7th Year

So hey, are you sick of these titles yet? Nope? *dang*

By byebye

Author's Note: Okay. Soo, here's the next installment in my story (who would've thought it'd take 2 weeks to get 7 new reviewers? Well.. don't answer that. But anyhow, I love my reviewers, really, and I'd love to have more reviewers. REALLY. So all you Harry Potter freaks can keep on reading this when you've finished reading the actual story 500 times in a row. You can eat, during that story session, I guess. But only then, may you come here and read this. *what? Waddaya mean that doesn't mean anything? They're still gonna come? Huh? WHAT?!* Okay, so scratch that last remark. It doesn't hurt though, because then you can tell that I don't own most of this stuff I'm writing. I mean, I own my writing and all, but I don't own the characters, etc., blahblahblah. *look mum, a disclaimer* Well, I'm off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of.. erm.. Britain?

*****

Hermione let herself be kissed as she felt their bodies fit against each other, her heart throbbing as he pulled her body closer to his, her hips ramming roughly against his as the pain flowed into ecstasy. He leaned off her, and she bit back the moan on the tip of her tongue, keeping herself in check at least that much. She couldn't, she wouldn't initiate anything though. "What?"

Draco frowned, as though he knew he had been doing something he shouldn't. "Granger.." So, she would still be addressed by her last name. "You're like a drug." He shook his head at her slightly confused frown. "Addicting. But so.. bad for me." She wasn't sure if she liked that simile. "I don't like having to think things through, Granger." And she had made him? "I'm going to.. go. Don't be here when I get back." She opened her mouth to say something in reply, but he interrupted her. "Please."

With a sigh, Hermione nodded, watching him go back into his room before walking to the edge and leaning off, the breeze picking up lightly as she swayed gently. So he was going to think things over? Whatever that meant, she wasn't sure, but.. It was obviously important to him. 'And since when do you care, Hermione Granger? Since when?!' her mind shouted at her angrily. "Since now.. Since.." She paused; not that she didn't care, but she wasn't about to talk to herself. Well, at least they were even now; they had both pulled away. Once. But there hadn't been a chance for any more, so.. A week ago she would have told herself that he was the most unlikely person she would get along with; how could her opinion have changed that much in so short a time? But she knew; a week can change anything, if it really wants to be changed. 'So.. Draco-.. I'm not sure what he feels. I'm not quite sure what I feel either, but-' She felt her thoughts cut off as there was a cringing smash in the other room, Draco's. Biting her, lip and remembering his request, she slipped into her own room. Just in case.

Ginny smiled as she quietly led the louder new years to the Gryffindor commonroom. It had come as a surprise to her that she had become a prefect, but Percy seemed to think it perfectly understandable when he had come to visit them during a break from his busy schedule. Granted she had had good grades, when compared to the other Weasleys apart from Percy, but.. 'Well, that's not the issue right now,' she thought to herself as she murmured the password to the fat lady. "I'll tell them when we get in," she said with a comforting smile as the portrait swung open, gasping first-years behind her.

"Alright everyone, come on in." Seamus' voice seemed loudly friendly, almost comforting, as she glanced up at him helping her. "No problem," he said as she smiled gratefully as all of the young kids went in. "I know you're not loud enough to round all of them up in here."

Opening her mouth in protest, she didn't resist as he pushed her in gently to follow them; she told them the password, a bit loudly to her own ears, and directed each of them to their dorms, skimming over the lists on the parchment in her hand. "Hannah Bëlle, Khymm Rhaist, Annabelle Louise, Larissa Montrey, Karen Douls-..Doulsbeyrn, and Mya Lincoln, you are all in the first dorm room, down that hallway," she explained, motioning to the right hallway from the commonroom that led to all of the girl's dorms, "and to the right. It'll be the first door you see, apart from the one labeled supplies." Which was were spare robes, student ingredients, and other things that the students were allowed to take were kept. "Next, Acciendo Malona,…-" She continued, on and on, until all of the first years had knowledge of where their dormitories were; not all were on the first floor, but several involved leading the students up spiraling staircases until the room was reached.

"Finally done, Ginny?" Seamus was smiling slightly as the commonroom was finally empty of all students apart from the two of them when the rest of the Gryffindors came in, bustling to take their places in the room, or to simply go up to their own dorms to sleep. He grinned. "Well, I've got to go speak to some people,.." Nodding slightly, he edged away and into the crowd; she last saw him talking with Dean before she herself went in to do a bit of talking.

"Ginny!" Ron almost immediately found her, dragging her into his own clique. "I was just not talking about you!" She frowned, as that didn't make sense, but it was Ron, after all. "At any rate, we're talking about Quidditch." He motioned to Dean, who was sporting a large rip in his hand along the top, normally smooth part, Elijah, the team's chaser after Oliver Wood left, and.. Well, she didn't really care to talk about Quidditch. Or how Dean had gotten from Seamus to Ron in a matter of seconds. Maybe Seamus hadn't been speaking with Dean.. But what did she care, right?

"Ah, actually, Ron, I was going to be getting up to my room now, if you don't mind. I think I need to rest my stomach a bit before I do anything." With a confused look, he nodded, and she slipped up the stairs to where her dorm was, shared with a few other girls. She would sleep now, though; she didn't feel like socializing tonight.

Hermione was snuggled into the chair in the commonroom before the fireplace, a book sitting in her lap, halfway finished with, though it contained over two-thousand pages. In addition to her starting it today with little reading time after the feast. It was a documentary of magical creatures, something she had become rather interested in after the incident with Hagrid's Norbert, though that hadn't been the best way to pique her interest.

There was a cough from the side of the room with Draco's entrance, and she paused, slightly, slipping a conjured bookmark into the pages. "..Granger." She heard footsteps when she remained silent, heading up towards her until Malfoy's very presence seemed to hover about her. "Any interest?"

Was this a trick question? She was never sure with him. "In what?" She knew. 'In what he had been thinking off, Hermione, in what he was going to do about.. whatever the two of you are, and whatnot.' His silence, marred with the hint of a snigger, told him he knew that. Sighing lightly, she turned her head slightly to face him and nodded over at the chair opposite hers. "Well?"

He sat slowly, and turned to look at her, dark eyes boring a hole into her, stripping her outer coverings of personality to her core. "Obviously the two of us can't be.. anything." She nodded, trying to get comfortable in a new positioning; that was obvious though. "Because of my standing, because of yours, our houses, .." 'Our friends.' "..everything. That changes.. everything in the future. Nothing can leak out about anything, but.."

"So what you're trying to get at, Draco, is that you don't know what you want either?" She raised her eyebrows in a thinly cocky expectancy, not quite frowning, but not quite smiling either.

He frowned. "I didn't say that. I want to know your opinion." So he cared. She shook her head, motioning slightly for him to continue. With another frown, he continued. "I don't think this would make it two minutes, publicized. Even newspapers would find a way to get it into their stories, back or front. Imagine, Lucius Malfoy's son, together with muggle Hermione Granger. The crowds would go wild for Ms. Rita 'Nosy' Skeeter. Biased and untrue things.. It wouldn't work that way. If kept secret though.. Both of us would be denied a certain something."

Well, at least he was implying that the two of them should be together; whether or not they would tell others was a different matter. "So.. What happens then? I mean, seeing as you obviously don't want this, whatever this is, to get out."

He frowned. She knew he hadn't meant it that way. "Who knows. I had thought you would think of something, seeing as.. Never mind. Goodnight, Granger."

He stood, pausing as he glanced at her for a moment; setting her book down, she stood as well, smiling slightly as she leaned forward to kiss him lightly on the lips, a gesture that would confuse him throughout the night as he watched her slip into her room.

*****

Draco woke up the next morning with a raging headache, his head pounding too hard for him to remember whether or not he had dreamt of anything; it wasn't not like it would have mattered though- since he had dreamt of kissing her that had been the only thing he had dreamt of afterward. Then again, maybe it was something different, seeing as he followed through. With a sigh, and a shake of his head, he rummaged for his wand and muttered a few words to made the loud beat in his head disappear, then changed into something suitable for classes. Upon changing, he went out onto the balcony; he would be able to think there with a clear head, at least. He almost frowned when he saw Hermione balancing on tiptoes to look down, then did, upon remembering that, no, that wasn't a restricted gesture. She didn't notice though. She leaned back with a light, satisfied sigh, then turned around, her expression abruptly something else before she reverted it to what it had been. He wondered what expression the spasm held.

Hermione coughed slightly. "Hello, Malfoy." Her eyes were uncertain, he could tell that much. And cloudy. "How.. are you?"

He smiled amusedly, shaking his head at something; it was a sort of I know and you don't gesture, but he used it all the same. "I'm fine." He smirked and walked over to her, lifting a lock of her chestnut hair, glistening with slender droplets of water from the shower, most likely. He suppressed unwanted images as his thoughts conjured them up. Leaning over, he placed his lips on hers, gently teasing them open before she shut both of them and pulled away.

"We haven't discussed anything," she reminded him blatantly, frowning slightly. With an almost pleading, but not quite, expression, he moved to let his hand rest on the small of her back, pulling her close so he could kiss her again; her eyes glistened for a moment when he last saw them as he gently caressed her lips with his, a warm, sweet, indistinct scent floating about with an innocent fragrance. Hermione pulled away and he sighed. So she wasn't going to let him persuade her.

"Alright." He paused as he let her acknowledge he had actually done what she had wanted. "So we can actually talk about it this time. Wonderful." Turning his head to look out at the pale sky, he paused a moment. "So what do we talk about then? What this means to you? To both of us? About what's going to happen, what we're going to do?"

"You're the one who walked out last night," she reminded him, leaning back on the slender rail of the balcony to watch him struggle within himself. He wouldn't give her that pleasure, no matter what he felt.

"Granger. Granger, Granger, Granger. And I still don't know exactly what I want. So, if you have anything to say.. Why don't you tell me? Seeing as you want to discuss.. Whatever." He didn't mean for any of it to be hurtful, and she seemed to understand that. Though he didn't know why, all of a sudden. Well, yes, he did.

And she did too. "Alright." With a deep breath, she shifted in place and spoke. "You yourself don't want this to get out. I can't really say I disagree with you or anything, but what does that make this? I mean.."

She trailed off, nothing else to say, and Draco knew it. "Granger." He wasn't about to go on another name tirade. "Can't you just do something.. different for a change? No research on exactly what this is or anything. Just this." He smiled lightly as she hesitated. "It can be a challenge for you. To see if you're capable of doing just that."

She smiled a bit, still hesitating as her shifting of balance from one foot to another ceased, allowing her to actually think. "Okay," she said finally, with a hint of resolution. "I will. Accept it, that is. No telling anyone, no.. I don't know, anything with the media, or whatever. Just this." She finished with his words.

*****

Oookay, I put this out at the same time as the previous chapter thanks to Black Robed One, who so rightly mentioned I have not kept my promise of updating once or twice a week. Quite a while in fact. So, thanks to my seventh reviewer (not review) I will double-post; YAY! Ha, not. I'm counting on 50 death threats from each of you (or reviews, you can choose which), and I NEED HELP WITH THIS THING OTHERS LIKE TO CALL A PLOT! I prefer to call it a little nuisance required for a halfway decent story. Already in my 6th chapter and no trace of a halfway-good one anywhere. And I mean anywhere. I double checked and everything. So.. This is where you people come in. As I may note, there is no next section, frankly because this is a double-post, even if it is in two chapters, etceteras, blahblahblah. Right? Right. –peace out– byebye

(there will be a cruddy monkey story. I just need a story to base it on, or an idea for an original. Give me some time…)

-sorry about the increasing shortness in each following chapter. I didn't have enough time for this one.

-oh, and sorry about these little indent things. I couldn't work the idea into my little outro paragraph thingy.