Disclaimer: As much as I want to own the characters, I don't. J.K Rowling does. *sigh*

A/N: I made a mistake in the disclaimer of Chapter Nine. Its characters not character. Hehehe.

Chapter Ten

Hermione lay on her bed curled up like a ball sobbing. Every single part of her body ached. Right now, she would give anything to go to the Hospital Wing. She knew she couldn't, it would be risking too much. She was just so angry at the world, at Pansy and the whole situation. She was given another chance to live, to be loved and cared for but everything just had to be so bloody unfair. "Just when things were starting to be normal again and I was actually falling in love" she thought, "Pansy had to ruin it all" She actually had been dreaming about the Christmas Ball and how nice it would be if Draco took her. But now that dream came crashing down, if Harry and Ron's life weren't at stake she would have fought Pansy but she knew that she would rather die than let any harm come to her friends.

***

Hermione woke up the next morning with her eyes puffy and her stomach aching. She tried to get up too quickly but ended up hurting herself more. She tried again to get up, more slowly this time and headed to her bathroom. She performed a spell to fix her eyes and she slowly lifted her shirt. She let out a gasp when she saw that an ugly bruise had formed on the skin of her stomach and on her arm she touched the one on her stomach and winced in pain. She quickly counted to ten to calm herself then slowly exhaled. She hastily got herself ready and headed for the library to hide.

***

Draco woke up with a splitting headache. He had dreamt the night before that someone was hurting Hermione. His head started to pound more. He had gotten so worked up over the dream that when he started thinking of what to do if the dream was real, he felt his head split. He groaned and lay back down. He needed more sleep.

He got up an hour after falling asleep, it was a Sunday and she didn't want to waist it in bed. He got up and changed then decided to visit the Slytherin common room. Pansy spotted him as he entered the common room and ran over to him.

"Draco, honey" she purred, "where have you been?"

He walked passed her and sat down on the couch. "Haven't you heard? I don't sleep here anymore. I transferred to the Prefects quarters with Hermione."

Pansy remained silent. Her blood was once again boiling. "What has the Mudblood done to you?" she spat. Draco stood up and walked towards her. He put his hand on her neck and threatened to strangle her.

"Don't you dare call her that. She has done nothing but bring joy into my life so lay off" he said with a voice filled with rage. He let go of her.

"What about us?" she asked massaging her neck.

"Us? What do you mean us? There is and never will be an us" he replied staring daggers at her.

"But. but Draco were destined to be together!" she said slightly raising her voice with tears streaming down her face.

"Maybe before, but right now I would rather die than marry you" he replied harshly and stalked out of the common room leaving Pansy in a fit of tears.

***

"Where could she be?" he thought. Draco looked everywhere but Hermione just wasn't anywhere. "The library!" he thought. He headed towards the library with a smile on his face. He was going to ask Hermione to the ball he was practically skipping with happiness. He calmed down a bit when he reached the doors of the library. When he entered he spotted Hermione right away in the far corner of the library. She had her back to him so he approached her silently.

"Hey" he whispered in her ear. She gave out a little scream. He immediately put his hand over her mouth to silence her. "It's just me" he whispered in her ear again then removed his hand from her mouth and kissed her.

"My god Malfoy! You scared me to death!" she said after he kissed her.

"Well Granger, I've been looking all over school for you. I wanted to ask you to go with me to Hogsmeade. I talked to Dumbledore and he said it would be alright. Plus, I need to ask you something."

"Ok. Just let me return this book" she said standing up and lifting the book causing her the sleeve of her long sleeved turtleneck sweater to expose an ugly bruise. Draco took notice. He grabbed her arm to take a closer look causing the book to fall with a loud thud on the table.

"What is this?" Draco asked referring to the bruise on her arm.

"Oh that. um. nothing. I hit it this morning and I didn't bother getting it fixed. It doesn't hurt that much anyway" she replied looking down on the table and avoiding Draco's eyes.

"Be careful next time. I don't like seeing marks like this on any part of your body" he said in a very over protective voice. "Hermione?" he added, "Why are you reading a book on self defense?"

"Nothing really, I just felt like it" she said talking the book and placing it back on the shelf while taking her time. She wanted to tell Draco so bad about what Pansy had done to her but she couldn't she just needed to teach herself self defense.

"I just need to bring this back to the common room then we can go" she said then placed her scrolls and quills back in her bag. She was about to hoist it on to her shoulder when Draco took it from her. "Let me" he said then took her hand as they started to walk out of the common room.

As they were exiting the library, Pansy was on her way in and shot them hateful looks. Hermione flinched, Draco noticed and squeezed her hand and whispered: "Don't worry about her" Hermione nodded. "She can't hurt me while I'm with Draco" she thought. They left leaving Pansy to smile wickedly at Hermione's reaction. "The Mudblood is scared" she thought, "This is going to be fun" she snapped out of her thoughts and entered the library.

***

Draco and Hermione spent the entire afternoon at Hogsmeade. They practically went into every shop as they did the last time they were in Hogsmeade. They stopped and had their picture taken at a photo shop they found. The sun was setting when they decided to stop for butterbeer at the Three Witches Café again. They drank in silence for a while until Draco spoke.

"Hermione, I want to ask you something" Draco asked looking into her eyes.

"What is it?" She asked praying silently that it wasn't about the ball. She didn't have an excuse yet. Her prayers weren't answered.

"Would you be my date for the ball?"

Hermione felt like she wanted to cry. She really wanted to go with him to the ball and for everything to be right again.

"I.I can't" she replied breaking eye contact.

"Why not?" Draco asked clearly disappointed. "Are you going with anyone else?"

She looked up at him again and he was taken by surprise at the emotions that were playing in Hermione's eyes. There was sadness, anger, hurt and hate.

"No. It's just that I'm really tired and I'm so sick of the stupid ball. I wanted to stay in the common room." She explained looking down again.

Draco's heart softened. He reached over to hold her hand.

"If you won't go then I won't go either we can have our own ball in the common room" he said and lifted her chin up to see her crying.

"No, I mean don't let me ruin your night. You can go with someone else if you want to" her chest ached when she suggested it.

"But you're the one I want to go with and no one else. So if you won't go then I won't" he said drying her tears with his handkerchief. She nodded and smiled at Draco. They finished their butterbeers and headed back to Hogwarts.

When they go back Hermione went to her room to fetch a book when she saw an unfamiliar owl perched on her windowsill with a piece of parchment tied on its leg. She carefully took it and opened it. Her heartbeat started to increase and fear took over her joyous mood.

Mudblood, Meet me in the dungeon at ten. Do not bring anyone if you don't want your stupid friends to get hurt. I told you to stay away from him.

The note was left unsigned but she knew it was from Pansy. She hid the note got the book and stepped out of her room and into the common room where Draco was seated waiting for her. She lay down on the couch, putting her head on his lap and started to read. She had two hours before she needed to go down to meet Pansy. She looked up from her book and saw Draco staring down at her.

"What are you looking at?" she asked putting down her book.

"You" she blushed at his forward answer. She was about to reply when his lips covered hers for a kiss.

***

A/N: I will try to make the next chapters longer. I promise! R/R!