Classes really weren't all that difficult. A few weeks into school, and he discovered which teachers he would need to study on his own, and others where studying was pointless. He was quite surprised at his godfather's attitude towards Potter, but realized he was not going to be receiving any special treatment in that specific class.

Draco and Hermione had been exchanging letters, not putting names on the envelopes, and even being quite vague. Even if they were in literally the same room, they couldn't be found out. Draco was about to ask one of his house elves for help finding a private room. Perhaps Dobby.

Draco decided that was the best course of action. He would get Dobby to tell him, in confidence, a place where he could meet and study with his friends in secret. Dobby had served in the castle for a year or so when he was trained, so he knew his way around.

It was almost the end of October now, and Draco really wanted to just be able to talk to his best friend. Even if they had only known each other for about 15 months, they were the best of friends.

Yes, he would be calling Dobby to help him.

"Dobby!"

"Young Master. How can Dobby be helping yous, sir?" Dobby bowed, not that Draco liked it.

"Dobby, do you know of a place where I can meet a friend in secret? One in the castle, if it's at all possible."

"Well, sir, there is the Come and Go room. It is a room that changes to whatever the user wants." Dobby said timidly.

"And could you lead me to this room?" Curfew was in a couple of hours yet, and Draco had finished his work ages ago. It would be fine.

Dobby hesitated for a second, but nodded his head. Toddling over to the exit of the dorm, then the common room, Dobby led Draco all the way across the entire castle and then up the stairs almost the entire way. If Draco knew how far it was beforehand, he would have asked Dobby to give him directions so he could go from a more convenient location.

When he reached the final destination of a blank wall, he turned to Dobby slightly threateningly. "I thought you said there was something here!"

Dobby cowered and shrunk in on himself. "Young Master, there is. There is! You just have to walk past it three times thinking of what you want." The house elf practically had snot and tears running down his face.

Draco did what was said to have called the room, and to his surprise, an intricate door appeared. He cautiously walked over and opened it, and walked in to find a room coloured with neutrals. Nothing red, gold, green or silver. Well, except for two of the armchairs. One was like the Slytherin common room chairs, green with pillows stuffed to the bare minimum. The other was red, overstuffed, and actually comfortable looking. Must be what the Gryffindors had in their common room.

He asked the room for something a bit better for his own chair, not even knowing if it would work. Fortunately, the green chair turned as overstuffed as the red one. Smiling, he sat down and let all dignity out the window. This would be his and Hermione's secret place, and only they would know about it.

.

A week later, he was outside the girl's bathroom on the first floor, waiting for Hermioe to come out for dinner. They decided they wouldn't go to the Halloween feast, instead going to the Room of Requirement. But Hermione was pushing him to go to the feast. He wondered what was up, then remembered overhearing Weasley and Potter calling her a 'nightmare' and saying she 'got no friends'. Honestly, if he were to show that boy the depth of his and Hermione's friendship, he would eat his words.

Draco respected Hermione, and went to the feast. He was glad he went, for halfway through, Professor Quirrel ran in, yelling something about a troll in the dungeons. When Professor Dumbledore told everyone to calm down and go to their common rooms, Draco and the rest of the Slytherins freaked out. Their common rooms were in the dungeons!

The Slytherins carefully made their way to the common room, with the older students on the outside, and the first years protected in the middle. Never let it be said that Slytherins didn't care. They just showed it to very little.

Finally making it into the common room, almost all of the Slytherins breathed a sigh of relief. Almost all of them. Right after he had relaxed in the uncomfortable armchair, he shot back up.

Hermione!

She wasn't at the feast, and therefore didn't know about the troll. Draco really wanted to get to her, but there were a couple of prefects standing in front of the only entrance and exit. There was nothing he could do. And besides, he was a Slytherin Pure-Blood, and she was a Gryffindor Muggle-Born. Who would believe that he wanted to see her?

.

Luckly, the next night, Hermione was able to get away from the rest of her house, and ran her way to the Room of Requirement. Draco was already in there, knowing she would want to meet. Seeing each other, they threw their arms around the other and hugged tightly.

"Are you sure you're okay?" He had heard that the troll had gotten out of the dungeons and made its way to her bathroom.

"Dray, I'm fine. It was just a scratch, really. Madam Pomphrey fixed me right up."

He pulled away a little bit, and gave her a once over, making sure that she was telling the truth, before pulling her back into the hug. "I don't want you to believe the words Weasley said. They aren't true, and they never will be."

Hermione escaped his hug and sat in her chair. "About that. They came into the bathroom, where the troll was, and saved me from it. Ron actually did. We might be hanging out a bit more, but I'll still be there for you, of course. You will still be my best friend. They just get to see me more often, and -"

"Hermione, I get it. We can't see each other as often as we like and that's okay. I totally understand."

Draco sat in his own chair and gave her a blinding smile. She laughed, and the pair of them practiced their wandless magic for a bit, even going out of their way to place their wands in what Hermione had called a 'safe' that they had asked the room for.

After a few hours of practicing, Draco and Hermione were tired out. Wandless magic was difficult, but they were determined to figure it out.

They lay back on the chairs, having been turned into 'recliners' and draco was being taught a little about Muggle culture. He had learned that muggles really were much more advanced than wizards, and there were many things that made tasks easier to do.

By the time it was half an hour 'til curfew, Draco and Hermione had shared laughs and hugs. They hugged one last time, and then the two of them separated to their common rooms. Draco laid in his bed for an hour after he had gotten into it, smiling at the canopy. Little did he know, Hermione was doing the same thing on the other side of the castle.

.

The first quidditch match of the season, and Draco couldn't wait. Potter had gotten onto the team, somehow, and Draco had a feeling he knew when he did. It was the Remembrall event, the one where Draco had been in quite a nasty attitude.

Draco couldn't wait until Potter had his face handed back to him on a silver platter, and was then kicked off the team for a better player. An older one.

Draco almost laughed at Jordan's commentary, if only it hadn't been directed at the Slytherins.

Higgs and Potter both sped towards the ball, but Flint had slammed into Potter. Draco wanted to groan at the older boy, but kept up the act and cheered instead.

After a while, and a score by Flint, no one was paying any mind to Potter. Draco saw, out of the corner of his eye, that Potter's broom had started to go wild. The broom almost had a mind of its own. Draco looked over to Hermione and saw her pointing up to the teacher's box. It seemed someone there was cursing the broom or something. Draco followed her finger and saw, to his surprise, his godfather moving his mouth. He must have been muttering as well. Draco practically froze, what was Uncle Sev doing?

He saw Hermione vacate her seat and wanted to follow her, but instead stayed where he was and attempted to sound cheerful about what was happening to Potter.

Seeing her knock into Quirrell and then set his godfather on fire - WHAT! - Draco relaxed, knowing that Potter would be alright.

Potter practically fell to the ground, and on hands and knees, spit something out of his mouth. Draco saw a glimmer of gold in his fist, and booed at the loss Slytherin had sustained.

.

"'Mione, what were you thinking? Setting a professor on fire! Where was your mind?"

"Dray, he was cursing Harry. What was I supposed to do? Let him continue, and possibly kill Harry? No. I will not stand by and let that happen."

"But 'Mione, just stay safe, alright. I don't know what I would do without you."

Internally, he shook his head at the thought. He had only known her for just about a year and a half, and already wanted nothing more than to keep her as a friend. What would his father think?

"Oh, Draco, we learned something about that corridor, the one on the third floor. The dog that's in there, he has a name. And it has something to do with someone named Nicolas Flamel."

Hermione had told Draco all about the fake duel he had set up and its consequences. He felt bad that Hermione had been dragged into it, but he did need to keep up appearances. Unfortunately, he had just placed her in great danger.

"Nicolas Flamel! I kind of told you about him over the summer. It was more of a passing comment, though. He's nearly seven hundred years old, and is still alive because of the Philosopher's Stone. It's a stone he made, produces liquid gold and the Elixir of Life. Honestly, no one knows how it was done, and there have been many attempts to recreate it, trust me. None have succeeded."

"So, Fluffy-"

"Fluffy?"

"The dog, Draco. Fluffy has to be guarding this stone, and Professor Dumbledore has been setting up traps and things for it, for surely there isn't just a massive dog with three heads standing over a trap door in the middle of a hallway that three first years got into, right?"

Draco nodded his head, and the two of them put their minds up to what the different traps would be. Hermione thought there would be something from each of the teachers, something to do with their classes. McGonagall's transfiguration thing would most likely be something massive in the way of the path, and they had to transfigure it into something else, something smaller. Quirrell probably had some type of creature, and Flitwick was going to have them charm a door open or something. Snape would have a difficult potion to brew, and Sprout would have something to do with magical plants. (Duh)

They wanted to go down there, but they had no way to get past the dog. They would also need more information to know exactly what the traps were. There were going to be quite a few.

Draco and hermione then went on to practice their wandless magic, finally getting themselves to a point where they were comfortable holding a ball of light for five minutes, and were also able to brighten and dim it at will. They decided to move on to the levitation spell, Wingardium Leviosa. Hermione nearly has a giggle fit when the spell came up, saying it was the spell Weasley had teased her for, then saved her with. It was quite a weird thing, in all honesty.

.

The winter holidays were fast approaching, and the entire castle was getting ready. The paintings were being washed a bit, and there was tinsel, mistletoe, and trees all over the place. Draco had heard from Hermione that she was keeping Potter and Weasley off of Flamel for a bit, and the book she had checked out a while ago for a 'bit of light reading', as she said, was the one where Flamel was mentioned. She was keeping it out of their hands for the time being.

He had also heard that the two boys were plotting ways to get him expelled, and some of them were quite ridiculous.

Christmas morning was different, he wasn't expected to get up at the crack of dawn and help the house elves prepare breakfast for his parents. It was quite nice. Draco had gotten a blank book from Hermione, with thick pages. Reading the note that came with it, and finding a couple of photographs from the summer, Draco giddily put them in the book, then hid it at the bottom of his trunk. No one could find that photo album.

Later that night at the feast, one he didn't prepare at all, Draco sat down and gracefully filled his plate with food. Looking around the hall later that night, Draco noticed Weasley had a turkey leg in each hand, and was alternating bites between the two. Hermione had a decent amount of new foods, things her parents might not have been able to afford from their salary.

Everyone was acting like fools, and however bad Draco wanted to participate, the entirety of the Slytherin house was acting like they always did in public. Stiff, unsmiling, and positively unjoyful. Later that night, there was going to be firewhiskey, butterbeer, and other alcohols brought out, where the house would let loose for a bit.

It was very different, and Draco would probably slip out of the common room with a bit of butterbeer to bring to the Room of Requirement for Hermione to try.

.

He was indeed able to slip away from the slightly intoxicated Slytherins, and made his way up and over. Hermione got there a few minutes after he did, and the two of them happily drank and shared tales of past Christmases.

The two of them laughed for ages, and by the time Draco noticed what the time actually was, it was well past midnight. They would have to slip back into the common rooms quite carefully, and Draco was a bit nervous. His common room was seven flights of stairs down, and there were practically no shortcuts.

Suddenly, a door appeared right next to the other door. It was the same door as the one to his dorm room, and he cautiously opened it to see that it did indeed lead to the common room. He closed the door and hugged Hermione tightly, and then slipped through the door. It disappeared as soon as he was through it, and he smiled in relief.

He wasn't going to be caught tonight.