Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter nor any other related thematic elements by JK Rowling.

I'll Never Tell

.....

Only once Madame Pomfrey was completely sure that Hermione was fully rested and well did she let her leave. She felt refreshed, like when you finally jump into cool water on a scorching summer day. Maybe it was the sleep, or maybe it was the feeling that she had finally given up on Draco, and was back to her usual Slytherin-despising self. It was probably the combination of the two.

Another thing that kept her alert was the curiosity about Ron and this girl Casey that he apparently liked so much. She felt like she had missed out on so much in one day that she wanted very badly to run the whole way to the Gryffindor common room. Instead, she smiled brightly as she walked very briskly, her bag over her shoulder, and up to the tower. She passed by Ron's younger sister Ginny, who called to her to come and talk for a minute.

"Hermione! Guess what," she said. Her freckly face was absolutely dripping with sarcasm, a signature trademark of the infamous Weasley temper.

"What?" Hermione asked, hoping that maybe Ginny would be able to fill her in on the Ron situation.

"Did my brother tell you that Ronald decided to ask my friend out?" she asked, almost accusingly. It was a rare occasion that she called him 'Ronald'.

"No, Harry told me about it this morning, and I had no idea about it until then...why?"

"Well, it's not like I can do anything about it, but I just can't believe that he'd do that to me! He nearly rips the heads off any boy I ever try to date, and now there he goes, asking one of my friends out! It's even worse!" she said. It sounded a lot like she just needed somebody let her anger out at.

"I take it she said yes," Hermione inferred.

"Yeah, she did. And now I can't even talk to her about it, because she'll probably get all defensive of him instead of me, you know?"

"Mmhm," said Hermione, thinking very quickly. "How are you guys friends, anyway?"

"She's in all of my classes with Ravenclaw, and I'd been her partner a few times, so..."

"So she's a fifth year," Hermione inferred again. For some reason she had never imagined Ron dating a fifth year, maybe because of Harry's thing with Cho Chang, who had been in the year above him.

"Uh...yeah?" Ginny said, shaking her head as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She laughed for a split second, then just as quickly, she ran off, pointing at her watch and cursing at herself for losing track of time again. "Got to go, bye!" she shouted over her shoulder.

Despite the fact that she felt rather sympathetic towards Ginny, Hermione was glad that she now had a better grasp of what had been going on.

"Ron!" she shouted, when she finally made it to the common room and spotted familiar vibrant red hair. "What's all this about?" She made a wide gesture with both hands that didn't really indicate anything. Ron looked confused.

"What's what about?" he asked, squinting.

"Don't be daft, Ron. I'm talking about this girl! This girl that you never even told me about, this girl whom I never even knew existed until Harry told me about her earlier today," she said. It frustrated Hermione that she could tell that Ron had known what she was talking about. He just didn't want to be the first one to directly address the topic.

"Casey," he said slowly, supressing a grin. "Well I've liked her for a while, and this afternoon I asked her out to Hogsmeade next weekend. It was easier than I'd thought it would be, I mean, she's been Ginny's friend for ages, so I already kind of knew her. Chocolate frog?" he offered, and handed her one of the last ones in the pile of sweets he always had with him.

"Thanks," she said, taking the candy and beginning to unwrap it. "Are you sure you know her? I don't even recall seeing her in school, let alone at your house over the summer or anything."

"That's because her parents are muggles. Anxious warts, really, but don't tell her I said that. They think she'll come home in pieces, or something. And yet they send her to Hogwarts!" Ron said, laughing nervously. "So...yeah. I would've told you about her, really, but I just never got the chance. You already told me that you and Harry were sick of hearing me go on about girls, so this time I didn't say anything, I just asked her out. You should be proud of me," he joked, and grinned. He looked pleased with himself.

Whatever floats his boat, Hermione thought. Did he just ask her out to prove that he would quit being all talk, and really do it? Or was it something else? He didn't seem entirely convincing, but Ron was always too much of a nice person to do something like that to prove a point to his friends...

Hermione sighed. He was actually quite lucky to be able to have such a straight-forward romantic relationship with someone. She had never had a real boyfriend, unless you counted the time during the summer before her fifth year when her old primary-school friend Andrew visited her for a weekend. He asked her out a couple times after that, but she was never really interested in him. It was the same story with Viktor. It seemed to her that if she were to ever actually have a relationship, it would be so much more complicated and dramatic, because things like this just didn't seem to come simply to her. Either that or she would always remain alone.

Sure, spells and papers and potions all came easily enough to her. She could sit down and write a paper at the best of her ability for four or five hours straight. She could just never find the motivation or courage to go out and meet new people. Some days she would tell herself firmly that she was okay with that. She told herself that she had plenty of friends who would always be there for her, which was true. But every once in a while, it seemed that her life needed something more--an escape from the constant routine of endless work that was starting to wear away at her. It started as a tiny, barely noticeable feeling that got stronger every single day. It was the realization that being a teenager wasn't just learning—it was growing up. And she couldn't shake the feeling that part of this growing up was missing...

.....

Three days later it was snowing outside, for the first time all year. Most students had jumped the opportunity to host the first snowball fight of the season, and that included nearly all of Hermione's friends. She, however, had too much work to do, and therefore decided to spend her time in the library.

There was a reason that she had let her work build up so much. But she would not admit it, because to her, it was not a worthy reason. Instead, she blamed it on being too caught up with planning her lessons. That was true, but in reality, the underlying reason was locked up inside her. She did not want to admit to anybody, not even Harry or Ron, that the reason was that she was spending all of her spare time trying to avoid Malfoy.

After he had left her in the hospital wing the few days before, she had tried as hard as she could to put the most negative image of him in her head, and then block out everything she had felt about him during the week he had been acting so differently. When that didn't work, she decided to forget he even existed.

But try as she might, she spent so much time concentrating on not thinking about him, that he turned out to be the only person she wanted to think about. It really was true that the things you deny yourself of end up being the things you desire most. Her avoidance had actually almost had the opposite effect of what she had hoped for.

She was constantly on the lookout for him, walking away as fast as she could whenever he approached. When she would pass him in the corridors she would stare straight ahead, determined to look like she didn't notice him, not really seeing anything. But in those few seconds when their shoulders were aligned all that she could think about was him. One day, she was bound to walk into something if she kept it up.

It was not long before Hermione had made her way to the library and was sitting down at her usual table surrounded by books, parchment, paper, and quills. She was really quite enjoying the sense of peacefulness that came with the view of the dazzling snow that was falling just outside the tall window. It was what she had imagined a princess to feel like on a day like this.

But there was also work to be done, and the opportunity to get it all completed was too much to pass up. Hermione tackled Arithmancy first, enjoying the constant structures and algorithms of the numbers. After that, she wrote her extra credit History of Magic essay on the early advances of medical wizardry. Soon, Hermione could see the outdoor snowball fight progressing towards the south side of the school, just below her window. Much of her time was spent just watching her friends play, not really wishing she were out there too, just feeling a bit removed. This did not bother her, however, because it was also relaxing, and relaxation was what she needed most desperately at the time.

I need to stop worrying so much about little things, she told herself. It was true that she often got carried away when she thought about trivial problems such as Ron's girlfriend, or Malfoy, or her class, or even homework.

I let too many things bother me, she thought. After about five minutes spent just contemplating how she could simplify her hectic life, her thoughts started to blur. The air seemed to be getting heavy, and soon her eyelids seemed even heavier, and then she had fallen asleep.

The brief sleep that Hermione managed to get did not last very long, however. For soon there was a voice somewhere over her shoulder, and it was one that she could not easily dismiss. It was Malfoy.

"Pleasure, it's Granger. Been feeling rather distant lately?" he asked her mockingly, ignoring the fact that she was waking her from a blessed sleep. Obviously, he was acknowledging the way she had been avoiding him. "I've been trying to talk to you, but it's suddenly like I'm the plague, and you need to run away whenever you see me." When he spoke he twisted the words so that it sounded like she was to blame. This woke her up fast enough.

"I do not," she said huffily, absently drumming her quill quickly on the table and not looking him in the eye. "It's not my fault if you happen to show up whenever I need to be somewhere else. And what, do you need to talk to me or something? Because if you do, you can say whatever it is that you need to during our lesson-planning session. Ok? I need to go."

"Where?" he demanded.

"To the..." she stumbled for words, and began to get nervous.

"You don't have to go anywhere, I'm not a bloody idiot," he said.

"I..." she began to say something, but realized she didn't know what. Then she came up with something. "You know what? There is something I wanted to ask you, actually."

"You think I came here to answer your questions?" he said instantly angrily. "If you want to ask questions, come find me on your own. I didn't spend an entire fucking hour running around the school to find you so you could ask me a question. No, I..." he stopped mid-sentence and took a breath and ran his hand through his hair quickly, obviously trying to keep his temper down. He looked like he wished he could have taken what he had just said back. "Er...Sorry," he said quickly and quietly as if he were nine and saying a swear word for the first time.

"What? You must be the most confusing person I've ever met," Hermione said. "What's going on?"

Draco pulled out a chair and sat down next to Hermione. She was thankful to have him at eyelevel, so she didn't have to crane her neck to look at him, making him seem much more intimidating.

"I didn't mean to get angry," he said, head bowed. "Actually, I came here to apologize." Slowly he raised his head, and met her eyes, amber locking on grey.

Hermione hesitated, carefully forming her answer so that it didn't come out to harshly. "I can definitely admit that I've been avoiding you. But...how can you not see why? Don't jump to conclusions and think that I'm scared of you or anything, because I'm not. And don't assume that I don't like you either, because..." she took in a deep and shaky breath. "I've really enjoyed working on this assignment with you."

"Then what are you getting at?" he said, raising his eyebrows uncomfortably in an effort to shake the vulnerable-ness of his expression.

"Look," she said. "You just said that you weren't an idiot. But neither am I. I'm not blind. The past few weeks you've just showed me how bloody naive I can be, to believe for so long that maybe, just maybe, you had actually changed. And now, I know better." She paused, letting the information sink in slowly. "Draco, the reason that I've been avoiding you is that I know I can't trust you. Simple as that."

"What the hell do you mean you can't trust me?" Draco demanded, completely taken aback. He attempted a comeback. "How cliché is that?"

"I'm not trying to be cliché, Malfoy. There's no other way I could say it," Hermione said, angry that his pride was making him act like such a jerk. "Just Listen to yourself! One minute you're so nice, but then the next you're back to your old self, rude, and arrogant, and cold, and--"

"Alright, alright! I get it! Just let me talk, I didn't come here to get degraded by you either," he said, as if everything Hermione had just said had bounced off him like rubber. "If you're just going to talk to me like that, I'll talk to you like that too."

"Ok, fine," she said in surrender, placing the palm of her hand on her forehead and leaning on it. She wanted desperately to get out of the library as fast as she could, but for the life of her could not come up with a reason.

Draco quickly turned around to check if anyone had been watching them, and then turned around again to face her. "I came here to apologize for not bringing you to the hospital wing straight away the other night. It's just that they would obviously think that I had done something to you, and I would also have to explain why I'd been out after hours."

"You did do something to me, idiot."

"Yes, but I thought you had known. I should have told you that it was alcoholic, so I could say that I apologize about that too," he said seriously. All this teetering between 'new' and 'old' Draco had begun to give Hermione a headache, trying to decipher which was which. "And I also assumed that you knew why I don't acknowledge you in the halls. The Gryffindors would probably rip both of us to shreds for it, Hermione. I didn't want them to stop us from doing this project together. I like working with you too."

"Oh my God, Malfoy! Just stop it, okay? You're making a fool of yourself, trying to act all apologetic for me! Why can't you just act normally? It'll be so much less confusing," she yelled, as she shoved all her books into her bag, trying to pick up all her papers as fast as she could with her shaking hands. Madame Pince gave her a reprimanding look, and she began to run.

.....
Hermione kept running for what seemed like ages. She was dangerously close to tears, and was having trouble seeing where she was going. She didn't know what to think of her current situation. All she knew was that Draco Malfoy was the most inconsiderate and confusing moron on the earth. How could he do this to somebody, and then flat-out deny it?

There had definitely been times before when she knew she should have just asked what the hell he was up to. She never did, though, because part of her didn't want to know what was going on. She had liked the way he acted around her. He would listen to her talk, and he was funny, and witty, and charming. But then, unexpectedly, he would snap like he couldn't take it anymore. He was like a violin, so tightly wound and delicate that even the smallest bit of pressure in the wrong spot could cause him to crack.

Furious with herself, Hermione refused to let herself cry. She felt that it was her fault for being so unaware of all the warning signs. She was smart...it was just that this one time she had taken a chance. And the thing is that with chances there are always two possible outcomes of the situation. Malfoy could have been getting to like her, or...it could have been just an act. And it was an act. I need to leave it at that, Hermione thought. There's no use dwelling on it, Malfoy is just an arrogant bastard and I only had the misfortune to believe otherwise. End of story.

She was now standing at the entrance to the Gryffindor Common room. Absently rubbing her palms down against her skirt to smooth it, she said the password, Scherzo. There was still hardly anybody inside as she made her way to her dormitory to finish her work in silence. When she was there, closing the door shut and locking it, she decided to take a long shower instead, hoping to clear her whirling thoughts.

......................

A/N: YAY for really sucky pointless chapters! And in any case, thank you for reviewing!