Author's Note: My quickest update yet. :D

Disclaimer: I own Harry Potter. Just kidding. I don't.


Draco was in a foul mood for the rest of the day. This was the second time this week he had been hit by Hermione Granger, and in front of his friends no less. His once perfect reputation was slowly disintegrating until eventually he'd be as cool as Neville Longbottom. This did not please him in the least.

"Whatever you said to her last night must have made a lasting impression," Blaise said with a chuckle. They were making their way down to the Quidditch field for some early evening unofficial Quidditch practice.

Draco glared at him. "There was no need for her to hit me. If she had wanted to hit me for what I said last night, she would have done it then. I think she's just gone mad."

"That's a possibility I suppose," Blaise agreed.

Making their way onto the field, the two boys were greeted by a few other Slytherins, including Pansy Parkinson. As soon as Draco saw her, he groaned and attempted to walk away before she noticed him. However, he just wasn't quick enough.

"DRAKIE!" Pansy screeched. She ran over to them as quickly as her legs could carry her. "Drakie, I have been looking for you all day! Where have you been?"

"I was everywhere you weren't," Draco muttered.

Pansy giggled. "You are so funny, Draco! Anyway, I've been looking everywhere for you, because I wanted to thank you."

"Thank me?" Draco said quizzically. "For what?"

"For this!" she exclaimed, holding her right hand out for him to see. Blaise looked at it with slight interest, while all of the color drained from Draco's face.

"Pansy," he said slowly, trying to stay calm. "Where did you get that ring?"

"It fell out of your robes! It's so beautiful! I can't believe you would buy something this wonderful for me! Well, I mean, I do believe it because, let's face it – I'm worth it. But I was just so pleasantly surprised and -"

"Pansy, shut up," Draco growled. "I didn't give you that ring."

Pansy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know that. It fell out of your robes, remember? But it was for me." It wasn't a question; she was stating it more like a fact.

"No, Pansy. It wasn't for you."

Blaise tried hard to stifle a laugh. "Boy, this is embarrassing."

Pansy scowled at him and turned back to Draco. "What do you mean it wasn't for me? Who else would it be for?"

There was an uncomfortable silence, and then Pansy shrieked, "NO! NO WAY! It was for the mudblood, WASN'T IT?"

Draco glanced around at the other Slytherins on the field, who were now listening in on their conversation. "Pansy," he hissed, "keep your voice down, will you?"

"I WILL NOT KEEP MY VOICE DOWN!" she screamed. She took the ring off her finger and threw it at Draco. She missed, and it landed on the ground in back of him. "You had the gall to give me a ring that you were originally going to give to a MUDBLOOD?"

"Pansy," Blaise butted in. "I think you are completely missing the point here. He was never going to give you that ring."

"WHATEVER! Draco Malfoy, I never want to speak to you again! You stupid…horrible…person, you!" And with that, Pansy stomped off.

"Wow, it's your lucky day," Blaise said, bending down to pick up the ring. "Pansy Parkinson just told you she is never going to speak to you again. I wonder what I could do to make her say the same thing to me…"

Draco didn't respond. He took the ring from Blaise's hand and shoved it into his pocket.

"Want to tell me about that ring, mate?" Blaise asked as they continued further onto the field.

"Not really," Draco mumbled, but gave in and continued anyway. "My mother gave me that ring. She told me to one day give it to the woman I loved. And I gave it to Granger when I was under the influence of that stupid love potion. And she gave it back to me after we took the anti-potion. More accurately, she threw it at me just like Pansy did. Only her aim was better."

Blaise grinned. "Man, your life is like a bad romantic comedy, with not a whole lot of romance or comedy."

Draco frowned as realization dawned on him. "So that's why Granger hit me earlier. She must have seen Pansy traipsing around the school wearing the ring I had given to her."

Blaise stared at him. "You know, Draco, if I didn't know any better, I would say maybe you feel a little bad about that."

Draco snorted. "Yeah, right! Like I give a damn. This is mudblood Granger we're talking about here!" Blaise just shrugged and walked off, leaving Draco to think. And the more he thought, the more he realized that Blaise had actually gotten the right impression. Thinking about what must have been going through Hermione's mind when she'd seen her ring on Pansy's finger made his stomach feel all iffy again.

Merlin...what the hell was happening to him?

"Wow…she was wearing the ring he gave you on her finger?" Ginny said in disbelief. "That's just low!"

Hermione blew her nose. "I know! My thoughts exactly! Lousy ferret."

"Aww." Ginny gave her friend a gentle pat on the back. "You're not going to get over him anytime soon, are you?"

"There is nothing to get over!" Hermione yelled. She knew she was lying.

Ginny sighed. "I'll tell you what. I don't believe in giving up on love so easily. That's why I've had a crush on Harry for so many years." She gave a wink, grinned, and then continued. "I say let's give this one more shot. Since you didn't actually get to talk with him earlier, do it now. Don't give up until you find out exactly how he feels."

"I know how he feels!" Hermione exclaimed. "He loves Pansy! He gave her that ring!"

Ginny clucked her tongue. "Nonsense. Can you honestly see any sane human being loving Pansy Parkinson? If anything, he did it to make you jealous."

Hermione sniffled. "Jealous? You think so?"

"Mmhmm," Ginny said matter-of-factly. "I've seen you talking with Blaise Zabini a lot in the hallways, and I'll bet you anything that Malfoy has seen it too. And he's probably jealous."

Hermione considered that possibility for a moment, but shook her head. "No. He wouldn't be jealous. He hates me!"

"Then talk to him! Have him tell you one last time that he hates you! If he does, then you will have a wonderful reason to move on and put this whole fiasco behind you. But if he doesn't then…well, then it will be the beginning of a -"

"Beautiful friendship?" Hermione asked.

"Actually, I was going to say a 'hot and heavy relationship', but…I guess beautiful friendship could work too." Ginny grinned. "Now go talk to him."

Hermione could not believe that for the second time today, she was letting Ginny talk her into doing something as ridiculous as having a civilized conversation with Draco Malfoy. But she was going to do it this time. Mainly because she was afraid of what Ginny would do to her if she didn't.

As Hermione headed down to the Quidditch field (she had to bribe Crabbe with a cupcake to tell her where Malfoy was), she had a lot of time to think. Could Ginny be right about Malfoy being jealous? No, Hermione assured herself. What was there to be jealous of? All she had done with Blaise Zabini in the hallways this week was talk to him. That wasn't enough to make anyone jealous – especially Malfoy, who hated her guts. But…he did seem angrier than usual, and his grumpiness did seem to become worse around the same time Blaise had started talking to her…

She was so deep in thought that she didn't even notice she had stepped onto the Quidditch field.

"Gryffindor alert!" one of the Slytherins yelled.

Hermione snapped back to reality and glanced up at the boys who were flying around on their broomsticks, just fooling around. Amongst them were both Draco and Blaise.

"Granger!" Blaise called out. He gave her a pleasant smile and waved.

She smiled and waved back. "I don't mean to interrupt," she called back, "but could I see you for a minute, Blaise?" Blaise? Wait...why did I just say Blaise? I'm here to talk to Malfoy... She shook her head in confusion. She had no idea what she was doing. Actually, she knew perfectly well what she was doing. She just didn't know why she was going to do it.

"Sure," Blaise replied. He dismounted his broom, as did Draco.

"Zabini, what are you doing?" Draco hissed. He gave Hermione a cold glare. "We're in the middle of practice."

"It's not even real practice, Draco, we're just fooling around with the Quidditch equipment," Blaise pointed out. "I'll only be a second." He jogged over to where Hermione was standing. "What's up?"

Hermione nervously shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "Well, I…I wanted to…I mean…there's something I need to know."

Blaise looked at her with an expression that was a mix between amusement and curiousity. "Okay. Well, I'm all ears. What is it that you need to know?"

Hermione bit her lip and glanced over at Draco, who was trying hard to pretend not to be watching them, but was doing a lousy job of it. It was now or never. Before she could stop herself, Hermione grabbed the front of Blaise's shirt and pulled him towards her…and planted a big kiss on his lips.

At first, Blaise did not respond, due to complete shock, but he soon got over it and kissed her back Hermione was relieved that he didn't immediately shove her away, but at the same time she was mentally slapping herself for doing this in the first place. From what she could tell, Blaise was a good kisser, but she couldn't help but think he just wasn't as good as Draco…

They remained kissing for a few seconds later, until they heard a voice in the background yell, "Malfoy, watch out!" followed by a shout.

Hermione immediately pulled away from Blaise. They looked at each other for a brief second in surprise, but quickly averted their attention to the commotion that was coming from the field. Hermione gasped when she saw Draco lying flat on his back on the ground. "DRACO!" she screamed.

She ran over to him and shooed away a couple of the Slytherins who had gathered around him. He was out cold, and had a nasty mark on his forehead. "What happened?" she asked, a feeling of panic rising in her stomach.

"I'm not sure," one of the boys said with a shrug. "From what I could see, he wasn't paying attention, and the bludger headed straight for him. I tried to warn him, but it was too late. It hit him right in the head."

Hermione gulped. Those bludgers were nasty little things…and not too soft, either. She lightly shook Draco's shoulder. "Draco! Draco, wake up!"

At first he didn't respond. But after a few shakes, he groaned slightly, and Hermione was relieved to see he was at least still alive. He opened his eyes a bit and glanced up at her. "Granger? What the hell? You hit me again."

"What?" she said in confusion. She thought at first that he was referring to earlier, but then quickly realized that he thought she was to blame for knocking him out. "Oh! Oh, no! I didn't hit you this time! You've been hit by a bludger, that's all," she informed him. "You're going to be okay." She turned to Blaise. "Help me get him up."

Blaise obliged, grabbing a hold of one of Draco's arms and pulled with ease until Draco was standing.

Draco brought his hand to his forehead. "Bloody hell," he said, grimacing.

"We need to get him to the hospital wing," Hermione said to Blaise.

"Good idea," Blaise nodded. "You should take him."

"Me?" Hermione said. "You're his friend."

Blaise smiled. "That doesn't mean much to Slytherins, Granger. Besides, I really have to get back to practice. I'm sure you'll manage just fine." He winked. And before she could protest, he ran back to the field and hopped onto his broom.

"Dammit," Hermione muttered. She turned to Draco. "How does your head feel?"

"Like it just got split open and my brain is about to ooze out." Draco replied in a strained voice. "And I feel like I'm dying," he added for dramatic effect.

"Oh stop being such a baby." Hermione looked closely at his wound. "Well nothing is oozing out yet. And it doesn't appear to me that you're dying, so...come on." She placed her arm around his shoulder for support. "Let's get you to the hospital wing and let Madame Pomfrey take a look at it."

Draco pulled away from her. "I can manage just fine on my own, Granger. I don't need help from you." He stumbled slightly.

Hermione wanted nothing more than to just say "Fine!" and storm off. But he could have gotten a concussion from this, and if he passed out on the way to the hospital wing, he might not wake up, and by the time somebody found him, he'd already be in a coma and it would be too late. Call her crazy, but she didn't want that to happen.

"Well suck it up and deal with it – I am helping you whether you like it or not!" she said in exasperation. She grabbed onto him again and began to lead him back towards the castle.

The long trek to the hospital wing was an uncomfortable one, since neither Hermione nor Draco really wanted to speak to one another. Once they had finally reached their destination, a great relief washed over Hermione. She never thought she'd be so happy to see the hospital wing.

"Madame Pomfrey?" she called out into the dark, empty room. Madame Pomfrey was nowhere to be seen, and the hospital wing was eerily quiet. "Hm. She must have gone to the birthday party for Professor Sprout."

"Bloody fantastic," Draco said in a strained voice. He was grasping his forehead as if he thought that if he let go, it would explode.

Hermione sighed. "Sit," she demanded, pointing to one of the many empty beds.

Draco looked at her incredulously. "You expect me to take orders from a mudbl -"

Hermione glared at him, and surprisingly he shut up and did as he was told. To be honest, his head hurt too much to do otherwise.

"Okay." Hermione glanced around the room looking for anything she could use to help ease Draco's pain. Although, she was wondering why she was even bothering, considering everything he had put her through. The git deserved to suffer.

After a few seconds of brainstorming, she finally decided on the simplest remedy: ice. However, she was unable to find any just lying around, so she settled on drenching a cloth in water and performing a simple freezing spell on it.

"Here," she said, bringing the frozen cloth over to him. "This isn't going to cure you, but it will help until Madame Pomfrey comes back." She gently placed the cloth against Draco's forehead.

"Agh!" he hissed, pulling away from it. "That's bloody cold, Granger."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Well, it is ice, Malfoy. It will help numb the pain, and will make the swelling go down a bit." With that, she decided to examine his injury a little better. "Gosh, you're lucky that bludger didn't split your head open. What was wrong with you out there? You normally have better reflexes than that."

"I got distracted," he grumbled.

"What could possibly have distracted you so much that you would miss a bludger coming straight at you?" she asked nonchalantly.

Draco glared at her. "Oh that's right. You weren't even paying attention to what was going on, were you?. You were too busy snogging Zabini senseless."

Hermione gulped and feigned surprise. "You…you saw that?"

"Yeah, I saw that. Right before the bludger practically took my head off," Draco replied, avoiding her gaze.

Hermione's heart skipped a beat. So her little plan had worked…a little too well, actually. She had hoped to kiss Blaise and make Draco jealous – or, at least to see if it would make him jealous. Instead, she'd kissed Blaise and almost got Draco seriously injured. Not exactly what she'd had in mind.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, suddenly feeling terrible. She tried once again to place the frozen cloth against his forehead. This time, he did not move away.

"For what? You weren't the one who sent the bludger after me, were you?" Draco's face showed a slight hint of a smile. Hermione chuckled softly, shaking her head.

"Do you know how many times I've been hit this week, Granger? And this was the first time it wasn't by you."

Hermione couldn't help but giggle at this interesting fact. "Well, you're welcome," she said with a grin.

Before he could stop himself, Draco returned the grin. "I didn't thank you." His smile slowly faded, but he did not take his eyes off of hers.

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked, her heart rate accelerating slightly.

"Nothing," Draco said softly, clearing his throat. "Nothing, it's just…nobody has ever…I don't know…taken care of me before. This is weird."

Hermione frowned. "What do you mean nobody has taken care of you before? Your parents…?"

Draco shook his head and laughed. "Are you kidding me? My parents are the last two people on earth who would ever take care of me. I am a Malfoy, Granger. We do not show weakness. And we do not need others to take care of us." With that said, he reached up and gently grabbed Hermione's hand, pushing it away.

Hermione resisted. "That's so sad," she whispered.

"No, it's not," Draco said flatly. "That's just the way things are. And I don't need your sympathy, Granger. Nor do I want it either."

She considered snapping at him, telling him that giving him sympathy was the last thing she would ever consider doing. Instead, before she could stop herself, she leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead. It took them both by surprise, and when she pulled away, she looked at him with a bit of fear in her eyes, as if she were expecting him to lash out at her. Instead, Draco slipped the hand that had been holding her wrist around her neck and slowly pulled her forward. Before either one knew what was happening, they were kissing.

There was a slight hesitation on both parts as soon as their lips touched, but it didn't last long. Draco wasted no time in deepening the kiss, making Hermione so weak in the knees that she could barely remain standing. Luckily, Draco seemed to notice this and quickly wrapped a strong arm around her waist and pulled her onto his lap. Hermione sighed. She didn't realize until this very moment how much she enjoyed this…and how much she had been missing it.

One thing led to another and suddenly Hermione found herself lying on the hospital bed with Draco directly above her, never breaking their kiss. Oh bloody hell…what was happening here? Things were moving kind of fast. Or were they? Somehow, this felt so right…yet so wrong at the same time. They were in the hospital wing and anyone could walk in at any moment. And what they were doing…what did it mean, anyway? Hermione was so confused.

"Draco," she whispered, placing a hand on his chest.

Hearing her speak his name seemed to snap him out of a trance. He immediately pulled away and jumped off the bed, as if he had just been burned…or as if the realization about what it was they were just doing had suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks. He stared at her in shock, and she matched that look with her own shock. They were both desperately trying to catch their breath and slow their heartbeats.

"I…I…we…that…" Draco stammered. He began to back away. "I-I have to…go…now." He turned to leave but stopped by the door. Turning around to face her, he said softly. "Um, thanks. Er, for the ice. That was…" At a loss for words, he quickly exited the hospital wing.

At first, Hermione was at a loss for words as well, but quickly snapped back to reality. "Wait!" she called after him. "You need to have Madame Pomfrey look at your injury!" But she knew he was long gone and wouldn't have heard her.

She sat on the edge of the bed and absent-mindedly brought her fingers up to her lips, where Draco's had been just a moment ago. Still in shock over what had just occurred, she didn't even notice when Madame Pomfrey came pransing into the room, cheerfully humming the Happy Birthday tune. She stopped short when she saw Hermione on the bed.

"Oh, Miss Granger! I didn't see you there! Are you alright, child?" she asked, seeing Hermione's dazed expression. "You look as though you've just been Petrified! What happened?"

Hermione looked up at Madame Pomfrey and said, "I…I...honestly, I have no idea."

Author's Note #2: I have just realized that Harry and Ron have pretty much gone missing from this story. This has not been intentional; I've just forgotten to add them in. :D However, I do promise to put them back in later in the story. Perhaps in the next chapter, if I remember. :)