Authors' Note: Thanks for all of your reviews! It's really fun getting them! So, thanks! To harrypotterwanter, as for Hermione not doing so well in Defense Against the Dark Arts, we figured that she's not really failing in that subject, only that Draco is better than her. Anyways, keep those reviews coming and thanks! Thanks for the link to an online Latin dictionary, Seraph! And now, on with the story!

Chapter 5: Revealing More than Intended

Hermione made sure that she did not encounter Malfoy for the rest of the week. It was just too weird, always seeing him looking at her as if he wanted to know every thought, every secret she held. It was because of that incident in the prefect's common room... if she hadn't reacted that way, maybe he would never give her another glance.

She was confused and tired. It was Friday, finally she could cry and sleep her worries away. All she wanted to do right now was go to her room and release every pent up emotion she held inside. She didn't want to think about studying or doing her prefect's duties... she just wanted to cry and sleep.

Ron had stopped with his threats and his suggestive touches. But the mere mention of his name or the nearness to him made her want to scream and run away from him. She wanted to hit him with all her might and get her revenge for violating her when she thought he was her friend. Harry did not pay her any attention at all, he simply went on with his everyday life. Nothing seemed to matter anymore to him, except for his girlfriend, a Gryffindor fourth year.

Hermione avoided anyone blood-related to Ron. Which meant she avoided Fred, George and Ginny. When they came to talk to her about something, she would politely excuse herself from their presence, muttering some kind of apology on how she should get those prefect duties down. They would look after her in confusion, but then quickly shrugged it off. What was more, Hermione avoided anything male. She was never seen with a guy, any guy. Whether it was Neville or Dean or Seamus... or anyone else. She kept to herself and to Lavender and Parvati, never talking, never looking up when she was alone.

It was precisely that wanting to be unnoticed that made her even more noticed. Well, by one person. Draco always looked from afar, never venturing near her, lest he might frighten her or something along that line. He never made any comments about his observances even to his friends. In fact, he rarely spoke out of class or when he was asked a question.

All in all, Hermione was glad that it was the last day of the week and it was the second to the last class of the day: Transfiguration. Having completed the task set to her, she was left with nothing to except to watch her other classmates struggle with their own problems Professor McGonagall had given them. Only one other person was through and she was currently doing her Arithmancy assignment: Joanna Davidson.

Hermione smiled, looking away from Joanna and checking to see if she got any of her problems wrong. Satisfied that her work was perfect, she looked for something else to do. Grabbing a piece of parchment and her quill she had charmed never to need an ink pot, she doodled to pass away the time.

First, she drew pictures of flowers and butterflies, writing her name in a neat script that all had lines and swishes of a pen. When someone first looked at it, he/she would only see a bunch of lines and curves. But if you looked very closely, you would see her name spelled out. She smiled to herself and looked at the time... it was more or less fifteen minutes to go before the class ended. After a few moments of simply staring at the paper with flower and butterfly borders, her mind drifted off to the assault yet again.

She couldn't get it off her mind. She not telling anybody else contributed to that never-ending replay of what happened to her. The way he had first kissed her, then telling her that he loved her... then when she tried to get away from him, he grabbed her and...

She gripped tightly on her quill, almost to the point of breaking it. What she didn't realize, as she thought those horrid thoughts was that her hand was subconsciously moving and she was scribbling something on her piece of paper.

The lines were heavy, making imprints at the back of the thick parchment paper. The quill's tip was about to break, but didn't. She continued to think those thoughts and her hand continued to write on the parchment. Too absorbed, too unmindful, she didn't know what her hand was spelling out. The writing was shakily done due to her trembling and anger.

Class ended and she jumped. All thoughts of the present reality came rushing towards her and she began to frantically hand in her paper to the professor and put all of her things inside her book bag. In her rush to get out of the classroom and head to the next class, she forgot about the piece of paper she'd been doodling on. The last fifteen minutes of Transfiguration were spent in a dreamlike state that Hermione was sure that she had slept and dreamed that she had gone through the whole incident yet again.

* * *

Draco entered the last class for the day, thankful that it was only Transfiguration. Yes, even though a lot of people hated Transfiguration because it was just too damn hard, he reveled in it. The thought of turning something into another thing intrigued him. Therefore, Transfiguration was his second-highest subject. Next to Defense Against the Dark Arts, of course.

He strode over to his seat and was about to sit down when something caught his eye. A blank piece of parchment lay just below his table. Bending over, he picked it up and laid it on top of his desk; then he noticed a few small ink blots and the imprint of heavy lines. Turning the page over, he was surprised to see that it was filled with dark and heavy lines and scratches. The whole page was almost filled with all these lines of black ink.

At that time, Professor McGonagall started her lecture about the first stages of becoming an animagus. Draco was about to crumple the paper, deciding that the owner was probably drawing a poor picture of something, when something caught his eye amidst all the heavy lines and curves.

An 'R'...

Now why would an 'R' be present within these lines? He wondered. He shook off his thoughts and decided to keep the paper. He didn't know who sat in his chair before his class, so it could've been anybody. He would take a good long look at the paper later, in the privacy of his own room. He folded the paper carefully and inserted it into his Potions textbook and took out a blank piece of parchment for his Transfiguration notes.

And hour later, Draco was out of Transfiguration class and was headed to the prefects' room to drop off his books. On the way there, he was stopped by the Head Boy, Josh.

"Hey Malfoy." Josh called out, his books under his arm and he was running towards Draco. Draco turned at the sound of his name and grinned at the tall brown haired boy who was running towards him.

"Hey Head Boy... irritate anybody lately?" Draco asked as Josh halted a few feet before him, slightly out of breath but grinning like mad.

"Yeah, in fact I have... Miss Haden, of course." Josh replied mischievously. Draco laughed. Josh was a seventh year Slytherin and Elizabeth, the Head Girl, was from Ravenclaw. It wasn't rare that those two got into a friendly fight every now and then. Draco sometimes got tips for irritating women from Josh.

"Should've known..." Draco said, shaking his head. "So, what's up?"

"Kevin told me to tell you that you have practice this evening... You're up against Gryffindor tomorrow."

"What?!" Draco exclaimed. Kevin Mitchell was Josh's best friend and the Slytherin captain and star chaser. "There was no announcement about it..."

"There was, Malfoy. This morning... don't you remember?" Josh asked,

Draco thought... how could he have missed that announcement? What was he doing around that time? Then he groaned inwardly. Damn it! He was too busy looking at-

"Hey Malfoy...!" Josh said, making Draco snap out of his thoughts. "Kevin said that practice was at 9 pm, right after Gryffindor's practice."

"Why didn't he come and tell me this himself?" Draco asked. It wasn't like Kevin would go and order his best friend, who happened to be Hogwarts' Head Boy, to tell Draco about practice.

"Well you know him, he's got to tutor some poor boy on how to crack jokes and play pranks on the others." Josh said nonchalantly, then started laughing. "Kidding... he's got some work to do."

"Oh. Well, thanks Josh..." Draco said, grinning.

"Yeah, I've got to go... Her Highness told me that she'd skin me alive if I would be late for dinner one more time." Josh said, referring to Elizabeth and her abhorrence for tardiness. He gave a salute to Draco as he sped down the other way towards the Heads' room.

Draco chuckled to himself. He knew that Josh had a small and secret crush on Elizabeth, which was why he often irritated her and annoyed her to no end. After saying the password to the portrait of the prefects' room, he went inside and almost bumped into Hermione who was just about to leave.

"It's a good thing you're not hitting me anymore for bumping into you, Granger." He said sarcastically. As he stepped off to the side to let her pass.

"Shut it, Malfoy." Hermione retorted, but Draco saw the faint blush that appeared on her cheeks. After glaring at him, she went out of the room.

Draco shrugged and went to his room. Once he entered, the whole room was magically lit up with the torches and the candles all around. Dropping off his books on his desk, he sat down on his desk chair for a while, thinking about the day that had passed. He took out his Potions book and opened it to the page where he inserted the piece of paper. After looking at it once more, he set it down on his desk and he stood up. He intended to come back to it later after quidditch practice.

Straightening his robes but leaving them unbuttoned, he went out of his room and out of the prefects' room, walking briskly towards the Great Hall for dinner. He was one of the last people to enter and he went directly to his teammates who had saved him a seat.

"Ready for practice, Malfoy?" Kevin asked in his Irish accent. He was a tall and slightly beefy boy with light-brown hair.

"Yeah..." Draco answered, smirking as he sat down and began to eat. "So Mitchell, any idea on how Potter's feeling tonight?"

"Hopefully scared as hell." Kevin replied, then the whole team laughed. After Marcus Flint had graduated, Kevin had been appointed as team captain. And they have not lost a game against Gryffindor all through the past year. Potter was captain since last year.

"Hey Malfoy, care to help us with one of our famous tactics? It sure gets the ladies jumping up for joy." Asked Steven Tanner, who was one of the team beaters. His cousin, Mark, was also a beater and they would usually plan these daring moves to impress the girls. Sometimes, Draco would come in, seeing that he was the one all the Slytherin girls rooted for.

"Not today, Tanner." Draco replied, shaking his head.

"So any new ventures?" Slytherin chaser, Adam Baker asked. He was in fifth year with spiky black hair.

"None." Draco replied, smiling at the fact that his teammates were actually interested in his exploits with girls before. Sure, he'd laid a few girls... but it had never gone into anything after that. He kept to himself mostly these days.

"Really?" Adam asked again.

"Yeah... being prefect means you can't have one night stands anymore." Draco said, laughing. The others who were listening to the conversation laughed as well.

"Oh... but then again, you do have the privilege to work two of the hottest sixth year girls in the whole of Hogwarts." Patrick Connell, the team keeper said.

"What?" Draco asked, eyeing the sixth year carefully. Patrick couldn't have meant Hermione and Joanna... right?

"Granger and Davidson, man." Patrick elaborated.

"What about them?" Draco asked.

"Oh come on, you don't think they're hot?" Patrick asked, disbelieving that his friend didn't know the potential of the two girls he was working with.

Draco looked over to the Ravenclaw table where he saw Joanna and her friends talking and eating. Yes, he did admit that she was pretty but then... Looking towards the Gryffindor table, he saw Hermione. And if the sight of her smiling and laughing as she talked with the two girls she was always with didn't make his heart beat a little faster, he wasn't sure what could.

Shaking his head, disgusted with his thoughts about Hermione Granger. He turned to Patrick. "Think whatever you choose to think, Patrick. I just see Davidson as too happy and cheery and friendly all the time and as for Granger, I still think she's a know-it-all." He finally said, smirking.

"I still think that they're hot. I wish I was Slytherin prefect..." Patrick said.

"Dream on, Connell." Called out Zach Taylor, another Slytherin chaser, then the two laughed.

The meal went on for quite some time, with the whole team laughing and cracking jokes (usually something about Potter being so in love with his Gryffindor girlfriend).

"Alright team, let's get to work." Kevin said, standing up after everyone had eaten. Soon, the other six members stood up and went to the Slytherin dormitories to discuss their game plan.

* * *

Two hours later, Draco went inside his room, just coming from practice and a shower. His muscles ached and he was definitely sleepy, but he had made a promise to himself that he would check out that piece of paper. He changed into his pajamas and stretched before sitting down at his desk and poring over that paper.

He stared and stared and stared at it. He could now see that after the 'R' was another letter. This letter was heavily marked and it seemed that the writer had subconsciously written it because of the lines that strayed from the actual letter.

It was the letter 'O'.

Now Draco thought. 'R', 'O'... what could it probably spell out? Rock? Rose? Roast? Road? Rob? Rod?... Ron?

Ron.

Draco looked at the last letter and sure enough, it was the letter 'N'. You couldn't actually see it a first partly because of the lines that obscured it and mostly because it was done in heavy script that you almost couldn't see one of the legs. He sat back in his chair, wondering why would anyone write Weasley's name?

Because someone has a crush on Ron? Draco thought about it and it was possible... but then why all the heavy lines and script? Why all the bad handwriting (like someone was shaking) and the ink blots? Maybe the writer was in a trance when she wrote this... He assumed that the writer was a girl...

But why the heaviness? And the implied hate?

Maybe something bad happened to her. Maybe she hated him or something...

He looked again at the piece of paper. He now saw clearly Ron's name, but there was still something written under it.

An 'H' and a 'T'.

Now what in the hell was that? Draco wondered. He was getting a headache from all of this cross-examination of this note. He even wondered why he bothered to pick it up in the first place. Feeling just so tired and sleepy, he set the letter down and went over to his bed. After turning down the covers, he slipped between the clean sheets of his green bed and drifted off to sleep.