Warning: Slash

Disclaimer: I own no characters mentioned

Summary: Draco and Hermione are Head Boy and Head Girl. Hermione falls for Draco and Harry agrees to accompany her to get nearer to the Slytherin Prince. EEP! Is this just the chance for Draco to get Harry, or does the ice prince melt his heart for the girl?

"WHAT?"

Hermione shrugged as she smiled sheepishly. "Yeah…"

"B-Bu-But! How? Why?" Ron spluttered, eyes wide with horror.

The Golden Trio were sitting on the velvet armchairs of the Gryffindor common room. Ron and Harry were seated across from the Head Girl, and were staring her down.

The two boys had been in the middle of a game of wizard chess when the brown-haired girl had burst through the portrait hole, back from her Head Girl meeting, and demanded their attention to tell them "something that might affect my entire witching life!"

So this was the 'something' that needed to be told.

"Hermione. What did you say again?" Anyone could hear the strain of the Golden Boy's voice to keep calm.

Hermione sighed. "I said, I think I'm in love with Draco."

Then Ron blew up again.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE IN LOVE WITH HIM? You can't be! He'll send you to You-Know-Who! Then he'll send Harry! Then he'll laugh! Then he'll be the next terror of the wizarding world! Then he'll take a kni–"

"Ron… Ron!"

Ron went quiet, but was still seething, and glared at Hermione. "What?"

"Voldemort is gone! Stop being paranoid!" Hermione scolded. "And Draco's nice!"

"Well, yeah… But you just started seeing more of him two weeks ago! And you say you're IN LOVE with him! How can you be IN LOVE with him only TWO WEEKS of seeing more of him? The most you can do is LIKE him! But even that's madness!"

Ron finished with a yell and a very dramatic flourish of arms.

Hermione glared at the redhead. "I just am. And why are you being so uptight anyway? Who I like is none of your business!"

Ron seemed to snap out of whatever trance he was in, then sprang up and ran out of the portrait hole.

"Ron!" Harry called after his friend and got up, ready to run after the redhead, but then looked back at Hermione. Then he sighed and went to sit on the armrest of the chair Hermione was slumped in.

He placed a comforting hand on the girl's back, running small circles with his thumb. "Don't bother about Ron, 'Mione. He'll get over it. And I'm here if you want me to be. All right?"

The bushy-haired girl looked up at Harry, and as the light of the fireplace flickered across her features, the unshed tears could be seen.

"Hermione! It's nothing to cry about! So what if you're in love with him? It's okay! Come here," Harry said, pulling his best friend into a tight hug.

"Thank you." The Head Girl's voice was hoarse with suppressed emotion and muffled by the boy's sweater. Harry smiled and gave her a final squeeze before pulling away and walking to the portrait hole.

"I'll go see what I can do about Ron, but seeing as that git is as stubborn as one can get…" Harry sighed dramatically, shaking his head, then smiled. "It'll be hard."

Hermione laughed and wiped the tears from brown eyes before getting up and walking toward Harry. "And it's time for me to go back. Don't take too long or I'll be forced to give the both of you detention."

"Hey! It's all for your sake!" Harry protested as they walked through the portrait hole. Hermione looked sadly down at her feet.

"Yeah, it is."

Harry frowned, and wrapped his arms comfortingly around the girl. "Don't think too much about it, 'Mione. It's all right, as I have so clearly put it."

Hermione laughed. "Thanks, Harry."

And they were so busy talking about how to talk Ron over, that neither of them noticed the pair of grey eyes in the darkest of the shadows, following their every move.

Raging with jealously.

The two brown-haired Gryffindors reached a statue of a woman with a jug, and an emerald and a ruby as her eyes.

Hermione turned to give Harry a kiss on the cheek and smiled before turning and saying the password. The statue's head creaked to the right, before the body creaked to the left, and the legs disappeared into the ground, producing an opening with a spiral staircase.

The Head Girl turned back to her best friend once more and gave another grin. "Thanks, Harry. For everything." Then she was gone up the spiral staircase and the statue was back in place.

Harry ran a hand through his messy brown hair, messing it up further, and sighed, starting toward the quidditch field.

Ron was easy to spot with his flaming red hair amongst the darkness of the stands and field. When Harry went over, Ron's hands stopped their plucking of the grass, then he relaxed and went back to torturing the innocent blades of greenness.

"If you continue doing that, mate, I wouldn't have anything to break my fault the next time round," Harry joked.

Ron grunted a response and his hands stopped to curl into himself. Harry dropped down next to his best mate and they kept silent for a while, before the redhead broke the silence.

"I didn't mean to, ya know."

Harry just smiled and placed a hand on the other boy's shoulder. Ron's red head dropped to his raised knees as the silent night grew even quieter.

And still no one noticed the piercing grey eyes.