Disclaimer: I do not own any characters from Harry Potter.

Thanks to: Mirrored Beauty, Nelly22, cutemouse, Only I, sunny, CassandraRaven, Cheri, Me, kani4, Moraforver, Bluberry-Gurl, and Merja.

Ice cream to all of you!

CHAPTER 3- Boredom, Books, and Boogled

Scratch. Sccccratch.

Hermione tiredly scribbled down some notes as Professor Binns floated by, lecturing diligently on The Act of 1816. Attending the no-particular-reason party in the Gyffindor common room last night (Seamus claimed he was bored) wasn't the type of thing to go to if you wanted sleep afterwards... the conversations certainly scarred her for life.

Hermione did note that she wasn't the only one not paying any attention. Neville had to woken up twice so far in the History of Magic and the class as a whole didn't seem to be paying attention. Dean was sniffling, literally bored to tears. Harry and Ron were struggling to concentrate and write notes but were ending up writing notes to each other instead.

Hermione looked down at her watch and sighed with relief, only eight minutes were left. She twirled her quill absentmindly while smiling slightly to herself; at least she had something to look forward to. She unfolded a wrinkled piece of parchment from her pocket,

Dear Ms. Granger,

Please report to my office promptly after Professor Binn's class. I will talk to both Mr. Malfoy and you about the extra assignment.

Sincerely,

Professor McGonagall

"Five page essay on the Revolt of 1834 is due tomorrow class." Professor Binn requested in his monotone voice. Nearly everyone groaned upon hearing this, even Ron woke up at the news.

"Tomorrow?!?" Ron exclaimed in horror, visions of his evening plans destroyed.

"Yes, tomorrow Mr. Weasley and it better not be late!" Professor Binns snapped, glaring disapprovingly at the class.

Mutters of disapproval and complaints echoed through the classroom as the students packed up and filed out, highly disgruntled.

"Bloody hell, five pages due tomorrow!" Harry said remorsefully as they strode towards potions. "Adding up all the work we already have, homework will take up most of the evening!"

"Yeah." Ron agreed miserably, shoving a book hastily in his bag.

Hermione nodded slowly, "Also...oh no...I'm supposed to see Professor McGonagall."

Harry smiled sympathetically, "What's worse? Having to endure Snape's presence or work an assignment with Malfoy?"

"The assignment with the ferret." Ron replied as Hermione waved goodbye and dashed the other way.

"Poor Mione, but whatever she have to do, it won't be that bad... right?"

:-:-:-:

"Well, hello Granger." Malfoy drawled from his seat as Hermione came rushing in.

She glanced at him and than walked past. He was sitting with his legs crossed and hands resting on the armrests with a strange wearily look on his face. Though she might have imagined it as he sneered at her.

"A mudblood should at least have the decency to greet. Or have you gone mute?" He said smirking as Hermione sat in another cushioned chair. His smirk widened as he noticed her staring angrily at the floor and the deep breaths she took.

"I believe that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all," she replied coolly, forcing herself to looking at him directly.

For a reason she couldn't figure out, Malfoy's eyes glowed with amusement, the corners of his mouth curving slightly.

"PMS Granger?" He said, peering at her. "Figures. Than again, I can't blame you. Such a pity you lost your potions notes."

Hermione drew in a quick breath, her fingers already finding her wand. She had decided aready not to answer anything from him. She breathed deeply, conjuring pictures of bouncing ferrets in her mind.

"Well?" He said jauntily, enjoying himself.

Hermione could picture her bridge of patience in her mind and it was about to break. Than she thought of Malfoy falling off a bridge and she grinned inwardly but than immediately frowned.

"Wait, how did you-, MALFOY, GIVE ME BACK MY NOTES!" Hermione hissed.

"You're the one who left them lying around. Besides, we already used your notes. I already have mines, which is all we need. We are partners in that class." He said sneeringly.

"Unfortunately." Hermione growled angrily.

"Likewise," Malfoy retorted, leaning back into his chair. "You're a bloody nuisance, squabbling every few minutes."

"I do not squabble every few minutes and if you actually tried to cooperate ..." She said hotly through gritted teeth.

"Don't tell me what to do you filthy mu-"

"Is that the new book, The Acts Through The Ages?!?!?"Hermione interrupted excitedly, picking up a book on one the chairs and eagerly flipping the pages.

"Try looking at the cover." Draco said sarcastically and than smirked, "That book happens to be my personal copy."

What?????

"Where did you find it?" Hermione inquired, very surprised. "This week the bookstore didn't have any more copies!"

"Well, on Monday I happened to have bought the last one in stock." Draco said smugly.

Damn.

Hermione stared longingly at the book she has been searching all over for weeks. This was the book that would help big time in her essay, now if only she had one...

What to do?

She could see if anyone else had a copy. Hermione groaned inwardly. Right. She couldn't possibly ask every person she comes to that. Which means.... No. No way was she going to ask Malfoy. What if he says no? Wait, what do she mean by if? Of course he will refuse and probably be absolutely horrible. She wished Malfoy could be nice to her just this one time. Hermione gazed vaguely at Malfoy and thought with hope, it's worth a try.

"Er...Malfoy?" She asked timidly.

"What?" The Slytherin said tiredly, examining a small statue on a coffee table.

"Could I borrow this book?" Hermione said, her voice coming out more hesitantly than she wanted.

Silence.

"Um, well?" She continued nervously.

No reply.

"Er, I promise I'll give it back the next day." Hermione said hurriedly.

More silence.

"Well, this can certainly be infuriating," Hermione thought glumly.

"Granger, it's 'can I', not 'could I'." He said finally, twirling his wand between his fingers and snickering into the arm of his seat.

Hermione blinked, scrunching her nose in confusion. "What are you...oh! Wait, MALFOY, that wasn't the point!"

"Of course." He smirked, watching her reactions gleefully.

She glared vehemently, highly annoyed as she opened her mouth to bite back when Professor McGonagall suddenly walked briskly into the room. "I..." She paused, raising her eyebrows and a surprised look appeared on her face.

"Ah. Ms. Granger. Mr. Malfoy... I apologize for being late. My meeting with the headmaster took longer than I expected. I assume everything went well when I was away?" Professor McGonagall asked, blinking, a strange look on her face as if she surprised to see them in her office.

"Er, yes Professor." Hermione said, hesitating slightly.

"Well than," Professor McGonagall began, still looking flustered and slightly suspicious, "I am very proud at the tremendous effort you both put into your daily class and homework and impressed at the level of achievement and the way you both challenge yourselves to go higher. Because of this, Headmaster Dumbledore and I have decided that the both of you are eligible to do an extra assignment."

She paused for a moment and than said astutely, "This assignment requires teamwork and I hope the two of you can set aside differences for this."

Hermione groaned inwardly, the chances of Malfoy and her working together civilly and with progress were quite slim.

She observed the two seventh years sternly and stated, "You both are to work on a potions project. If researched and done correctly, it could become a significant help to one of the departments at the Ministry. How, I have not yet been told." She walked briskly to her desk, picked up two parchments and handed them to the two students. "Here is the instructions to get you both started but I have to say, the two of you will have to do quite a lot of research to pull this task off."

Hermione frowned slightly, unable to decide if she ought to be happy to be working on such an important project or to be upset that it was another potions project with Malfoy.

"That would be all. Have I made myself clear?" Professor McGonagall asked crisply as she sat at her desk and looked at them expectantly.

Draco and Hermione nodded mutely as they rose from their seats and than walked towards the door.

Once out of the office, Draco and Hermione walked silently down the corridor.

"Granger," Draco said casually as they entered the Heads common room.

Hermione stopped in her tracks and turned her head around slightly. Draco slowly took out a book from his bag and calmly held it out to her. Hermione gave him a curious look, took it and glanced at the cover. As soon as she saw the title, she blinked, startled. "Oh! Um, thank you very much... Malfoy."

But when she lifted her face to meet his, he was already gone.

:-:-:-:

Sometime during the day, resting innocently on Hermione's desk, a teddy bear's eyes glowed a malevolent red.

A/N: I'm back!!!!! Yes, finally. Ughh...it was such a pain. The Internet refused to work! None of the files I saved this as would open up so...I had to rewrite it again...at a library. When I finally got the computer to work again (Something messed everything up) and then, the chapter wouldn't upload.... Grrrr.... Talk about bad luck! Finally, I tried to upload on another computer and it actually worked.

If this happens again....

.....I'll be keeping some aspirin near by...

Anyways, this chapter is mostly about Hermione's thoughts and finally some Draco action. Thanks everyone for your reviews and I hope this chapter could make up at least some of the time I wasn't able to update. :)

Until later,

Innocent Gurl

10/2 Note: Earlier today, I found out I accidentally deleted a paragraph and had to take this chapter down for the revision. Also thanks to Meriadoc/Celithrathien who corrected me on an interestingly ironic sentence.