A/N: I would once again like to thank my wonderful reviewers: omnipotent otaku, Linwe Amandil and Lady-Delphinea.
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine. I still don't own Harry Potter.
On with the fic:
Hermione Granger sat in the hospital wing, explaining to Harry and Ron about the premonitions she'd been having, as she had had expected they weren't taking the news that well.
"How long have has this been going on?" Muttered Ron, referring to the premonitions.
"A while," Hermione mumbled, looking at her hands.
"And how long has Malfoy known?" added Harry
"A while" She mumbled, "look I would have told you guys but…"
"but what you trust that Malfoy git more than us?" Ron finished off bitterly
The Gryffindor girl bit her lip; she knew they would react like this… only she thought it would have been for different reasons. "It's not like that," she insisted.
"Then what's it like Hermione? All of a sudden we're not good enough for you?" The ginger boy continued, he knew in his heart that this was not the case, however he was too angry to see this now.
"You know that's not true!" Hermione almost shouted.
"Do we?" shot back Harry resentfully, he had up till now remained relatively silent. "Come on Ron," he mumbled and with that they left the head girl to think over her actions.
Hermione had always dreaded telling her friends about her premonitions, she had expected them to think she was crazy, now she realised she had been the stupid one by not entrusting them with her secret.
Draco sighed desolately as a group of first year girls giggled and squealed whilst shooting him smiles every few seconds; he pretend not to notice them whilst he finished pinning up the last of the posters for the school Christmas dance. Due to Hermione being in the hospital wing McGonagall had assigned him the task of making sure all the posters were up.
He raised his brow at one of the girls who was trying to catch his attention, he turned and walked off in the opposite direction, ignoring her waving hand; usually such attention lifted his mood and he would at least grace the girls with a wink, however today, for reasons unknown to him or anyone else, Draco did not bask in the attention.
The dance was due to start at seven o'clock in the evening on Christmas day and a special visit to hogsmead had been arranged by McGonagall to give everyone a chance to buy extravagant dresses and other such finery.
All that stood now between Draco and the long awaited holidays was a double lesson of potions, this thought cheered the blonde boy up immensely, he looked down at his watch, he had twenty minutes before the lesson started. Deciding Potter and Weasley must have already left the infirmary, Draco chose to go keep the bushy haired Gryffindor company… anything to escape the masses of giggling hormonal adolescence which seemed to be round every corner.
Meanwhile Hermione Granger had just about had enough of the nurse scuttling around after her; she was sick of being treated like a fragile glass doll, not to mention all the classes she'd missed. She did not notice Draco enter the room, nor did she notice the look of mild amusement, which replaced his previous bored expression, as she crept out of bed trying not to make a noise and gently slipped on her shoes.
"What are you doing?" he asked calmly. He tried not to laugh at her startled face; obviously clueless to the fact any one else was in the room.
"Running away," she said quietly.
Draco quirked a brow but said nothing.
"Don't look at me like that!" she said, "the woman is driving me insane," she said pointing to Madame Pomfrey's office, "plus I can't miss the last potions lesson before the Christmas holidays, do you know how much work I will miss. It might be important!"
Draco quirked the other brow.
"Stop it!" She complained sticking her tongue out childishly.
"So did you tell Potter and Weasley about your premonitions?" he asked casually, however from the way her expression fell immediately he knew this had been a subject he should have steered clear from.
"They hate me," she mumbled sadly, "it's my fault, I should have told them earlier."
Draco inwardly cursed himself for bringing up the subject, he hated seeing her upset, "I'm sure they'll get over it," he said, "I mean lets face it Potters always been a bit of a drama queen."
"Don't say that!" Hermione chided, throwing a pillow at Draco's head, however he could see she was trying hard not to smile.
The head girl wondered how it was that Draco could lift her mood so easily, even when only an few hours ago she had been so distraught because of her fight with the boys. "Your right. But not about the drama queen thing," she added before he began to look too smug.
Draco looked down at his watch, "potions starts in five minutes. You coming?"
Hermione checked to make sure Madame Pomfrey was tucked away in her office, before nodding and following the blonde boy out of the infirmary, casually slipping her hand in his as they walked down the deserted corridor.
The head girl sat in her normal seat in potions next to Harry, however despite many attempts to start up a conversation, the boy seemed to be doing his utmost to ignore her.
"Harry…" she began, however she fell silent as a she noticed the monotonous instructions from Snape had stopped and the classroom had gone quiet. Hermione looked up from her desk, to have the unfortunate displeasure of meeting the eyes of a furious, greasy haired teacher.
"Perhaps miss Granger finds herself so above everyone else she thinks she has the right to talk through my class?" he began.
"No sir I…" she began quietly.
"How dare you interrupt me! Twenty points off Gryffindor," he smirked. The head girl looked down at her hands apologetically, refusing to look anyone in the eye. "Well what are you waiting for," he shouted at the class, "get to work!"
Draco stirred his cauldron, carefully glancing over at the head girl every now and then; her eyes were red and puffy, yet she had managed to contain every one of the tears, which were bursting to escape her cinnamon eyes. Potty and Weasel had clearly hurt her… in his opinion she was better off without them anyways. He tore his eyes away from the girl and added the final ingredients to his potion.
Ginny Weasley listened intently as the two boys told her about their argument with Hermione, their guilty expressions a give away of their feelings on the situation. Ron coughed uncomfortably at the silence caused by Ginny's enraged expression. "Ronald Weasley," she began, using his full name, a habit she had acquired from her mother, used only when her brother misbehaved, "you mean to tell me Hermione entrusted you and Harry by telling you a secret and you are now ignoring her."
"She trusted Malfoy first!" reminded Ron, trying to redeem himself for his actions.
"You said yourself, it was that or let him die!" Shot back the red head girl.
"Exactly! Why couldn't she have just done that?" joined in Harry.
Ginny shook her head exasperatedly, "fine, you too can either stay here and try and convince yourselves that infact it is Hermione that is in the wrong, or, you can go apologise."
"But I don't want to…" whined Ron.
The young Weasley girl glared at the two boys and repeated through gritted teeth, "or, you can go apologise," when neither boy moved she added, "NOW!"
"We're going," mumbled her brother as he stood up.
"Good, I knew you would see it my way," the girl smiled sweetly.
Hermione walked to the common room slowly, she couldn't face going to the great hall for dinner, so instead had decided to spend the rest of the evening in front of the fire with a good book, however her mind was awhirl with thoughts and she knew concentrating would be a task in itself. Her mind was ridden with guilt for not telling her friends earlier about her premonitions. She hated fighting with them, and she hated the fact that this time, it was her fault. The head girl stood up and paced around the room slowly, inwardly debating what to do.
At last having come to a decision the girl slipped on her shoes and ran out of the portrait, not noticing the blonde boy outside until it was too late and she had knocked him to the ground.
"Tell me Granger, is there a reason why you are running around like a mad woman knocking people over?" he joked.
"No. I mean yes. I'm going to do apologise to Harry and Ron," she explained.
The head boy raised a brow, pulling her down to the floor next to him, "but you haven't done anything wrong," he reminded. "Plus I wanted to talk to you. It's important."
The head girl nodded leaning against the wall, "shall we go inside?" she asked signalling to the common room.
"No point, no one comes down here anyways," he muttered. "Look I wanted to ask about the other night."
Hermione blushed deeply, immediately understanding what he was talking about; she wasn't sure what he wanted her to say. Did he think that kissing her was a mistake? "What about it?" she asked trying to sound innocent.
"Well I… what I mean is…" Draco Malfoy was not a person often lost for words, this however was one of the very few exceptions and he inwardly cursed himself for bringing up the subject. All of a sudden he was very aware of how close they were sitting, and how nice she smelt. He looked at her lips longing to have them pressed against his own…
"I don't see why we have to apologise to her!" huffed Ron as he and Harry walked down to Hermione's common room on order of Ginny.
Harry shrugged, "lets just get it over with mate, I hate it when we argue".
The two boys casually walked round the corner, however stopped in their tracks abruptly at what met their eyes. They stared in horror as they watched from afar whilst Draco Malfoy tenderly kissed their friend.