It's short. And it's the beginning of the end. I didn't know where this story would go, and now I do. Sorry guys. Not many chapters to go.

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It was one day before christmas Holidays when Hermione got a letter from her parents, telling her she should not come home for Christmas, because her parents were fighting incessantly and they didn't want her to remember them as the two people who ruined her christmas.

Hermione didn't really know what they meant, but she didn't care right then.

She burned the letter with a flick of her wand to a small pile of ashes. How dare them sending her a letter right after she had packed her trunk? How dare them telling her they didn't want her home for christmas?

She let herself fall onto her bed. She had hoped they would distract her from the troubles she had in Hogwarts but now she would stay at school, all alone. As she had been since the incident with Draco.

Of course he had tried to keep in touch with her all the time, but she was afraid. Afraid of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and what he could do to her – or to Draco.

Draco sighed. He stared at the door in front of him. He had tried so often these past weeks. First he had tried to convince himself that she was just a silly know-it-all mudblood. But he knew she wasn't. She was really smart muggle-born witch with chocolate eyes…

He knocked at the door and the only answer he got was "Go away"

He shrugged and opened the door "Hermione?"

"Leave me alone, Malfoy"

"Could you please at least say good-bye?"

"Why should I say good-bye to a spoiled ferret whom I'll have the dishonour to see after the holidays?"

"Because I… I love you, Hermione"

Tears ran down Hermiones cheeks and she stood up, yelling at the blonde boy in front of her "I TOLD YOU NOT TO SAY THIS IF YOU DON'T MEAN IT!"

"But I mean it, Hermione"

"I don't believe it. There's the door. Shut it from the outside"

Draco bit his lip, trying to find something to say. He found nothing and left, leaving Hermione to cry in her self-pity.

The next morning, Draco looked at Hermiones door, stopping for a second. Then he decided it was no use and made his way to the train without looking back. He hoped so much Hermione would find it…

Hermione looked out of her window when a certain platinum blonde made his was into a carriage "It's much safer like this, Draco. Believe me"