Author's note: This chapter is totally dediacted to EVIE! for eveything that she had been through, she deserves much more than this. but its all i got, anddespite everything, sheis still being my BETA! she is truly lovely! and yes, the chap was a little sappy last time but i tried to keep it pretty true to character... hope you enjoy the rest!

Chapter 14 – And So The World Turns...

February bled into March and soon the frigid nights melted into crisp mornings as spring came over Hogwarts. Outside the castle, everything grew, leaves re-sprouted and flowers bloomed. Inside the castle, however, all the students could sense a strange tension; rather like a storm looming that was just about to break out over them.

No one really knew why it was there or even how to describe it. It was like something tugging at the back of their minds. Many just dismissed it as anticipation to the end of the term tests and the start of summer holidays.

No one mentioned it of course, but they were all careful where they stepped.

For some reason, the student body was particularly treading on eggshells around a certain Hermione Granger.

The Gryffindor prefect seemed to constantly be in a horrible mood, she always looked harassed and bedraggled. Like she was spread so thin that at any time she was going to snap, and there was absolutely no telling what she was going to do once she snapped. (There were bets though, one of which had something to do with an apocalypse, elbow grease and chicken feathers.)

She was barely ever seen with Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, sticking instead to Ginny Weasley or striding purposefully down the halls in her brisk gait, alone.

By now it was common knowledge that she and Ron had broken up. It was thought to be an amicable, mutual split because one day, they just stopped the small public displays of their affection for one another.

Every one of the Hogwarts students above fourth year, those who were more interested in school gossip, wanted to know why Hogwarts' premier golden couple had broken up. (Save one Ravenclaw who was pretty sure she knew but was not telling.)

And while they were at it, the rumor mill wanted to know about the boy on the other side of the spectrum.

Draco Malfoy as well had been acting rather out of character. Other than a few spats with the Gryffindors, he stayed pretty much off the radar. The irregularity was too subtle for anyone to really notice, he still walked down the corridors intimidating first years and passing snide comments about nearly everything. Many dismissed it as either nerves or, gasp! maturity.

Basically the student body was really not at all interested, after a while the interest of the rumor mill shifted from the broken-up golden couple and the Slytherin bad boy to the Gryffindor head boy and Hufflepuff head girl who seemed to suddenly hate each other with a flaming passion.

However, the students were not the only ones troubled.

Severus Snape was also ill at ease, though outwardly no one would ever be able to tell the trouble brewing in the upper echelons of the Hogwarts faculty; he was not comfortable with it. Their plan was dangerous and after all, young Malfoy was his godson; and under other circumstances he would even have been proud of his protégé. The charade that he and Miss Granger had been putting up this last month or so had seemed flawless. He had heard of no bitter fights between them since, it seemed that Draco Malfoy was simply ignoring Hermione Granger and Miss Granger was keeping her distance from the Slytherin prefect. Even he was beginning to doubt his instincts, had the impossible simply happened?

He very nearly smiled again.

The chance of his instincts being wrong was comparable to Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy truly loving each other and lord Voldemort would star as Glinda the good witch in a remake of the Wizard of Oz before that would ever happen.

Anyway.

March, passed quickly, and April came with its showers and flowers and panicked cramming for the O.W.L.s. The tests were scheduledto take place a little later this year, in the first week of June.

Draco and Hermione had been meeting at random intervals since that night in February when he presented her with muggle ice cream so she would stop whining about every little thing to him.

As the owls approached, these nocturnal get togethers were filled with studying and reviewing (and yes, ice cream,)as Hermione frantically obsessed about the finals and lived in constant fear that she was going to 'fail everything', no matter how Draco told her otherwise.

Draco on the other hand was getting increasingly annoyed at Hermione's paranoia. Over the years he never once studied for his final exams content to simply review his notes on the subjects and rely on stocked knowledge. Hermione kept making him repeat things and re-explain things to her so that she knew everything by heart. By late April he wanted nothing more than to just strangle her.

At the beginning of May, Dumbledore had called the two of them to his office for a meeting with himself and their head of house to discuss their wedding. He informed them that it was to be set in the forbidden forest at dawn, to promote privacy. The rest of the details were discussed and taken care of.

The date was set and everyone left with at least a small feeling of accomplishment, they knew that at least that was taken care of.

All save for Draco and Hermione of course, because reality had just hit home. They realized that they were actually going to have to go through with it.