A/N: sorry for the delay, been revising for various oral exams (french, german and spanish inside a week :P u try! Lol!) and then the internet went down which was pretty crap to be quite honest!

Anyways, its finally here so enjoy!

Please r/r! I appreciate them all!

Luv instar


.Summer of Hogwarts.

Chapter II.

Hermione woke up laying sprawled across a scarlet sofa, with a book open across her chest. She lifted it off, and stood up, straightening her robes, before starting up the stairs to her dormitory to go and get changed for supper. She changed into some jeans, and a cream roll-neck sweater, slipping on some slippers to walk through the corridors to the Great Hall, where the house elves were preparing a small supper for the few members of staff and Draco and Hermione.

As she stepped out through the painting, she got the funny feeling that she'd interrupted a conversation and turned round to see the couple in the painting leant against opposite frames of the picture. She stepped closer, curiously, and asked Alice (for she didn't know the boy's name) who they were.

"We were the head boy and girl many years ago, when the robes were luxurious and classes were formal. I'm Alice Black, and this is Alastair Simons." She replied, flicking her long, poker-straight blonde hair over her shoulder as the haughty look returned to her face. Alastair just stood there, studying Hermione secretly, watching her face, and her eyes, brown eyes leading you down into their depths.

She met Draco coming out of the library, and they walked into step as they went down the stairs and through the great double doors, open and letting them enter the Great Hall freely. The sky showed a beautiful summers' evening, the sky a clear, spotless blue, getting darker by the second. It reminded her of the sky at her cousins' house in America. She supposed she should write them a letter soon, to tell them she was alright.

Then it struck her, as they sat down to dinner. She had disappeared from the Muggle World entirely now. She didn't exist, there was no way any Muggles could find her, no matter how hard they looked. She found this hard to understand and tried to wrap her thoughts round it, and in doing so realised also that she should write to Harry and Ron. They would be worrying about their best friend, lost without a trace.

"Don't worry," she heard a friendly old voice, as Professor Dumbledore sat down opposite them along the long dining table, looking small and out of place in the empty hall. "I was at Number 12 earlier, they know where you are. Harry tried to get me to take you there, but I feel you're safer here for now."

"Okay," she responded, relief in her voice. A grunt sounded from the other end of the hall, as Professor Snape strode in, a distasteful expression on his face.

"Severus! How nice to see you, how is Lucinda?" Hermione exchanged confused looks with Draco, neither knowing who Lucinda was.

"She's miserable, will not eat nor sleep because of Narcissa's death," it appeared that Professor Snape had not noticed Draco's prescence at the table, as Draco continued to just push the food around his plate, and eventually got up, pushing his plate away and shoving his hands deep into his pockets until they would not go any deeper, shuffling out of the hall, with a mixture of sadness and an attempt not to show emotion on his face.

Hermione only noticed as he walked away, how relaxed he looked in dark jeans and a black turtle neck sweater. His blond hair had grown, so it was not long, but fell over his forehead, not quite reaching his eyes.

"Professors, if you don't mind me asking, who is Lucinda?" she asked tentatively, and Professor Dumbledore glanced over at Professor Snape before replying to Hermione's question.

"Lucinda is Severus' wife. They have been married since a year after graduation. She is… was best friends with Narcissa Malfoy." Hermione nodded and asked whether any of the other teachers were married. "Yes," he started with a laughing glint in his eyes, "contrary to popular belief our classes are not the only entertainment and love in our lives."

Hermione looked down at her plate, shocked to notice she'd finished her supper, and excused herself, ready to go to the head girl and head boy dormitories, to see Draco and read a bit before they went to sleep, maybe write a letter. Somehow, it seemed harder to write a letter though, it would mean facing what had happened again, when she did so every night in her dreams as it was.

Draco wasn't sat in the common room when she arrived through the portrait, and she didn't know whether she should try his dormitory or not. She decided to in the end, and carefully walked up the spiralling steps to his bedchamber. As she approached the door, she called out his name and he appeared through the door, asking her what she wanted, as if he was fine.

"To see if you're alright… you left supper in kind of a hurry," she replied, waiting outside the heavy wooden door. He opened it and gave a weak smile, asking if she wanted to come in. She hung back, unsure whether this was the best idea in the world, and he gave a lopsided grin, asking whether she was afraid of him. "No," she replied defiantly, stepping with a feigned confidence into his room.

"Good, you shouldn't be. Do you, um, would you like to talk about what happened?" She didn't have to ask to know what he meant, and she shook her head, murmuring that it was too soon, and she felt she'd just break down if they did talk about it. "That's cool. Look," he said as they sat down on the end of his bed, she slightly more fidgeting than he. "I'm not gonna bite. I may have said some nasty things to you the past few years, but guess what? I never thought anything bad would happen to me. It was always other people. I guess, in a way this is my punishment for making you that miserable. And I really want to apologise for that, I feel awful and I want to make it up."

"How would you want to do that?" she asked, intrigued.

"Be your friend, if you want me to," he asked with a hint of a hope resting in his voice as he smiled weakly at her, obviously still upset about what had happened to his mother. She waited for a minute, thinking. It was obvious that he needed someone to talk to, and to be honest so did she despite the fact that she didn't want to talk yet. They were going to be the only students in the castle for another month at least, and that would be an excuse, if any, to make friends and see if they could put their differences behind them.

"Yeah.. as long as you don't tell Harry and Ron!" She laughed, and he listened. Her laugh wasn't pretty by any means, laughs generally werent. But it sounded fun, and he felt a pull in his heart as he realised that he rarely ever had fun like that, even before the pain of his mother's death earlier in the summer had struck him down.

He stayed silent for a minute, just staring blankly at the floor, before she asked him what he was thinking about.

"Just stuff. Generally. You're lucky to have friends like Potter and Weasley. You don't know how lucky you are." He replied quietly and she asked him who his best friend was. "I, um… I guess I don't really have a best friend. Or a good friend. It might shock you to know I've never had a good friend, apart from Pansy, but I never told her about the really important stuff, like the Death Eater thing."

"You mean Parkinson?" Hermione fought the urge to laugh about Draco being good friends with Pansy Parkinson, as he nodded, "she always struck me as the ditsy blonde type… only, you know, brunette." He laughed, before replying, liking the sound of his laughter, it being a strange sound to his ears.

"She is, but you know, even ditsy blondes can be friendly and even intelligent sometimes." She smiled and asked what he thought of the bookish type, shyly avoiding his eyes as she asked. "You never know, even bookworms can be beautiful and even sexy sometimes."

She looked up at him, her brown eyes wide as she tried to figure out whether he was serious or just thinking of a what-if scenario.

He smiled at her big brown eyes, framed by her slightly tan skin, with brown curls tumbling down the side of her face as she tried to figure out his comment.