~~~Heh, heh, heh .... enjoy, please review and tell me whether I should continue. Thanks~~~

"THE BLANKET SCENARIO" PART 3:


Draco woke slowly and warmly, sliding out of the blissful haze of sleep gradually and
luxuriously. As his mind returned to the physical world, he realised vaguely he was pleasantly warm,
which came as something of a surprise. He felt surprisingly good, snugly wrapped in a cocoon
of warmth.

Draco chose that moment to open his eyes.

Granger was cuddled up against him, her face only inches from his. Her *mouth* only a short
distance away. She was only just waking up, too, looking sleepy and disorientated.

All this, Draco took in in a split second. "Aaah!" They both yelled at once, springing apart.

Draco noticed that outside, the blizzard was still howling, but his attention was on Granger. He
stared at her in disbelief, voicing his thougths to her:

"*What* were you *doing?*"

Granger's face flushed with anger. "Saving your ungrateful ass!"

It felt good to yell at her. The peace he had felt moments before had evaporated away from Draco
as soon as he had realised who he was sharing it with. "What, am I supposed to *thank* you?" He
shouted back.

"Yes, I think that would be appropriate!" Granger yelled back, glowering.

"So why did you have to get so *close* to me?" He ranted, not stopping to think how this sounded.

Hermione Granger's red-hot anger disappeared, to be replaced with a cold rage. Her voice became
a low, meancing hiss, almost drowned out by the cacophony of the blizzard outside. "If I hadn't
put that blanket over you, you would have *died*! And if we woke up together, it's because
during the night *you* came over closer to *me*!"

"Yeah, right," Draco sneered. "It was the other way around." They were back to their old
standoff. Draco, of course, had no idea how or why they had ended up so close together, but he
wasn't going to tell Granger that.

"Oh, and you would know!" Hermione cried. "You were sleeping like a baby the whole time!"
Draco opened up his mouth to respond, but Granger unexpectedly went on. "Oh, who *cares*," she
raved, "it doesn't *matter.* If you're not going to thank me, I don't *care*, even though it's
more you would have done for me, so don't expect me to do any more favours." She finished
abruptly, as though her words had dried up, and Draco found himself surprised. He hated to
admit it even to himself, but he quite liked the way she stood up for herself. Except for the
way she was downright bossy at times. He wondered why she *had* shared the blanket with him.
Maybe he should thank her - after all, he'd never been anything but awful to her. That was not
something he regretted - after all, she was a Mudblood and friends with that Potter, and Weasley
- she had deserved what she got .... but she *had* saved his life. And she was right when she
said that he wouldn't have done the same for her. He doubted he would even have felt guilty.

"Granger," Draco began, hesitantly, carefully.

Her head swiveled to face him, looking at him in a downright unpleasant way.

*Thank you.* The words were on the tip of his tongue, but just as he was about to say them, she
cut in impatiently, "Well, what is it? Spit it out."

"It's still very cold in here." Draco said. "We need to do something about that." Consenting
to share the blanket with her - while keeping his distance, of course - would be like payment for
her saving his life, he figured. So he swallowed his pride and suggested it to her - of course,
not mentioning that there *was* any debt, in his mind.

Granger still had a distinctly unfriendly expression on her face, but she nodded, maybe slightly
appeased. Very slightly, judging by the look on her face.

"Alright," she said. "But keep your distance, Malfoy."

That was something he would have no problem with.


~~~So, what will happen? They've reached an uneasy truce, but will it last? Read on to find out.~~~