She huffed and puffed and kicked presses and beat her pillow before meeting with Malfoy. Just to be prepared. She really didn't want to Azkaban before the age of eighteen. But still, here she was. Missing one of her favourite classes, just to meet with that smug, arrogant, slimy – Oh dear, perhaps she should have beaten the pillow a bit more.

She entered and saw that he was late. Unsurprised, she took her book out and began to read her book – one that was surprising not related to her current project to save the world. About ten minutes, he strolled in.

She looked up, begging herself to keep calm, and saw that smirk.

"It doesn't impress anyone when you're late, you know," she said, tight lipped. "It just makes you look like an uneducated child lacking the skill to read a clock."

"And it doesn't impress anyone when you read, you know," he said. "It just makes you look like your life is so boring that you have nothing better to do but read a book written back in the eighteenth centaury."

"Don't you dare insult me just because Daddy never thought you how to read the big people's books!"

"Oh, I know how to read, Granger. But it's not a woman's place to read."

"So I shall act more like Pansy Parkinson from now on, shall I?"

"Precisely."

She stared at him.

"That is what these – lessons, shall we call them? – are about, Granger. Helping you act like a posh, pure blooded Pansy-like girl." He eyed her then and sighed. "It is to be hard work."

Everything came up in her throat – her protests, her insults, her temper – but she surprised both him and herself by sighing. "Yeah, I know."

"You know what?"

"It is going to be hard work. I need this to happen quickly. I need this to happen as soon as possible."

He nodded, and she was surprised by the sudden expression of seriousness on his face. "Now," he began and in a flash she saw a brief comparison with Snape and him but, with a shake of her head, the scary image was gone and she could concentrate, "first, we must think of a family for you – a proper one."

She sank down into the chair and, for the next hour or so, listened to his surprising range of knowledge, subtle pokes at her lifestyle, family, appearance, blood and acquaintances, and his own self-appraisals and self – flattery.

By the end they decided Zabini to be her second name and Hermione to stay as her first. He would remain Draco Malfoy. Because pure-bloods were so secretive, Draco felt that it would be safe enough to say they'd been home-schooled before now, except for last year when Draco had gone to Durmstang for a term but had found it dreadfully boring. Most home-schooled kids had to do at least one year in a Wizarding School but they'd come a year early so that they would be properly prepared for seventh year.

With Hermione's new persona created, they both left, feeling oddly satisfied with themselves.

The first thing she was aware of was that her head felt lighter somehow. Her hair was different. Lighter. She looked into the mirrors – plural, because they were all around her. Her hair was sleek, straight and shorter than it had ever been before – just by her shoulders.

She was sitting on a wooden chair and wearing her school uniform but it looked different somehow. She couldn't pin point it.

Tom stood in front of her, his face impassive. Slowly he leaned in, put both hands on the sides of her chair, his eyes deep on hers, and inhaled deeply through his nose as if to draw her in.

He wore his uniform too – she dragged her eyes away from his to see the Slytherin crest imprinted on the left side of his chest. That was what was weird about her uniform – it had the Slytherin crest also! Why? Why would she not be wearing her red and gold proudly? She was a Gryffindor! Wasn't she? Looking into Tom's dark eyes, she wasn't so sure.

His face drew towards her and…

Click…

"It's coming," he said and it was the exact same way and tone he'd said it when she was twelve years old. He pushed the mirror into her hand but, before she could see her own frightened face, it had turned into a silver snake and had bit her hand.

Terrified, she pushed herself off the chair and he was gone. She shook her hand but the snake wouldn't come off, it was swallowing her whole hand. Panicked, she slammed it up against the mirror where it exploded with a splatter, leaving a red smear and a dead snake in its way.

She ran, horrified as she heard a high pitched laugh echo through the night, laughing at her.

She ran straight into Tom… no, it was Harry. "What… what have you done, Hermione? How could you?" He was crying and blocking her sight from something. Suddenly everything was in slow motion as she pushed past him and saw something, something so far away, lying on the floor, not moving, with long red hair.

"What have you DONE?" Harry roared at her and his face began twisting, twisting into something horrid, with red eyes, and a high pitched laugh…

She turned and fell into Malfoy.

"What's wrong?" his eyes were urgent. "Was the snake poisonous? Did he bite you? Has he tainted your blood? What's happened to your blood?"

"Malfoy…" She needed help, needed support, and suddenly he looked beautiful to her, so full of light, with his silver hair, funny that it was the same colour as the snake, ironic even.

Just as she lined up to kiss him, a thin snake fork-like tongue hissed at her through his grinning mouth and touched her cheeks, tainting her forever, making her filthy, making her blood full of mud and her hair go frizzy and let everyone see her for who she really was…. What she really was… disgusting….

She woke with a start. Ginny was shaking her.

"What?"

"Will you stop moving around when you sleep? For Merlin's safe, Hermione, your bed creaks every time you do! I can hear it in my room! Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that you've missed breakfast and you have Potions in ten minutes so you'd want to get a move on! I've been shaking you for the last ten minutes – I thought there was something wrong with you!"

It had been another weird dream. Her room mates – and Ginny – had been giving out about her tossing and turning for the last month or so.

She realised that she had to meet up with Malfoy again today. Maybe that was why Hermione cast a muting charm on Ginny later on, cursed Neville's frog into a slipper and made Ron's essay that he wanted her to read over translate into Chinese, the only language Hermione knew Snape probably couldn't speak. She was most definitely in a bad mood.

So in she plodded to the Room of Requirement, her book already out in preparation to wait for him to give her his enlightening presence.

So, imagine her shock, when he was already there, reading a book of his own – The Pureblood Diaries – and making notes in a small black notebook.

"Malfoy… you're not late!"

He looked up at her with a expression of annoyance and chided, "Granger, I had thought earlier on that you had been trying to attempt my wit and that you indeed do know that I actually am capable of reading the time and, therefore, can come to the conclusion of my being here on time or not all my myself."

"Well, I dunno, don't you think that's a bit odd? Why are you not late?"

"Because we have work to do, Granger." He showed her the page he'd been working on and smirked. It was titled "Fashions of the Purebloods: Prove your Purity."

"You must be gay," she said and immediately was shocked. That wasn't a normal thing for Hermione Granger to say.

He laughed at her stricken face. "It's alright, Granger, you can say the word "gay" around me, unlike those Gryffindors you normally associate yourself with."

"Thank you so much," she replied, her voice oozing in sarcasm.

"Don't thank me yet," he said and, still smirking, he raised the tube he was holding. "Let me introduce you to your savoir: Merlin's Mending For Mad Hair. This, Granger, might even let you have a boyfriend one day."

And the, despite herself, Hermione laughed.

It was just too odd to be receiving fashion and hair tips from her mortal enemy.

He watched her quietly until she stopped her giggling, with an expression of apprehension. He had been hoping she would at least keep her sanity until they'd travelled sixty years – He had planned for it to be his entertainment source.

But he was shocked by the fact that he was ready for this plan. The more he prepared, the more he felt he didn't have any other choice. The more he let himself believe, the more he prepared for his travelling experience.

She took the book from him and eyed the book, now warily.

"Right… shall we get sorted so?"

Draco snatched the book from her, and raised his wand. He wanted to be in control.

He was surprised when she didn't protest. He had his wand raised, pointed towards her, ready to cast a spell on her – and she was letting him.

She was like nobody he'd ever before met. She was an odd one alright.

He cast a spell, thinking of a certain hair style in his head, to try out. Her hair changed. Huge blonde curls adorned her, her eyebrows looked black in comparison, and she looked extremely strange.

The mirror in front of her let her see his creation. "I look like a poodle, Malfoy!"

"You don't think so always?"

"Not to this extent! I swear, if you don't change it this instance…!"

He looked down at the styles again – he needed a style that was posh, proud and pure-blooded to the core. He looked back at her and thought really, really hard.

Her hair changed, and all he could do was stare.

"Granger…" Now he knew Granger was not a beautiful girl, she was no where near Pansy or that Chang girl. Yet the change in her was significant to say the least. It was probably the first time he'd actually seen her as a girl – an attractive girl.

She, on the other hand, was horrified. She stood up and awkwardly shuffled to the mirror. "Malfoy… it's the same hair that was in my… my dream."

She removed the spell with her own wand, to resort her hair back to as if was before, and looked back at him, eyes wide, and wondered whether it was just a coincidence.

Doubt began to fill up on her suddenly. She was suddenly uncertain. "Malfoy… maybe we shouldn't do this. Why am I doing this? This is so useless… what good would it do? We'd just go and trap ourselves in the past and Harry, Harry would be really worried…"

"Granger," he said, standing up, stepping closer to her. "Calm down." His tone was suddenly different, different than she had ever heard it before. Genuine. "Look, I don't think you should back out now. I dunno – I just, when I heard you say this plan, I just had this feeling. It's like… we're supposed to do this. You're supposed to do this. I know that sounds stupid but…" he stopped. "I'm really tired." This was given as an explanation for what he'd just said before.

She couldn't fight off the uncertainty, and she was unnerved because she kept looking at his face, and she wasn't sure why. When he wasn't smirking or glaring or sniggering, he wasn't actually that bad looking. His eyes connected with hers – something that had never happened before. As if they were equals.

It distressed her. "I have to go!" she swooped up her bag and left quickly, her face a little red.

He let her go, shaking his head. Hemust bereally, really tired.

She was only twelve. She shouldn't be kissing him, no she should not. This dark-headed boy – who was he? – should not be her first kiss. It didn't feel right.

He was cold against her mouth. It was all too passionate, too grown-up, too intense, too painful – but she couldn't escape, she couldn't get away from him, she couldn't breathe…

Hermione woke up with a gasp. She was cold, too cold, shivering. The room was freezing, an abnormal temperature.

Her room had been changed. On her drawer lay a mirror. She recognised it immediately. It was the mirror Tom Riddle had given her all those years before. How is it here? She hadn't been able to find it – McGonagall had taken it off her years before and Hermione had never been able to find a good reason to ask for it back. But now, here it was, face down, insignificant in all its glory, but very, very important.

She picked it up, and the image of the silver snake flickered in her mind. She waited, but nothing happened. Cautiously, slowly, she brought the mirror to her face, eyes searching it for something unusual, something dangerous….

And there it was. Her hair, which she'd turned back just two hours ago while in the Room of Requirement with Malfoy, was now in the same style before – a shade darker, straight and short, around by her shoulders.

She dropped the mirror where it cracked silently, but that was her only show of emotion. Inside her though, the questions burned. Most prominent was: Who would do this? Malfoy?

Draco entered the common room late that night. He had expected – perhaps even hoped – that Pansy be up, alone, waiting for him. What he had not expected was for Blaise Zabini to be up, surrounded by a dozen Slytherins, smirking and talking in a extremely loud and smug voice.

"Draco!" Pansy beckoned him over. "You'll never have guessed!"

Draco could guess, alright. He could see for himself the Dark Mark on Blaise's arm where he'd rolled up his shirt sleeve for them all to see.

Draco had guessed two weeks ago. He'd seen the smugness and pride in Blaise's eyes as they regarded each other, and saw that his smirk was present at the more inappropriate times. It was puzzling, however, why Blaise was revealing himself now.

"I have to say," Blaise was saying, "I couldn't believe it when the Dark Lord entrusted me so much as to take a key role in his bringing down of Potter. I was also surprised that it has proven so easy – slipping that potion into the Mudblood's pumpkin juice every supper is easier than…"

"Zabini," Draco's tone was frosty. "A word, please? In privacy?"

Blaise followed Draco into his bedroom eagerly, his eyes seeking approval. "Isn't it marvellous, Draco? I've finally been recruited! Why weren't you at my Incitation?"

"Because, you dimwit, I was supposed to stay here and make sure nobody asked too many questions on where you were." Sometimes it bugged Draco that people immediately assumed he was a Death Eater, but at times it really did work to his advantage. "What do you think you're doing: sharing the Dark Lord's plan with the rest of them! Do you have more than a brain cell?"

"Draco-"

"The Dark Lordcould have you killed," Draco hissed. "If you screw up once, once, he will have no mercy, no mercy."

Zabini's eyes were wide. "You won't tell on me, will you?"

"No but I don't trust youto dothis. Give me the potion." Blaise, clearly panicked, rushed to find the bottle that he'd not so carefully hidden. "I will take over from now on. Don't worry, Zabini, I won't take any credit. I just… I don't wish to see you killed." It was true, somewhat. Draco didn't wish to see Blaise dead, he didn't care enough to wish.

Why would Voldemort employ such an arrogant, stupid child to do a man's job? Such an important job?

What is Voldemort's plot and what did it have to do with Granger?

Blaise was nodding frantically. "Thanks Malfoy, thanks…"

Blaise was so easily manipulated. It was almost a pity that he was a Death Eater; it was near suicide for such a person after all.

"Leave," Malfoy told him.

"Promise you won't tell anyone? I am so excited! I can't wait to see Granger…. driven mad! Can you?"

Draco nodded and looked pointedly out the door. Blaise left the room.

Draco sat down on his bed and examined the potion. He knew what it was – Dreamless Control. He didn't know, though, why Voldemort would want to take control of Granger's dreams, for he knew it was a very long and tedious way of driving someone mad and that there were much more effective potions, indeed.

Granger,

I know it's late but we need to talk. Now. In the Room of Requirement.

D.M

In the next chapter, they travel back into the past, and someone dies! It's all going to be very intense! Bare with me! Please tell me what you think so far!