Soon, kids were coming back from dinner. Hermione could hear their voices softly invading her dormitory as she lay on her bed. She wiped her eyes and buried her head in her hands with a heavy sigh. She had been such a baby. Crying? She just hoped Malfoy hadn't been able to tell.

'What do I care what he thinks?' she asked herself. 'I don't care at all-that's what.' He didn't matter, that was that.

And still, the pain in her stomach was evident. She ignored it as she stood up, her head swimming with a headache. She reached for her bedside stand, and her hand hovered above it. She didn't know for what she had reached. Her hand went back to her side and she paced towards the door, one hand on her head and the other gripping the doorknob for support. She gave a subdued groan of pain. After the brief rush of blood to the head left her, she turned the knob and walked down the stairs into the common room. Parvati and Lavender saw her as Hermione fell into a chair, exhausted. They whispered something to each other, and Hermione ignored them. Ron or Harry were no where to be seen.

A frightened first year entered the room and doddered over to Hermione. "Excuse me," he said nervously. Hermione looked up at him and stopped rubbing her forehead, influencing him to continue. "Professor McGonagall asked to tell you…" the student paused, trying to remember what he was supposed to say. Hermione felt uneasy, remembering how strange distressed McGonagall must feel towards her. "Er…I think you're supposed to go to the library."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Yes, the library; that was it. Something about Head Girl or something."

"Hmmm," Hermione frowned. "I'm not even Head Girl yet," she complained. Her head worsened at the thought of Draco.

The student who was already moving back shrugged, clearly not wanting to talk to her anymore.

So Hermione set off for the library apprehensively. On her way, her head cleared slightly. As she entered she saw that the Ravenclaw Head Girl and Gryffindor Head Boy were there. Next to the boy was Malfoy. There were no teachers.

"Hello, Hermione," the Gryffindor, Adam, said kindly.

Hermione nodded, acknowledgingly. The Ravenclaw, Maude, spoke up. "Ok, now that we're all here: We have been told to give you two a little briefing on being Head Boy and Head Girl. Nothing much, just to get it over with. We had to hear this too. Ok, where to start?"

"Duties," offered Adam.

"Yes, yes, I think that's right. Please sit, Hermione," Maude said politely. Hermione complied indifferently. There were four seats at the table. Hermione sat farthest away from Malfoy as Adam and Maude stood, facing the Slytherin and the Gryffindor. "All the students look up to you. So, of course, set a good example. Follow every rule and try to get ace all your classes. It's all right if you don't get top marks but is, er, frowned upon. Also, you should receive plenty of N.E.W.T.s. Ok, I think that covers the grade section?"

"Yeah. Now, you'll need to work with prefects a lot."

Hermione was listening intently, but she felt a stare flash past her. Her heart sudden skipped and her face felt heated, she hoped she wasn't blushing. She tried to compose herself.

The two kept talking about all the expectations of Head Girl and Head Boy. Hermione's thoughts lingered on the words, "You two should have a close working relationship. Specially since you're from such different houses, you know, a sort of friendship would help.' Maude had quickly said after that, "We're not telling you to be friends! Just, er, be diplomatic."

After an hour of the talk that 'nothing much,' Adam looked at his watch. "Alright, come on Maude. We need to brief the prefects on the ball."

"Ball?" asked Malfoy.

"Yea. You two don't need to come, you won't be helping to plan it. There'll be a Christmas ball again this year as a raise in spirits after all the…unpleasantness. Maude and I are going to help the prefects set a theme and organize everything."

"It's just going to be really Christmassy," Maude said, taking some papers off the table. "Snow and stuff. Just before we go, I need to give you these." She picked up some pieces of parchment that had been lying latently. Just write 'cleared after you've checked for consistency with the numbers. We'll find you the next time we need to meet, just give us the papers then. Goodnight for now."

"Goodnight," Adam yawned. "Good first meeting." Maude and Adam left, closing the door. Behind them two students were sitting by table, looking dejected. The Slytherin had his arms crossed and a sour look on his face, and the Gryffindor was looking nervous, twisting her hand under the table and trying to summon the courage to talk.

Yet there was still silence.

"Well?" prompted Malfoy.

"Oh, shut up," Hermione snapped.

He gave a derisive laugh. She turned to glare at him. At least now the ice had been broken. "What, Mudblood?"

"Start working!"

"Don't tell me to work!" he snapped back at her. "You do it."

"Don't order me around!" She didn't realize how heated their bickering was until it dawned on her than she was near shouting. She remembered, too, how much their quarrel was like before.

"Look, Mudblood," growled Malfoy. "I'm certainly not doing the work. I did it all last time and you're the goody-goody. You go do it."

"Oh, go…" she searched for an insult. Malfoy got up, ready to leave, taking advantage of her command 'go'. Hermione shot up. "Don't you go! You have work to do." He ignored her and started to leave, she grabbed his arm.

"Don't you grab me!" he shook her off.

"You can't do this," Hermione said officially, sounding like her old, pompous self. "You can't just shove it all on me!"

"Why not?" He started to leave again, and again, she grabbed his arm. He shook her off and in turn gripped both her wrists, staring her down. She struggled to pull away, but she couldn't.

"I told you, don't grab me." Hermione muttered in pain. He let her go, a dangerous look in his eyes. Hermione was out of breath since she was easily shaken. He had a steely look and she rubbed her wrist, looking into Malfoy's eyes. They seemed to have a tint of regret in them. He opened his mouth and almost said 'sorry' but he didn't. His mouth shut and he turned from her, the light reflecting off his eyes more clearly for some reason.

"Wait, Malfoy," Hermione said, her voice much softer than before.

"What?" Draco said sharply, anger surging, misdirected, through his voice.

"I-The work."

He scoffed in a expected sortof way. With that, he stormed out of the room, slamming the door.

Hermione turned, to the couch in the library, and sat slowly on it, her face expressionless. A sloppy tear tipped out of the corner of her eye but it was meaningless, just the result from weariness and disappointment. She didn't hear the door open.

Feeling the presence of someone in front of her, she slowly looked up as a feeling of hope welded itself in her chest. Malfoy was back and standing over her, an unreadable expression on his face.

His hand steadily pulled her up with his hand under her arm. She rose automatically, slowly, composedly, and never breaking eye contact. He slipped a hand behind her head and leaned down to kiss her. One of his hands was sliding up the side of her waist and outlining her to her shoulder. When his hand had reached there he applied soft pressure and she found herself going back to the couch. She fell sideways, lying down. He put his knees on either side of her hips, straddling her. Balanced, he continued to kiss her, gradually going down to her neck. She arched her back, reacting to his attention. He slipped his hand into the collar of her shirt and undid a button from behind it. Then he explored her shoulders and collar bone with both hands, as they returned to kissing each other, Hermione's mouth weak from exhaustion. Thoughts were running threw her head but she wasn't able to understand any of them, too attentive to the matter at hand. "Oh!" she gasped, and then bit her lip to shut up. Malfoy continued to slowly move downwards from the neck, undoing more buttons. One hand of Hermione's coiled itself around his neck while the other tangled its fingers in his hair.

There was a loud noise from outside.

They froze.

"Ow!" a voice shouted from outside.

Malfoy's cold lips rose from her warm chest.

"You git! Are you alright?"

"I just hit my toe on this stupid knight." There was a swift sound of a shoe meeting metal. "OW!"

"Idiot!" laughed the other voice.

There were two boys outside, and they were opening the library door.

Malfoy leapt off Hermione and she scrambled to stand up, her legs moving slowly in protest. As Draco took two swift steps towards the door, Harry and Ron entered. They saw him stride past them and out the library without a word and a mere cold glance which seemed to be hiding peculiarity. Hermione was standing near a couch looking frayed and shocked. Her face was had more energy than most.

She didn't recognize them for a fleeting second. "Harry! Ron!"

"What is it, Hermione?" Harry asked, concerned. Ron was looking from the door where Draco left to Hermione, suspiciously.

"Nothing. The Head Boy and Girl gave us a little chat here," she gesture over-enthusiastically at the couch and chairs area to explain why she was there. "And then Malfoy and I had fill out some papers. But we didn't get to it, they just left a few moments ago."

"We didn't see them," Ron said inquiringly.

"What? Really? Oh, that's odd they just left a few moments ago," Hermione said, overacting and seeming really perplexed. "No, that's really odd because they just left a few moments ago."

"You ok, Hermione?" Harry asked.

"I'm fine!" she said, almost sounding offended. "Let's go!"

She marched over to the door before Harry could remind her, "Aren't you going to take those papers with you?"

She doubled back and snatched them up. "Why are you looking at me like that? Let's go!"