(A/N: Thank you again for the lovely reviews, and sorry this has taken so long to update. Fear not my sweetlings, all shall become clear! ♥)

'I trust you've learned from yesterday's mistakes and have already finished your Potions essay for today Ronald?' Hermione asked, her voice sugary sweet as she sat down at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall for breakfast.

Ron choked on his spoon and all of the colour drained from his face. Hermione rolled her eyes, reached into her bag for a spare piece of parchment, tapped her own Potions homework and muttered a spell under her breath. Harry and Ron watched in amazement as Hermione's impossibly neat handwriting shot out of the tip of her wand and transformed itself into Ron's untidy scrawl as it hit the parchment. She patiently waited until the very last full stop dripped out of her wand, and then she handed the parchment to Ron. He gaped at her.

'This is only a one off,' she reminded him sternly, 'I just don't want Professor Snape to waste his lesson making your life a misery. Again.'

Ron dislodged the spoon from his throat and threw his arms around Hermione across the table with a huge grin.

'You're the best,' he beamed, 'I love you Hermione.'

Harry looked down at his own Potions essay in dismay.

'Not fair,' he muttered, 'I've never gotten a copy of your work no matter how stuck I was.'

'It's not an exact copy,' Hermione explained guiltily, 'It just says roughly the same thing.'

Ron was still grinning like a Cheshire cat.

'I'll help you next time,' she promised Harry feebly.

'Humph,' he said haughtily, 'Favouritism.'

Hermione opened her mouth to bite back indignantly, but Harry's teasing grin told her that there was no need.

'I don't suppose someone's going to tell us that Snape's disappeared off somewhere too, now?' Ron added hopefully.

'We wish,' Harry said wistfully.

'Mmm,' Hermione joined in, trying to sound enthusiastic. In truth she couldn't wait to get to Potions. The one benefit of being at the mercy of the greasy-haired Professor Snape was that Neville Longbottom, who had always struggled with Potions, would be nowhere near her to carry on his staring. She could finally concentrate on her schoolwork again. She didn't know when she had become so easily distracted, but she certainly didn't like it.

'C'mon then,' Ron said heavily as the long house tables cleared themselves, signalling the end of breakfast, 'Let's get this over with.'

Hermione prepared her individual potion cheerfully, her eyes scanning the instructions in front of her as she carefully chopped delicate petals to later add to the bubbling cauldron at her side. So far she was actually having a pretty good day. Her happy mood was reflecting in others, especially a very grateful Ron, and even Professor Snape managed to praise her potion without a much of a sneer.

With her now electric blue potion simmering nicely in its cauldron, Hermione took her seat again to finish off her notes. She lifted her quill, loaded it with ink and continued in her neat script where she had left off. "… this potion, when brewed correctly, should appear bright blue in colour. This is to aid-" Hermione froze as she felt a now familiar shiver tiptoe its way up her spine. But it was impossible that he could be watching her here! Neville had dropped Potions faster than a dungbomb as soon as he had finished with his O.W.Ls… so if it wasn't Neville then who was it?

Her mind flashed back to Ron at breakfast that morning. His voice echoed in her ears: "I love you Hermione". She bit her lip… but it couldn't be Ron. Of course he loved her, but it was a friendly kind of love. He cared about Hermione the same as he cared about, say, Harry for instance. Right on cue, Harry's jealous tone floated back to her: "Favouritism." She leant further over her parchment as her watcher kept watching. She didn't know what she would do if it was Ron or Harry, but who else would pay any attention to her? No one else cared.

With the same mixed feeling of dread and wicked excitement as before, Hermione clumsily brushed her quill off her desk and onto the floor. Under the guise of picking it back up she turned her head and looked around. Ron and Harry weren't even anywhere near her! They stood, bent over Harry's cauldron, bickering quietly about the quantity of bat bile to add to their potion. Hermione resisted the urge to wipe the nervous beads of sweat from her forehead, cartoon-style, and slowly began to crane her neck towards where her watcher must be. She could almost imagine staring into those eyes, surely a deep, seductive brown, and feeling a fire burning low in her stomach that-

'Miss Granger!' Snape snapped, 'While I appreciate that you wish to be perfect at everything, crawling on your hands and knees like a house-elf to clear up does seem slightly extreme, even for you.'

Hermione felt herself blush as she sat up properly and hurried to tidy away her things. The bell began to ring, filling the bare dungeon with noise and Hermione grabbed her books and hurried to catch up with Harry and Ron.

She tripped, and the next thing she knew she was face down on the cold, stone floor, looking up at the only people she could never look up to in her whole life. The Slytherins. Draco Malfoy stood at the head of the pack, silent, but effortlessly dominant. Apart from some muffled giggling, the Slytherins were quiet. It was apparently an unspoken rule that Malfoy got the first word. A smirk flickered on his face as Hermione struggled to right herself. With her last shred of dignity, Hermione pulled herself to her feet. Malfoy opened his mouth to speak, but Hermione was not in the mood.

'Don't even start, ferret boy,' she snarled, uncannily like her Potions master. Every so often it paid to listen to one's enemies.

A look of shock had appeared on Malfoy's face, but was hurriedly replaced with his usual scowl.

'Oh, and that face is supposed to scare me off, is it?' She asked with a raised eyebrow, 'I'm shaking in my boots Malfoy.'

'Are you going to let her talk to you like that Draco?' Squealed Pansy Parkinson, sounding outraged.

Apparently he was.

But as Hermione lifted her chin up high, and made to stalk her way up the corridor in a flurry of black robes, Malfoy opened the thin, unamused line that was his mouth.

'Maybe I'm not trying to scare you off Granger,' he said, his voice dryer, and somehow more serious than normal.

Hermione gaped at him. So did the rest of the Slytherins. No one was laughing now.

Malfoy looked around at the crowd that flanked him, 'And you know what they say: keep your friends close,' he shifted his gaze back at her, straight at her, for the first time in Hermione's life, 'And your enemies closer.'

She mouthed the words silently with him, before she knew what she was doing. She needed to snap out of it before she was stuck there, gawping like an idiot forever. How embarrassing, she thought, to be gawping like an idiot forever at a spot which Draco Malfoy had once been occupying.

'Sorry Malfoy,' she said suddenly, her voice feeling separate from her body, 'I wouldn't touch you with a barge pole. You'll have to look for some other enemies to nauseate.'

As she finally whirled round to stomp off, one of her hundreds of books slid from the pile in her arms and back onto the floor. She turned, red-faced, to fetch it as the sniggering started again. She was met with Draco Malfoy thrusting the book on Muggle Studies into her face.

'You'll be needing this,' he said, still holding firmly onto the end of the book, 'After all, you don't need to waste precious studying time looking for people to nauseate Granger: that just comes naturally.'

Hermione tugged on the book, and Malfoy tugged back, forcing her chin to jerk up and her gaze to meet his. Hermione stared defiantly back into Malfoy's angry, burning eyes, and then suddenly he let go of the book and, with a swish of his cloak, he and his followers were halfway down the corridor and his eyes were back to their usually steely grey.

Hermione was frozen on the spot. With a deep breath she shook her dazed head, and some clarity blasted away the clouds of confusion smothering her brain.

She was late for Ancient Runes.

With a yelp, she set off for class at twice her usual speed. The sprint up the three flights of stairs to Ancient Runes took it out of Hermione. Sitting in the warm, comfortable classroom, she almost fell asleep again. But this time there were no eyes on her. She had never been so thankful in her whole life.