Author's Note: I couldn't find the time to add another chapter to this; I was overflowing with ideas for new stories, including a very interesting Harry Potter one (not the Sandman idea, Gary, that sounds a bit too hard for me, and I won't shame myself by attempting at Neil Gaiman's genius). Well, here goes Chapter Five.

Chapter Five

Unwanted Suitor

Draco's smirk faded quickly as Hermione's answer snapped against his ears with the sharp resounding crack of a rejection. " No!" Hermione exclaimed, " Draco, is this some sort of joke?"

Draco looked at her with surprise and then straightened up, seething, " It sure as hell was a joke! It's not like I'd want to dance with someone like you. You couldn't even get Potter to like you."

Hermione's cheeks were glowing with a blush now. She prayed in her mind that Draco would go away and that would be that – the spell could have been insufficient in strength against Draco's own loathing nature. No such luck though – Draco receded into a dark corner of the room and watched Hermione intently, even though he himself didn't quite understand the invisible threads connecting him to her.

" Hermione, what's going on?" Harry demanded, " Things are seriously getting out of hand."

" I don't even know anymore," She replied heatedly, " Everything was going fine until I messed up." And now she was crying, and she couldn't even stop the tears. She jumped up from the table and ran from the room, realizing that it was better than to sit there and wait for Harry to comfort her.

She didn't want his soothing words, not when one of Ginny's red hairs still slept freshly on the collar of Harry's jacket.

*

Hermione spent the next day in majority at the library. The rest of the students had gone to Hogsmeade on a trip, and she decided that the library was a sanctuary for her in such times. Her humiliating moment at the dance had bled through the layers of cover-ups her friends tried to create and made quite a stain on her reputation. There was whisperings of Hermione bringing Colin and paying him off to wrestle Ginny from Colin's arms, and that Hermione was a jealous witch that didn't want Harry, but hated seeing him with anyone else. Draco, meanwhile? Some just figured she broke his brain through some illegal spell. The rumors were becoming more and more outlandish, it seemed, as the dance wore on.

She still felt weak and her nose was still runny from the good long cry she'd had the very same morning, and now she felt another wave of tears coming on. Hermione held them back, though; they were shameful enough to her last night, this morning they would be the frosting on the cookie.

" Hey! Granger!" She heard from across the library.

Hermione shuddered and pretended not to hear the pathetic drawl she knew so very well.

Draco Malfoy appeared before her, his face drawn into a sneer once more, " You've been blubbering like a baby, haven't you?"

Most romantic, Hermione thought angrily, and replied, " Leave me alone."

" You can talk to me. I'll tell a few people, but we won't laugh. Much." Draco laughed at his own joke, saw how serious Hermione looked, and kept his mouth closed.

Hermione rubbed her temples thoughtfully, something that she did only when she was annoyed to the point where locking herself in a room and screaming insanely for an hour would be the only cure. She said, very calmly, " Draco?"

" What?" He asked.

" You're under a spell. You hate me. Get it?"

Draco stared at her blankly, " So is that why Crabbe found it imperative to read me my mortal enemy list this morning?"

" I suppose," Hermione replied.

" Get this spell off of me then," Draco moaned, " If I'm supposed to be your worst enemy, then…" He blinked uncertainly, " But are you sure? I don't feel any dislike to you."

" This is the worst!" Hermione groaned, putting her head down on the table, " Just avoid me for a few days, or something."

" I can't. You look so sad, it's hard to ignore you," Draco confessed, " Some part of me tells me I have to comfort you."

" The part that isn't you! The part of you under the spell!" Hermione spat.

Draco stood up, " Well, if you're going to be like that!" And he left, looking rather angry. A few steps away, though, he turned, something in his expression changing. " Are you sure?" He asked Hermione, " Positively sure?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes, " I'm very sure."

" They're calling you a witch, you know," Draco told her, " They say you're insanely jealous over any girl that's with Potter. I'd say you need someone on your side."

" You?" She raised her eyebrows, " Malfoy, you'll ruin your character. You've built a wall between yourself and… and us! You'll regret this."

" I don't feel it's bad," Draco said, " Not really, anyway."

" Just go. I don't need you around," Hermione said.

" You're cute when you're mad," He told her, with a shy grin.

" Get away!" Hermione shouted, throwing her book at him.

Draco shrugged and ran off somewhere.

She sat there, staring into the empty air, her stomach hurting suddenly. It was embarrassing, not to mention plain silly, to have to deal with Draco like this. He had some nerve to pester her like that! Besides, it was just the spell on him, after all.

Hermione's heart deadened, but what if he genuinely falls in love with me in this time?

She shrugged and decided to be extra-nasty to him just in case.

*

Harry couldn't concentrate on his broom. After attempting to fly across the field not once, not twice, but thirty-eight times, and each time just drifting sadly a foot or two from the ground, he gave up. Everything had suddenly gone so sour for him! Hermione couldn't be as awfully jealous as everyone said! She was his best friend, and he felt he knew her well enough.

Above all, it was unlike Hermione to plot behind his back.

As much as he tried to convince himself this, though, the more it disturbed him that there was so much evidence against Hermione. Draco had suddenly taken an odd infatuation with her, which many said might be because he realized Hermione was just as villainous as he was. There was the sudden love between Colin and Ginny, who spent the whole day singing love songs to one another. And, of course, Hermione running from the dance in tears after seeing Harry and Ginny together.

Harry sighed.

" Why, though! She said she didn't want to go to the dance with me!" Harry shouted at the sky angrily.

" I think I know," A voice drawled from behind him.

Harry turned around and saw Malfoy.

" Draco?" Harry demanded, " What would you know about Hermione?"

" Enough," Draco said, " To tell you one thing: she doesn't like you. She's just peeved that she can't get a date."

" I don't believe you," Harry said, turning away, " Hermione's not like that. Above all, she'd always tell me if there was something on her mind."

" Oh, there is something on her mind," Draco spewed venomously, " An insipid little thought that she herself is undesirable to others. And you know what that means? Nobody else should be happy around her."

" How do you know all this?" Harry demanded.

" I'm observant, in a way," Draco crossed his arms across his chest, " Besides, it's obvious. She doesn't like you, she would have asked you to the dance first if she did. She had nobody left to ask after Ginny snatched you, and she got angry. And it's been so long now for that nerdy Mudblood, I don't think she's ever even touched a guy…"

" Shut up!" Harry shouted.

" … She got to jealous over Ginny! She turned Ginny into a little effigy for her own misery and distaste." Draco talked on, grinning, " She decided to ruin it all for Ginny. So Hermione cast a spell on Ginny and Colin, making them fall madly and irreversibly in love. But it didn't sate her, oh no…" Draco laughed, " She saw that she was still alone, after everything she did, and she ran out of the room crying."

" Shut up, you lying worm!" Harry threw himself at Draco, his fists landing all over Draco's lithe body.

Draco slipped away, chattering on, " And now Hermione's pissed and waiting, like a tiger, and she's discovered the hate and the power within her grasp! And I like her this way! I like her angry and evil and filled with poison!"

" Go away!" Harry swung at Draco again, " I don't believe you!"

" Talk to her, and you'll see," Draco said, " She's not the old Hermione anymore."

" I will talk to her," Harry said, " And clear this up once and for all."

Something in Draco's face changed though. If indeed Hermione wasn't as he saw her – his ideal mate, in a sense, then that would prove him wrong. And he hated to be wrong. Wheels began to turn in his head. He would make sure Hermione stayed the way she was, a set point of venom and evil in his mind. The spell had crafted her so in his eyes, after all; it simply turned her into perfection to his own mind.

" I'll show you how wrong you are," Draco said. Somehow, he felt he had a deadline in his head. He'd have to pressure Hermione into the Dark Side somehow; make her see how worthless her old friends were. It was perfect now – now that she was being talked about, now that everyone feared her in a way; it was the perfect time for him to come in and try to talk her to his side.

Draco grinned and said, " You try your hardest, Potter. Save your little Mudblood, I dare you."

Harry frowned, " You're sick," Harry muttered, and rushed off to find Hermione.

Draco knew where she was, though, and ran for a head start.

*

Author's Note: Whoa. This was dark and upsetting, even for my brooding melodramatic taste. I wrote this after walking for two hours in the awful sun, just to get to Starbucks and enjoy a Slushy. I have no life, it seems.

Anyway, please, please, please review. I feel about ready to give up this story.