Disclaimer: The only thing I own in this story is the plot and a couple of characters that I'm going to introduce. Please read and review, this chap will probably be longer than the last one! Enjoy!

Love Stacey

Jonadark: Thanks for the review, to you all, yes, Ron is going to be the one trying to split Hermione and Draco up!

-------CHAPTER FOUR-------

Am I in Love?

Yes, Hermione knew that that…was a kiss to remember

Hermione ran into Draco's bathroom, and her new one, locked the door and jumped inside the shower. She didn't want to wash away that pleasurable feeling the kiss gave her, but she wanted to wash away the guilt overcoming her about not telling her two best friends.

After the shower she had a quick snack from the kitchen in the common room and then visited Ginny. She was sat on her bed, doing homework. When Hermione walked in, Ginny put all her stuff away and smiled.

"What's up, Hermione?" Ginny asked. Hermione sat down next to her friend.

"What do you think of our all time favourite enemy, Malfoy?" Hermione asked. Ginny looked surprised, but then smiled dreamily.

"He's definitely hot, and everyone says that he's the Slytherin Sex God, so he must be good in bed, and then he must be a good kisser if he's good in bed!" Ginny explained. She looked at Hermione curiously, "why?"

This was an awkward question, what would Ginny react like? There was only one way to find out.

"Guess what he did earlier?" Hermione asked, looking at Ginny straight in the face, she smiled.

"What?" she asked.

"Draco Malfoy actually kissed me!" Hermione exclaimed. Ginny jumped back on her bed and screamed.

"REALLY?" she screamed, Hermione threw a pillow at her when Lavender and Parvati ran in.

"What the hell's going on?" they asked. Hermione and Ginny exchanged looks.

"Nothing," Ginny replied innocently. The two girls looked at them suspiciously. They sat down on Lavender's bed and started talking happily.

"I've got to go; I'll see you tomorrow, Ginny!" Hermione told her friend, Ginny waved goodbye and Hermione left for her common room.

When she got in there, she saw Draco asleep on the sofa. He had an empty bottle of Fire whisky clutched in his left hand, and he was breathing steadily.

Hermione edged around to the comfy armchair in front of the fire and fell onto it. She was really tired but she didn't want to go to bed before Draco. He stirred and sat up, Hermione glanced at him.

He dropped the bottle of Fire whisky and dove after it, but dropped it again when he realised that it was empty. He laid his head back and placed his hand on his head.

"What are you doing up, Granger?" he asked.

"I'm not going to bed before you, who knows what you'd do!" Hermione answered, sitting up straight and watching him. He looked at her.

"Come…!" Draco sat up with much difficulty and then patted the space next to him, "and sits here, with me."

It wasn't so much a demand with the way he said it; he said it in more of a pleading tone of voice. Hermione looked confused but stood up and sat next to him, but as far away as she could.

"You know that you should stop drinking so much," Hermione told him.

Draco looked at her and smirked.

"Why would you care if I drank a lot or not?" he asked.

"Why would you care if I sat next to you or not?" she asked. Draco pouted and stared at the empty bottle longingly. "Why do you drink so much anyway?"

"It's how I drown my sorrows, my family problems, stuff like that…" Draco replied. He started rolling the bottle with his foot.

There was a strange, awkward silence between them. Hermione sighed. Draco looked at her.

"Why do you hate me?" Draco asked. Hermione was taken aback. He had just come out with it so suddenly that she didn't know how to answer.

"Uh…I-I dunno…" she replied rather weakly. It was a poor, unsatisfying answer and Hermione realised that, "it was just, you know, you were so mean to me and Harry and Ron that it was natural for me to hate you."

Draco laughed. He waved his wand and another bottle of Fire whisky appeared in his free hand. He was about to take a sip when Hermione pulled it from his hand.

"You shouldn't drink so much! You'll get drunk!" Hermione shouted and emptied the bottle with her wand and threw the bottle into the fire. Draco pouted and slouched on the sofa.

"I am drunk! Why do you think I'd be sitting on the same sofa as you?" Draco yelled back, that was a low blow. Hermione looked disheartened. "Sorry."

Hermione looked at him, was he really drunk to be saying all this, or was he finally being nice?

"You must be very drunk to have apologized to me," Hermione laughed.

"Yeah well…I don't really know why I'm doing all this…I don't feel all that drunk…" he admitted. Hermione smiled at him. Draco sat up straight and looked at Hermione.

She looked at him too.

"So…tell me about yourself," he told Hermione. She was surprised at this question but sighed. If she was going to find more out about Draco, then it was worth it.

"Well…I was born in London and raised on the outskirts of London. I live with my father and mother, my birth date is the fifth of February 1888, I enjoy art, music, reading, walking and talking and I like meeting new people. Now you're turn," Hermione explained.

"I live with my father and mother in the Malfoy mansion; I can't tell you where it is because that's a secret! My birth date is the thirteenth of January 1887, I enjoy creativity, music, potions, and walking," he informed Hermione.

"What are your parents like?" Hermione asked curiously.

"My father is out of Azkaban because the dementors aren't working for the ministry, the dark lord likes him because my father is quite like he who must not be named, power hungry, insane, loves to kill etc." Draco replied, "My mother used to be a really happy woman, always running around and doing house work, but since my father started beating her, she's normally drunk and sleeping, or lounging around miserably."

There was another long silence. Hermione never knew how bad Draco's mother had had it. She always thought of the Malfoys, a proud and happy family, who wouldn't argue or beat each other. She was wrong.

"Do you get hurt?" Hermione asked in an unusually quiet voice.

"Yeah, loads of times. I guess my dad does it because he needs to vent his anger out, and I'd rather it be me than my mother. I still love both my parents, I know that we may have our problems but my father relies on me to keep the family name."

"He wants you to become a death eater doesn't he?" Hermione asked. Draco stayed silent for a while.

"Yes," he answered, "but I don't want to be, I'm a Malfoy, I'm a proud pureblood, I'm not going to answer from a mere halfblood, however powerful he may be!" He realised that he had said 'a mere halfblood, in the presence of one, "sorry."

"It's ok, I'm used to it. I think we should go to bed, we've got revision classes tomorrow," Hermione told Draco. He nodded. When they got into the bedroom, Hermione cast a spell over the bed so that there was an invisible wall splitting the bed in half longways.

"What did you just do?" Draco asked, he had already got ready for bed. He was wearing just a pair of black boxer shorts.

"I put an invisible wall splitting the bed in half, so I can't even feel your breath," Hermione replied.

"So after all that talking, you do this?" Draco asked. Hermione nodded and dressed in a red nightgown with gold laces. She lay on her side of the bed and put a barrier all around her side.

"Now you can't come on my side of the bed," Hermione told him. She heard Draco sigh and after that, she didn't know what happened because she had fell into a dreamless sleep.

During third period, potions, Hermione and Draco were sent to fetch a bucket of water out of the lake. Draco started messing around; he told Hermione that he couldn't swim on the way down there.

In a few seconds, Draco fell into the lake and was underwater. Hermione gasped and made a motion to pull him out; she removed her robes and dived into the lake.

He hadn't fallen far when Hermione saw him, she swam swiftly and grabbed his wrist, he was already unconscious. Hermione couldn't swim up to the surface, she was too weak to pull Draco's muscle up to the surface, and she was sinking!

Hermione couldn't breath; clouds were forming in front of her eyes. She was going to drown here, holding Draco Malfoy!

'Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, I don't believe this! I don't want to die, I want to see Ginny and Ron and Harry, I want to finish my NEWTs and finish school! I want to have a family!' Hermione whined inside her head, 'can't the squid save us or something?'

She was sinking deeper and deeper into the lake. Hermione thought that nothing was going to save them, her hopes fell with her and she thought of her friends, her family…and Draco.

Was she letting him down by being weak? She wasn't strong enough to pull him up. If he was awake! If he was awake then maybe he'd learn how to swim in such desperate times, maybe he'd think of a way to save them! If he was awake!

But he wasn't going to wake up, Hermione stopped struggling and let herself fall, she kept a strong grip on Draco's wrist though. She couldn't save him, but she wasn't going to let him go!

If someone or something saved her, Draco would be lost down at the bottom of the lake, if she let go, she was determined not to.

As she was going to open her mouth as her hopes disappeared, a wonderful miracle happened; Hermione knew that this was her second chance, one to get stronger.

Two mermen grabbed hold of Hermione's arms and pulled her up, she had to let go of Draco's wrist. She struggled to look round to see if he was sinking, but two more mermen were carrying him to the surface by his arms.

When the mermen had pushed them onto the grass, they dived back underwater. Hermione turned to look at Draco. He wasn't breathing!

She thought about this.

'If I don't do something then he might die, there's no time to go to Madame Pomfrey, I need to do that mouth to mouth thing…' she thought.

Hermione crawled on top of him and moved closer to him. Her hair fell around his face; his mouth was open so she guessed that there was no reason to hold his nose.

As she was about an inch away from him, he breathed quickly and opened his eyes. They stared at each other for a minute and then…

"AAAAAAAAAAAAH!" they both screamed, Hermione jumped backward and Draco sat up.

"What were you trying to do?" he asked angrily.

"I thought you were going to die, and, unfortunately, I needed to give you the mouth to mouth procedure," Hermione explained.

"You were actually going to kiss me?" he asked curiously.

"Well, if you had died then everyone would think that I killed you," Hermione replied. "You fell in the lake, I dived in but I couldn't pull you up, four mermen saved us."

They both stood up and Hermione started walking, she tripped and fell into Draco. He caught her just in time, they both stared for a moment into each others eyes.

Hermione noticed that Draco's grey eyes weren't cloudy as they usually were, they were clear. Now, as Hermione stared into his eyes, she realised that they were the most beautiful things she had ever seen.

'Oh my, I don't believe this' she thought '…Am I in love?'

Thanks for reading this chapter, I redid the bit where they fell underwater loads, I didn't know what to do, I wanted something strong to save Hermione and Draco, so I decided that they were going to be saved by big, strong mermen! Please Read and Review!