Chapter Twenty Five

Hermione closed the door gently behind her as she tiptoed back into her room - she didn't want to wake Harry, who was sleeping next door in the Head Boy's room. She had just returned from 'patrolling the corridors' with, who else but Draco. She was slightly flushed as she collapsed onto her bed, still kind of overwhelmed at how everything had turned out in the past few weeks.

Draco had decided at the beginning to keep their relationship a secret so they had to be content with sneaking out at night to meet up in various rooms around the school and stealing glances at each other whenever they could during classes.

Hermione smiled as she remembered how they were nearly caught by Harry himself the other night when Draco had insisted that she join him on a private late night Quidditch session. She had put up the best fight she could because she absolutely detested flying but she couldn't resist his pleading and so she had given in and meekly climbed onto the back of the broomstick and clung onto his waist for dear life.

They soared around the school grounds and when Hermione finally had the courage to open her eyes to take in the spectacular view - she was met with a head of unruly black hair holding a broomstick, standing directly below them.

"Draco! We have to go - Harry's down there!" She whispered in panic.

He groaned in response, and then flew them back to the Head Girl's tower and let Hermione back into her room.

"I'm sorry our little flying session was interrupted by Potter." Draco said disappointedly.

"Me too." Hermione replied, kissing him lightly on the cheek in consolation.

"I'll pick you up tomorrow night at the same time, and we'll pick up right where we left off alright?" He suggested, leaning in for a more intimate kiss to which Hermione willingly obliged.

Since then, they had been and done so many other things on their late night meetings - from sneaking out to Hogsmeade to indulging themselves in a snow fight near the Lake and once Draco even got hold of a Portkey which took them to London and they revelled in the nightlife there.

Hermione smiled again - this was the most exhilaratingly dangerous yet happiest time of her life and she felt so blessed to have been given a second chance with Draco…but at the same time she felt that something was missing. The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced there was something not quite right with their relationship.

She had been trying to figure out exactly what the problem was, and with a shock she suddenly realised that it was the fact that they had to pursue their relationship in secret and they had to keep up the appearance that she still loathed each other. It was taking its toll on Hermione - she would find herself accidentally letting something slip to Harry and Ron and having to hastily cover it up with a lame excuse.

She loved the fact that in secret they could do anything they wanted and she knew that if they made their relationship public they would cop a lot of criticism from everyone, especially from the Slytherins and Gryffindors, but she didn't want to hide anymore.

Hermione had always thought that when she had finally found her Prince Charming (whom Draco resembled very much), she wouldn't be ashamed to let everyone know, but it seemed that this Prince Charming wasn't exactly keen for that to happen.

She sighed.

They had been through so much already to get to where they were now and she knew what would happen if they made their relationship public…but didn't they deserve a break?

She hated having to pretend to still hate him in public and she still felt hurt when he pretended to insult her because she knew that he wasn't like that all and she didn't want to keep up this stupid charade anymore.

Hermione thought about this a little more, and decided she would talk to Draco tomorrow night about it.

Then, exhausted as she was, she finally fell asleep.

When she awoke the next morning, it was to the sound of someone pounding on the door.

"HERMIONE WAKE UP YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR CLASS!" yelled Harry through the door.

Hermione practically jumped out of bed in response and frantically got dressed. She was used to this happening now since she was almost always out with Draco at night and she would always sleep through her alarm the morning after because she was so exhausted. When she walked into the Head Common Room, there was note there from Harry.

Mione,

I don't mean to sound rude or anything but the what the hell is up with you lately? You're late for classes all the time now. You're barely with us anymore and you're never in your room - where do you keep disappearing off to at nights, anyway?

I think that we need to talk soon.

See you in class.

Harry

Hermione let out a long sigh.

Harry was right. She had been neglecting them and keeping secrets from them - the exact things she had sworn never to do to them. The fact that her friendship with them was now starting to crumble because of her relationship with Draco made her even more certain that she needed to talk to him soon about going public.

And it wasn't just her friendship with Harry and Ron that was suffering…ever since she started going out with Draco she had barely seen any of the Gryffindors apart from in classes. She knew that they were definitely starting to suspect something was going on, and she was sure that even the teachers could tell since she was constantly late to classes now and though her marks were still very good - they weren't as perfect as they used to always be.

She couldn't let the rest of her life suffer because of her relationship with Draco. She really needed to get her priorities straight and…they needed to talk seriously about where the relationship was heading because if he wanted to keep it secret for the rest of their lives then she wouldn't be able to handle it - however dangerously fun it was to be with him.

Draco sat in the Potions dungeon with an empty seat next to him where Blaise should have been. Blaise had refused to talk to him ever since he and Hermione had gotten together - though Blaise didn't know about it yet. It was partly for that reason that Draco had decided to keep their relationship a secret - he was a bit apprehensive about what Blaise might do if he found out about them.

He looked around the room and was disappointed to see that Hermione hadn't arrived yet. Instead, he saw that Potter and Weasley were engaged in a rather heated discussion about something and Potter looked furious enough to snap Weasley's head off - Draco wouldn't mind that really, there would be one less piece of scum in the world.

He looked at his watch and was surprised to see that both Hermione and Snape were about ten minutes late for the lesson. There was a loud bang as the door swung open and Hermione stood framed in the doorway, clearly out of breath from running to the classroom.

Draco turned around and looked at her steadily and she looked right back at him, her expression unreadable. As the resident asshole of Slytherin, he had to make a comment about her being late.

"Well, well if it isn't little Miss Perfect…actually make that little Miss Imperfect, since you're never on time for anything these days." He smirked, aware that she was still looking at him with that odd expression.

The rest of the Slytherins sniggered, except for Blaise who simply glowered at him.

To his surprise, Hermione responded by coming right up to him and grabbing his arm while saying,

"That's it Malfoy. You've gone too far. We need to talk."

She dragged him outside the dungeon and closed the door behind them, muttering a locking spell to insure their privacy.

"What are you doing, Hermione!" He exclaimed.

"I told you, we need to talk." She replied.

"Ok, about what? I'm sorry about that comment by the way, since you seem to be quite sensitive over it. You know I don't mean any of the insults I throw at you these days right?" Draco assured her, tucking one of her stray hairs behind her ear.

"Draco, not here. Look, I've been thinking…I don't think I can keep this up any longer. Its too hard to pretend that I still hate you and all…" she whispered.

"Hermione I thought we agreed that -"

"No, Draco I never agreed to keeping the relationship a secret. I agreed to a relationship - you decided we should keep it a secret and I just went along with it because I wasn't in a position to disagree with you…after all I put you through with Blaise and all that." Hermione responded.

"Well what do you want me to do about it?" He asked after a pause.

Hermione was about to reply when she was interrupted by a very unwelcome voice.

"Miss Granger and Mr. Malfoy, what in the world are you doing?" sneered Snape suspiciously, coming around a corner and finding them standing extremely close to each other.

They sprang apart immediately, Hermione blushing red while Draco kept an impassive face.

"We were just discussing the roster for Prefect patrols, Granger here wants me to do it on Thursday." Draco lied smoothly.

"Is that so?" Snape raised his eyebrows.

Hermione nodded.

Snape glared at her for a moment longer, before telling her to move out of the way. He tried to open the door but found that it was locked with a spell. He raised his eyebrows again at Hermione.

"That was one important secret discussion about Prefect patrols if it warranted a locking spell on my dungeon door." Snape sneered.

Hermione and Draco both said nothing, and followed him into the room when he had unlocked the door. The whole class was buzzing with whispering and murmuring about Hermione's little outburst and when she sat down next to Ron and Harry they had tired and upset expressions on their faces.

She sighed again, her talks with her boys weren't quite over yet.

Hermione didn't speak to any of them until lunchtime came around and she was sitting at the Gryffindor table with Ginny eating her lunch and catching up with her. Draco walked past nonchalantly and glanced at her with his stormy grey eyes and tilted his chin towards the foyer - hinting that he wanted to talk to her.

She looked around and saw Ron and Harry coming towards her, and shook her head at him. He too saw them and rolled his eyes, continuing to saunter to the Slytherin Table.

"What are you doing, Mione?" Ginny asked quietly, watching the exchange with disgust.

"Oh, um I think Malfoy needed to discuss something with me. Prefect stuff." She added hastily.

Ginny stared at her friend in shock.

"Hermione are you going out with him?" she asked distressedly.

Hermione gulped - she didn't see how she was going to get out of telling Ginny, but then she was saved by Ron and Harry plonking themselves down next to her and looking at her with serious expressions.

"Hi guys." she said brightly.

"Hermione we need to talk." Harry said solemnly.

"Yes, I got your note this morning." Hermione responded with a small smile.

"Its not funny, Hermione. You're keeping something from all of us and we're not sure it's a good thing." Ron murmured.

Ginny watched this exchange with even more fascination.

"What's going on guys?" She asked, suspiciously eyeing Hermione.

"I…well lets just say I've been preoccupied with other things lately, so preoccupied I haven't been able to spend time with you all and I'm honestly sorry about that. But I'm Head Girl this year and there is just so much more going on than when I was just a Prefect…I don't mean to neglect you guys its just that I don't have time anymore." Hermione explained, feeling guilty for bending the truth.

"Hermione don't lie to us. Harry's Head Boy and somehow he's found time for us…and what are these mysterious things that keep taking up your time anyway?" Ron asked quietly.

"Well I am taking more subjects than either of you, so I have much more work to do." Hermione reasoned.

"That's another lie - you're never in your room and you're never in the library anymore either, I checked there too…no what's been taking up your time is completely unrelated to Head Girl duties or homework." Harry said firmly.

"Are you seeing someone, Hermione?" Ron asked faintly.

"Er…well technically no." She admitted.

"What do you mean 'technically no'?" Harry retorted.

"I…cant tell you guys yet. What I mean is that…its not official." Hermione stammered, feeling better for telling the truth.

"Who is it?" Harry and Ron asked in unison.

Hermione paused.

Maybe telling the whole truth wasn't such a good idea.

"Oh well you know, this guy in our grade." She shrugged.

"Well he's not in Gryffindor…which leaves the other two houses." Ron pointed out.

"Ron, there are four houses in Hogwarts. Four minus one is three, in case you've forgotten." Ginny teased.

" Little sisters, they are the bane of my existence." Ron rolled his eyes, "I can count you know - its just that there's no one in Slytherin that Hermione would go out with, so I'm not bothering to count them."

Ginny turned and gave Hermione a look, which she calmly returned.

"Are you absolutely sure about that?" Ginny asked quietly.

Hermione didn't say anything, but Harry and Ron didn't notice - they were too busy wondering who it could possibly be.

A/N: Thanks for all your reviews guys! I hope you liked this chapter - to be honest I was going to rewrite the last chapter after reading some of your reviews because when I read it again, it was a bit too soppy for my liking, but then I realised that there wasn't any other I could get them together because they had been through soooo much they deserved a bit of old fashioned mush. So yeah, I guess that original ending of Chapter 24 stays there…until further notice.

Again, this was one of those filler chapters - sorry if it was boring but it had to be written - I promise next chapter will be more interesting so yeah stay tuned everyone and thanks for all your support!