"Malfoy! I know I'm the last person you want to do this with, but we have to! So, please, stop being a jerk!" snapped Hermione about a week after Dumbledore told them they would be going to the Christmas Ball together. She slammed her hands on the table and rose off her butt slightly. Her cheeks were flushed with anger. They were trying to get the decorations over with, but Draco was being his usual cruel self.
"You're right! I don't want to do this with you!" growled Draco. He too slammed his hands on the table and rose slightly. They were a few inches from each other's faces, glaring daggers at each other. "I still can't believe I have to go to the Ball with you."
"You don't have a choice!" growled Hermione. "I'd rather go with someone else myself! But we can't do anything about it!" She glared at him, not going to be the one to look away.
Draco glared at her. For the first time in his life, he didn't know what to say. Hermione Granger had backed him into a corner and she knew it. She had a point though. There was nothing he could do about it, expect deal. He sat back down and continued to glare at Hermione.
"Now that I've proven my point," Hermione sat back as well. "Can we please get through this?" She looked at him. Her eyes pleaded with him as well as her voice.
Draco's eyes widen at her. This was the same girl that had just backed him into a corner. Now she was pleading with him to behave. 'This girl is strange!' he thought. "Fine," he said sighing in defeat. "Where were you?"
After about an hour of discussing things, Draco got up and went to his room to change into pjs. He came back and noticed Hermione had fallen asleep. "She's still overworking herself," he muttered. Sighing, he took the quill out of her hand. He looked at her face. She was so peaceful-as to when she's red with anger. He never realized how pretty she was before. 'What am I thinking!' he mentally kicked himself.
"I can't just leave her there," muttered Draco. Even though he really didn't want to, a tiny part of him did and that tiny part won. He picked her up. He was surprised she didn't object to him picking her up, though he figured she didn't even know or was too tired to care whom it was. She dug her head into his chest. He took her to her room and tucked her into bed. He conjured up and chair and sat by her bed, admiring her beauty. He wasn't thinking and forgot who he really was.
'Is it me? Is it me that causes her so much stress? It has to be. She's not taking too many classes and always has her homework finished before we go on rounds,' though Draco. Then his mind skipped to her beauty. 'How can I not notice how beautiful she was?… Because I'm always too busy to please my father and my fellow Slytherins.' He closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep on the chair.
Hermione woke up the next morning with a yawn and rubbed her sleepy eyes. She went to get out of the bed when she noticed that Draco was asleep at the foot of her huge bed. An empty chair was there too. She stared at him for a second before crawling down to the bottom of the bed and lay there, looking at Draco.
She always thought he was cute. All the girls did, no matter what house they were in. She never even guessed what he looked like without is trademark smirk on his face. He was so…. She didn't even know how to put it. He was very different from the Draco she knew. She slowly reached toward his face and moved a strand of silvery blonde hair out of his face to behind his ear.
Draco snatched her wrist and looked at her with wide eyes. "What are you-" He stopped and looked around. He was in Hermione Granger's room. He was lying at the foot of her bed. 'How the hell did I get here,' thought Draco. He looked at Hermione, she was wincing in pain.
"Ma-Draco," whispered Hermione. Draco let go of her wrist, turning a light, extremely light shade of pink. "What are you doing here?" She noticed they were way too closed and sat up, crossing her legs.
"I don't know," said Draco. He sat up as well. "I don't know how I got up here. I remember falling asleep on the chair." He stared at her with wide eyes. "You tell anyone and you'll regret it!" He got off the bed and walked out of the room.
"I wasn't going to even if you told me to tell the world," muttered Hermione.
Draco walked into his room with his hands on his head. His head was spinning in confusion. Why did he fell like this about Granger? This can't be happening; not with him about Granger.
'No,' he told himself. 'I don't have a crush on Mudblood Granger.' He went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. He wasn't himself at all.
Hermione stared at the wall that separated her room and Draco's room. She noticed he had turned a very extremely shade of light pink. She bit her fingernails in though. 'What was he doing in here before he fell asleep?'
She went into the bathroom and decided to take a long hot bath. She needed to think and relax. That was too much for her. To find Draco at the foot of her bed was quite a shock. He seemed almost nice and calm, until he left. She sat on one of the middle steps into her bathtub and hugged her knees to her chest and stared off into space. She was so confused. Did he like her or not? Did she like him or not? She didn't even know.
They didn't talk at all during classes when they were paired up. They only made any contact when they were planning the Christmas Ball. Other than that, they stayed away from each other when they could. Harry and Ron noticed something was up and decided to ask her about it.
"Hermione, you've seem out of it lately. What's up?" asked Harry when Hermione decided to visit them in their common room two days after the incident.
"This has nothing to do with Malfoy, does it?" asked Ron. He popped his knuckles, ready to beat the bloody pulp out of Draco.
Hermione shook her head. She knew they'd sense something was wrong. "It's nothing. I'm just a little stressed I guess. I'm fine though. Nothing to worry about." She smiled weakly at them.
"If you're sure, but you can tell us anything no matter what it is," said Harry. Hermione's stomach turned. She hated to lie to her two best friends, but she didn't want to tell them what happened. They'd kill Draco, thinking he was going to rape her or something.
"I know that," said Hermione. "If there's anything I need, I'll come here." She smiled at them and got up. "I'll see you guys later." She picked up her book bag and went back to her common room. She walked in and saw Draco sitting at the desk, she guessed doing homework. She walked passed the desk and went into her room.
Hermione lay on her bed and stared at her ceiling. She picked up her wand, muttered a spell, and white sparks shot out of her wand and hit the ceiling. Stars in their consolations were spread all around her ceiling. She smiled at them. They were beautiful. She didn't even notice that Draco had walked in until he cleared his throat. He was holding a small stack of papers.
Hermione sat up and looked at him weirdly. "Did you knock?" He nodded. "Oh, sorry, I was thinking. So, what's up?"
"Well, we're almost done with planning the Ball, we just need music," said Draco. He sounded extremely different. Nicer, with no smirk or glared on his face, Hermione noticed this right away.
"Alright," said Hermione. She looked back at the ceiling, smiling. Draco looked up to see what she was smiling at. "So, I don't think you'll agree to this, but maybe we can have a mix of muggle and wizard music."
((A/N Underlined thoughts are the voice in his mind and are good and non-underlined thoughts are not good))
"Sounds good to me," said Draco. He wrote it down on a piece of paper. Hermione smiled at him. 'What the hell am I am doing, agreeing to a stupid thing like that!Trying to make her smile Smile! Why do I care if she's smiling or not! Because you like her smile Do not! Do too!' Draco fought with the voice in his head as he wrote stuff down. "Ok, you can pick the muggle music since you are a muggleborn and I'll pick the wizard music since I'm a pureblood."
Hermione's eyes widened. 'He didn't call me a mudblood…' "Oh, um, yeah, sure."
"Alright," said Draco. He turned around and left her room, still writing.
Hermione crawled to the foot of her bed. 'No, don't go!' She fought the tears. She was in love with Draco Malfoy, and deep in it too! She knew he could never feel the same way about her. She sat on her feet on the bed and cried into her hands. How can she let herself get into this mess? How did she let herself fall in lover with him; him of all people?
"I need to talk to someone," muttered Hermione. She looked in the mirror. No way in hell was she going out with red puffy eyes, but she had no choice. She wiped her eyes and took a deep breath and walked out of her room. Luckily, Draco was in his room or he left the common room. She ran down the corridors to the Gryffindor Tower. She muttered the password and walked in. Harry and Ron were playing wizard chess. They looked up at the puffy eyed Hermione. They rushed over to her and she fell to her knees, crying. They helped her up and helped her to one of the chairs.
"Hermione, what's up?" asked Harry, worry filling his voice. He pulled a chair closer to her.
"Oh you guys!" cried Hermione. "You're going to think I'm crazy if I tell you!" She cried into her hands.
"We would never think you're crazy if it's something to make you cry," comforted Ron. He took moved a chair closer to her.
"But you don't know what it is yet!" cried Hermione. "I'm not even sure if I should tell you two or not."
"You can tell us anything and we'll be on your side or with you until the end," said Harry. This made Hermione cry more. She hugged them both and sat back in the chair to take a deep breath.
"I think…I'm in…l-love with…Draco Malfoy," Hermione whispered his name so no eavesdroppers would here. She tightly closed her eyes and waited for their reaction.
"WHAT!" yelled Harry and Ron. They shot to their feet and looked at her with wide eyes. This made her cry even more.
"I don't you you'd think I'm bloody retarded!" cried Hermione. "Please, please don't tell anyone! I can't explain why I feel like this about him, I just do. I'm begging you, please don't tell anyone!"
Harry was the first to fall back into his chair. "I don't know what to say…"
"Say you'll never tell a soul about this," begged Hermione.
"I promise," said Ron, sighing as he sat back down. "I still can't believe it though."
"I promise too," said Harry.
"I can't believe it myself," said Hermione. She calmed down a little bit, but tears still streamed silently down her cheeks.
"So, why are you crying?" asked Ron. "I thought being in love was a happy thing."
"It's Draco Malfoy Ronald! Me loving him will only be a one-sided love. And even if he did feel for me for some reason or another, we'll never be. A Gryffindor muggleborn and a Slytherin pureblood can never be. We are destined to hate each other!" Hermione cried again. "Sorry, I shouldn't have snapped…"
"It's ok, I'm used to it," smiled Ron. He managed to get a small smiled for her.
Hermione wiped her tears with her sleeve and took a deep breath. "I'm glad I can tell you two absolutely anything." She smiled weakly at them.
"So are we," said Harry and Ron smiling. They hugged her. "Do you need and help back to your common room?" asked Harry.
Hermione glanced at her watch and shook her head. "No, that's alright. It's 10:30. I still have thirty minutes to get back to my common room. That's thirty minutes to calm down." She hugged them again and left the common room.
"Damn," muttered Hermione. "I totally forgot about my rounds…I guess I have a little time to do something." She turned a random corner and slowly walked around. After about twenty minutes, she decided to get back to the common room. She speed up her walking and made it back to the common room just in time. She went straight to her room and went to sleep immediately.
A/N: I hope you like this chapter. It's a lot longer than my other two. I told you it would start getting longer…I was going to have her run into Draco when she decided to do her rounds…I even started to write it down….then I don't know, I changed my mind at the last second. It would kinda ruin what I already have planned. It's forming in my head as you read this….heheheheh