Author's Note-I read and appreciated every review. I would respond to you all individually, but its 8 'o clock and I want to put all of my remaining energy into the story. I got 16 or so reviews, which is a great turn-out. See, the whole 20 review thing wasn't really a demand. I just thought it would be nice little motive to know that if I get 20 reviews in one day I'll automatically update really soon. But my parents are going up to New Haven to pick my sister up from college for Thanksgiving, so I'll be at my friend's house until Monday night. How's this, when I come back, I promise I'll update if I have 20 reviews. That's 5 days to review.

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Chapter 7

The Chapter in Which Ron Eats and Hermione Shags Seamus

Just kidding!

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I had to get away from him. The man was going to make me crazy.

When I first met him, as a boy, it was easier to deal with him. Of course, I couldn't stand to be around him then either, but for different reasons. He was the most perceptive eleven-year-old child I had ever seen. It seems so peculiar, to think back to him as a child. No, Draco Malfoy was different. He was definitely not a child. I think there is more to being a child than just a physical state. One's youthful body and naïve mind go hand in hand, to make up youth. Everyone could tell who the first years were on our first day. Parents would say "Look for the unsure ones, straggling about. Those ones are the new kids." There was nothing irresolute about the cold, arrogant boy who strutted around the train that day. It simply wasn't his nature. Apparently, growing up in a home like Malfoy Manor forces one to grow up a little quicker.

He quickly learned to use his wit against myself and my friends. He would be able to read us so well, perhaps myself, in particular. Sometimes he knew more about me than Harry and Ron. Pity, how his talents were wasted. He was a kind of bully to be feared above all others. Not only did he intimidate me with his magical strength, but he could find my insecurities and target them in front of the masses. You know how when you're in an argument with someone, there's that one thing you just want to yell at their face, like "YOUR FRIENDS HATE YOU!" or "YOU HAVE BAD ACNE!"? You know how you just bite your lip and keep yourself from saying it because you know it's ruthless and cruel and wrong?

Draco Malfoy's lips are perfection. Never once has he bitten back a comment. He would take the most atrocious thing he could think of and say it, in some clever little way that made you want to die. I'm sure I, Hermione Granger, am the only person who has realized that it's a pity, because the boy has a wonderful way with words. His invective is like poetry of the most obscene manner. His mind is dark, no doubt, but it is still stunning. He's like a tornado. A powerful force that is destructive, but incredible. Something so awful you never think of how phenomenal it is. Something so simple, but so complex that simply blows you away.

These days, it's my attention to detail, my fascination with this young man that has become my downfall. I've always been passionate about him, that's for sure, but I used to abhor him. It was natural, him and I. Unwritten, you could say. We never had to think twice about the distasteful banter.

But, then he was, in his own way, kind to me. And that completely reversed the spectrum. I didn't know how to react to this still cocky, but less guarded Draco Malfoy who was talking to me in the forest, so I did the only thing I could think of. I was, in my own way, kind back. And do you recall what happened? I ended up falling all over him; on top of him, to be precise.

I must have looked like an idiot, gaping down at him like that. But in that moment, I had for the first time seen Draco as not an enemy, or an authority, but as a radiant young man. Of course, he ruined the moment by smirking and embarrassing me, but it was different then usual. It was lighthearted. I felt like maybe, in the time he had spent with me, he got to live out some of that childhood he missed. It felt good, to know that I was one of the few who had seen that side of him. Although, I guess it could go either way, since he is one of the only people who has ever seen the blushing, giggling, gaping side of me-the side of me that almost kissed him.

That was a whole other matter in itself. The way he's been acting, I'm so drawn to him. I feel like I need to know him more, because I'm so bloody close to figuring him out. It horrifies me. My house would shun me. My friends choke. Snape would hate me.

"We tried to imagine every boring situation it could possibly be, because we know it's you for Merlin's sake, and you wouldn't even dare to think anything crazy, but we could not think of one bloody thing!"

If my house would shun me for a relation ship, they weren't really loyal at all. After the way she treated me, Lavender deserves to be shocked, and well, Snape already wants my head on a plaque. I have no good reasons to not have this relationship, if it would make me happy. And that scares me. It scares me more than anything ever has before. It scares me more than his taunts or Potions, because I can't just brush him off anymore, and I can't research him in a book. He will break down my walls and if he doesn't come through for me he will break my heart. He will break me. But I cannot deny him for such a reason, because I am supposed to be brave-courageous-Gryffindor.

So I will try and avoid him, because if I am in close proximity to him I might faint, or worse. I might kiss him.

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She finished dinner early today. I could not help but watch her across the hall. What she said earlier had been following me. Rubbing off on her? She didn't seem to mind. Oh, what the Gryffindors would say if they knew their beloved was being corrupted by none other than Draco Malfoy. For five minutes she has been pushing around her potatoes on her plate with her spoon. You'd think her friends would be better conversationalists, but she's just sitting there, off in her own world. A smile danced across her lips, and suddenly, I realized, she was exquisite. She was beautiful, in her own natural, bookish way. I had to know what caused that smile.

When she hugged Potter and told the Weaslette a goodbye, I took my opportunity. I exited the hall about five minutes later, but not without missing a grin from Dumbledore. Bloody nutter, that one is.

I saw her whip across a corner, and broke out into a jog for my hunt.

"Where are you headed, Granger?" I said, breaking the tension around us.

"Just out for a stroll, you know, clearing my head."

"And what thoughts plague that pretty little head of yours?"

She turned to me, a little out of breath from the fast pace we had picked up.

"Nothing important." She said hesitantly.

I step towards her.

She stepped back.

"Nothing important, like what?" I said, stepping forward once more. She began to counter my steps with her own. We were like some sort of abstract waltz, the two of us.

"Like, homework?" I asked, strategically striding my last stride as she hit the wall.

"No, nothing like that, Malfoy." She said, looking at my shoulder. Trying to breathe steadily, shocked at the invasion of her personal space. I put my arms on either side of her.

"Look at me, Hermione," I began moving closer "and tell me what you've been thinking about. Tell me why you smiled in there."

As grey met brown, they were both suspended for a moment. There was another absolute stillness. They were so close that I could feel her breath across my cheek.

"You." She said, barely audible.

I cupped her cheek with my hand, and looked to her for an answer. Leaning into my touch was the only consent I needed. Like two oceans colliding we merged, all of the tension between us released. I moved my hands down to her hips, and she started to get more comfortable with the arrangement. I guess it was lucky the wall was there to support her, or else she may have fallen down. I'm told that my kiss is quite the immobilizer. She began to kiss back, and for her 'first kiss', I was once again amazed at her skill. Even in the more romantic of notions she challenges me. She matches my every stroke with a stroke of her own, trying to affect me the way I affect her. Trying to invade my senses, which I will admit she did. I definitely appreciate her competitive nature at moments like this.

And there, against the wall of some hallway we don't even remember how we found, we shared our first, official kiss. We lost ourselves in each other. It was monumental. I don't believe it would've ever ended, if it hadn't been for-

"Mister Malfoy! What are you doing? You are on school grounds, this kind of interaction is no—Miss Granger? Ten points from Gryffindor, for poisoning the mind of my pupil!" said a disturbed Severus Snape, billowing away.