Chapter 8: A Failing Curse

It was a nice kiss Hermione thought. 'He's a good kisser. No wait! He's a terrible kisser! I shouldn't be doing this!' But Hermione couldn't bring herself to pull away.

Draco was thinking along the lines of 'Why is she kissing me? It's not like I didn't want to kiss her, but I didn't expect her to be this willing. Oh well, enjoy it while it lasts. Until she realises that kissing me is probably the worst thing she ever did.'

And right on cue, Hermione pulled away. "I shouldn't be doing this." And she ran to her room.

Draco was left on the floor by himself. And that is where he sat for what seemed like forever, until he fell asleep there.

* * *

In her room Hermione was almost kicking herself. 'Why did you do that?! WHY?!' she kept thinking.

'Stop kidding yourself Hermione! You enjoyed it!' However much she didn't want to listen to her brain...it was right. She did enjoy it.

Hermione collapsed on her bed. Crookshanks made his way up to her, laid himself down on his stomach and fell asleep.

"Oh, if only it were that easy Crookshanks" she said.

After ages of thinking and her head hurt from it all, she fell asleep.

* * *

In the morning Hermione woke up from the sun shining in her eyes. She had forgotten to close the curtains the night before.

The night before. She didn't really want to think about the night before. She didn't want to have to face this one person that had made everything in her head seem so confusing. For about one second she considered not going to any of her classes that day, but she knew she couldn't do that. Or she knew she wouldn't do that. She didn't want anyone thinking that there was actually something wrong with her.

* * *

At breakfast Hermione sat down next to Harry. She hadn't really talked to him yesterday. Ron was the only one that had confronted her. And Ginny was the only one Hermione went to talk to. She wasn't sure whether Harry was still mad at her.

"Morning Harry."

"Morning Hermione," he said through a mouthful of eggs.

"I didn't really get a chance to talk to you yesterday. Did you enjoy the dance?"

"Why are you asking me? I think the question is did you enjoy the dance?"

Hermione was surprised at his reply. Harry never said things like that. "I'm asking you because One: You're my friend and I wanted to know how your night went! And Two: because I'm Head Girl and I want feedback on the night. If we get a lot of people who liked it, it might just become a regular thing in years to come."

Harry didn't reply.

"And another thing. You know why I went with Malfoy. I didn't have a choice!"

"Well you didn't have to look like you were having a good time with him."

"OH, so just because I had to go with someone I don't like then I wasn't allowed to have a good time? Is that it?"

"Yeah pretty much."

At that moment Ron walked up and sat down. There was no conversation at all for five minutes before Hermione stood up and walked away.

Walking past the Slytherin table she noticed that Draco wasn't there.

* * *

When she walked in to her Potions class that day she was all alone. In past weeks she had either walked in with Harry and Ron who were a little pissed off at her. Actually it was mainly Harry who was annoyed at her, Ron just always was with Harry.

So either she had walked in with them, or more recently, walked in with Draco, who had done a disappearing act today. He hadn't turned up to any of his lessons. He hadn't told anyone that he wasn't going to show up or what was wrong with him. He just disappeared.

Hermione had a funny feeling she knew what was wrong with him. But she didn't see why it would be bothering him like it was bothering her. He always had girls after him and had probably kissed all of them without any sort of feelings before. So why would kissing her be any different? He's the sort of person who could just get over it and move on.

Hermione couldn't stand all the thoughts going on in her head. It was so bad that she messed up the potion she was making and it bubbled over and on the floor. Snape immediately took 50 points off of Gryffindor and failed Hermione for that potion.

Harry could tell something was wrong. Hermione never failed a potion before. He just couldn't figure out what was wrong.

* * *

"Hermione." Harry ran to catch up to Hermione who had stormed out of the lesson.

Hermione didn't stop. She just kept on walking.

"Hermione what's going on? Is everything ok?"

"NO Harry everything is not ok. But you left it a little bit late to ask didn't you?" Tears were starting to well up in her eyes. But she didn't want to cry. Draco had made her cry so many times in the last six years and damned if he was going to it again.

Harry ran a little to throw himself in front of Hermione so she would stop walking so fast. "Hermione! What is it?!"

The tears overflowed. "Nothing. It's nothing."

"Then why are you crying?"

She wasn't going to tell Harry what was going on. "Because I feel like it"

Harry gave her a big hug. "I know you aren't going to tell me what's up, but promise me that you'll face whatever it is and fix it. You can't fail a potion again or then you'll have bigger problems." Harry smiled.

Hermione couldn't help smile. "Sorry about this morning."

"Me too."

"Well I'm going to go fix my problem."

"Go for it tiger!"

Hermione started walking away until Harry called out to her.

"Hermione! I really did enjoy the dance the other night."

Hermione smiled again and started to make her way to her common room.

* * *

"Malfoy!! Open up!!"

Hermione was knocking on the Slytherin boy's room so hard her hand was starting to hurt. But inside Draco would not give in.

Her just sat there on his bed listening to Hermione call out. She seemed really angry. He didn't want to face her.

All of a sudden the door blew apart and there stood Hermione in the door way.

Draco suddenly stood up startled. "How did you do that?!"

Hermione was startled herself. She didn't know how she did it, but she wouldn't let Draco know that.

"We have to talk Malfoy."

"Well I don't feel like talking."

"Why didn't you come to any classes today?"

"Because I didn't feel like going?"

"That's not a good enough reason."

"Well I don't feel like telling you the real reason."

"You don't have a choice!"

"Oh don't I?!" Draco pulled out his wand and was about to say Crucio, but stopped himself when he heard Hermione scream and saw the look on her eyes.

Draco stood frozen. He couldn't believe he had almost performed one of the unforgivable curses on her.

He stood there with his wand held out and his mouth poised to say that one little word.

Hermione was scared out of her wits. She didn't want to move because if she did he might curse her. And yet she couldn't move because she wanted to know if he really meant to do that. But he wasn't moving or saying a word.

Hermione was gasping for breath from the shock. She had to run for it.

She finally found her legs. She stumbled a little and then ran for it. Behind her she heard Draco call out her name.

"Hermione WAIT!"

But she wouldn't stop. She ran all the way to the Gryffindor common room and to Harry and Ron's dormitory. They looked up at her crying and performed the duty of the best friends.

* * *

Still standing in his room Draco was speechless. He really wanted to run after Hermione, but he couldn't. He couldn't find the courage. Instead he sat down on his bed and cried for the first time in a long time. This stupid task was turning out to be a disaster.
A/n - That's that one done. Thanks to kerbi and :) for reviewing. To anyone whos reading this and not reviewing please do. I'll read your story when I have time. Thanks! Signing Out!