginny's voice and then folded her arms, trying to brush away any feeling of uneasiness. "I just had enough" she said firmly. "And you would have too if you heard what he said!"

"Oh?" Ginny raised on eyebrow and chewed on her lip.

Hermione turned her attention to petting Crookshanks. In truth, what Ron said made sense. She wouldn't accept being a toy. Sure it was interesting at first, and it was good to see Ron squirm whenever he saw her with Draco, but yesterday was just too much. His behaviour had took such a turn, leaving Hermione completely repulsed. 'How to girls fall for that?' Of course she wanted to feel wanted, as do most girls in the world, not objectified.

"Hey," Ginny tried again, gently rubbing Hermione's knee. "Don't leave me hanging here, what ol' Ferret-Face say?"

"Made me feel dirty," Hermione said standing, being sure to keep her back at Ginny, "by suggesting we go have a casual shag in an empty classroom!"

Ginny gulped, "He didn't!" her voice came out light and squeaky. It wasn't what she had expected her best-friend to admit!

Hermione scoffed, "Well he was so thrilled with how the Slytherin green looked against my skin, he wondered what other colour would look best, that being the one that lies underneath," she spat with distaste, her whole body shaking.

"If that isn't implication enough, Ginny... then please, feel free to correct me!"

She pushed back the curtains to stare out the window. "And if it wasn't bad enough, but it happened in front..." she licked her lips and swallowed, her skin started to tingle from the memory, "in front of our entire Transfiguration class!"

Ginny's eyes widened, "Oh my..."

"Of course," Hermione continued, not having heard what Ginny said, "That wasn't until after Ron yelled at him did I even realize they were there! Oh yes it was great fun!" She said the last sentence sarcastically.

Ginny bit down on her lip, and was distracted when Crookshanks crawled over her lap; to remind her that she should be petting him.

Hermione stared up at the moon and sighed, for some reason she had a strong urge to go star-gazing. "Let's go to the Astronomy Tower,"

Ginny raised her eyebrow, "Why? I thought you said you didn't have homework this time?"

"I don't, but I feel like gazing at the stars tonight." She glanced over shoulder. "You in? I'm no where near tired and the angle here is all wrong..."

Ginny folded her arms, 'gazing at stars because you feel like it?' She shook her head, at the strangeness of it, "One of your Muggle past-times is it?"

Hermione shrugged innocently, "It can be rather relaxing you know,"

"Sure..." Ginny said unconvinced.

Hermione rolled her eyes, "It's okay if you don't want to..."

"It's not that I don't want to, it's just... Hannah and Padma are patrolling tonight..." Ginny groaned; now that she and Dean were somewhat together again, dealing with Padma, would create a whole knew wave of awkward feelings.

Hermione sensed the redhead's displeasure and placed a hand upon hers, "Well you're with the Head Girl, so they can't really do anything about it. But really, it's okay if you rather stay here; you won't hurt my feelings"

Ginny shook her head, "No it's fine, I'll go"

Hermione gave Crookshanks a kiss on his head, and whispered to him a goodnight before she and Ginny made their way out of her room.

"Oi Draco!" chimed the voice of Blaise Zabini as he strolled into Draco's room; he was lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. "Remember the time I said, the next time you slip up-"

"I didn't slip up anything, Blaise." Draco sneered through gritted teeth. He used his elbows to prop himself up to an upright position. "I've got Granger right where I want her."

Draco ran a hand through his hair, "But while we're on the subject, you should make that trip to Gringott's soon,"

Blaise laughed bitterly, shaking his head. He licked his lips and frowned. The vault in question could only be accessed by his mother, who just so happens to be away on business and won't be back for quite sometime.

"What's so funny?" snarked Pansy as she strolled on, but Blaise stuck out his arm to block her path from entering Draco's room.

"Nothing that concerns you," Blaise said, his lips hardly moving. "Draco's just in over his head with his latest... activity"

Draco's eyes twitched slightly, but he just turned to look at Pansy, "What do you want?"

Pansy grinned, as she rubbed her hand along her collarbone "Well to congratulate you on the win of course!" Her eyes trailed to Blaise, "I didn't get much of a chance this afternoon, you see,"

Draco wanted to laugh. Theo had warned him something like this would happen, so he made it certain that he would be everywhere she wouldn't. Of course he had hoped to have a run in with Granger, but it seemed she had a similar idea, and was nowhere to be seen all day. He shook his head of further thoughts.

"Thanks for the thought but I've got patrols..."

Pansy's eyes narrowed, "Nice try, Drake, but I know your patrols this month are on Sundays and Wednesdays! Daphne...said as much!"

Blaise stifled a cough, "Stalker"

Pansy had heard the noise, and thus studied her house-mate with disdain, "Why are you still here, Blaise?! This doesn't even concern you!"

Blaise rolled his eyes, but he refused to move his arm. "You interrupted our conversation; so be on your way already. He isn't interested!"

Pansy huffed a hard breath, hoping to see a loop hole in Draco's expression; when she found none she stuck her nose in the air and stormed off.

Blaise shook his head, "Okay now as I was saying-" he broke off when Draco pushed passed him.

"Wait a second, where are you going?"

"I told you," Draco bit slowly, "I'm on patrol tonight. That Ravenclaw weirdo couldn't do it, so I opted to help her out."

Blaise raised an eyebrow at the strangeness that Draco would do such a thing. 'He was actually telling the truth? Something must be up.' "Let me guess, Granger is on tonight so you're hoping to patch things up? How sweet."

Draco glared at Blaise, "Don't call me sweet," he said slowly and harshly. "Besides sticking your nose in my business, shouldn't you be plotting that trip to Diagon Alley?"

Blaise sneered with his teeth baring, Draco just smirked then strolled on.

It had to have been at least a couple hours, as Ginny felt her eyes starting to droop.

"Ugh, I can't do it anymore," she said with a yawn, "my back kills, even with the pillows and blanket,"

She pushed herself to a sitting position and stretched out her lower back muscles.

"Well, I don't know about you, Hermione, but I'm off to bed. Will you be fine on your own?" her eyes fell upon Hermione expectantly, yet from the small shine from the moon Ginny could see that she was asleep.

Ginny felt a sudden tickle from the autumn air, and thus went to nudge Hermione awake, not wanting her friend to catch a cold, but a hand had broke her line of vision.

Startled, Ginny turned sharply to look at the owner of the arm blocking her view - Draco Malfoy.

"Be on your way, Red. I've got it handled."

Ginny swallowed tightly as her eyes fell on Hermione's sleeping form once again. 'She would murder me if I did this to her...'

"If you want to blame anyone," Draco said in a tight voice, "make it blondie from Hufflepuff. Now go"

Ginny furrowed her brows, "No. I won't! I-"

"Imperio" he said, pointing his wand at her face, and her entire body went rigid. "Now Weaslette, I said be on your way." He motioned for her to stand up, which she did, "return to your bed back in your nice Gryffindor tower, and sleep."

With a flick of his wand, Ginny turned her back to him and strolled out of the room, like she was being pulled by an invisible string.

With a wicked grin and a quick flick of his wand, he replaced the blankets the redhead was once on with that of his own. After having pocketed his wand, he lowered himself down, beside Hermione. He lolled his head to the side, watching as she twitched in her sleep.

Her arm acted on its own, as it curled around the blanket and pulled it higher up on her own body. Her body then turned to its side as her head landed a few inches from Draco's shoulder.

E/N: Such a naughty boy using that Imperio to get his alone time with Hermione! Oh what will tomorrow bring I wonder? :P Also, in case anyone missed it. Padma was the girl Dean had cheated on Ginny with.