This chapter was so hard for me to write… yeah but it is very profound and will leave most of you going "FINALLY!" But anyways…start reading… enjoy! Hopefully…

Chapter 10 – Trysts and Warfare

Draco ambled lazily into the back of the Library, purposefully late to make a production of a grand entrance before her. He strutted towards their table and found she already had her nose in a book. He stood there leaning his weight on one foot, his bag slung casually over his shoulder, smiling maliciously at her. She looked up, smirking.

"Are you still Mr. Virgi - " She stopped short, his pimples were gone and there was no trace that they had even existed. Her jaw dropped. "How did you - ?"

"Think I'd stay like that forever mudblood? I think not." He scoffed condescendingly and took a seat, propping up his feet on the table. Hermione snapped her mouth shut and fumed silently. Her triumphant glory went poof! It was gone, disappeared like snuffed out candle to be replaced by hatred and anger. "So what's the news mudblood? Did the old coot tell you when this thing will be over and done with?"

He received an ignorant silence.

"Mudblood?" Asked Draco expectantly, this was his revenge. Pathetic, but it was revenge. He wanted to hurt her as much as possible. No one messed with Draco Malfoy and escaped scott free, punishment was necessary.

"Don't call me that." She muttered, violently flicking a page.

"I didn't ask for your opinion, I asked for whether you received any news from that senile old man." Said Draco as if she were a naïve child. His tone made her seethe.

"Don't call him a senile old man either." Said Hermione darkly. He sneered at her.

"You and your little boyfriend Potter, Dumbledore's little defence army. What? Can't the ancient defend himself? No he needs half-bloods, blood traitors and filthy mudbloods to protect him." He drawled, pushing all the right buttons. He pressed every single one of them and surprisingly, she rose to the bait like a starved fish.

She snapped her book shut with a resounding snap. "SHUT UP! I will tolerate the glaring, the thing with Peeves, but I will not tolerate you!" She yelled, her nostrils flared, cheeks red and her hair in disarray. She stood up, looming over him. "You and your stuck up attitude! You just think you're better than everyone else because you're pureblood. Well guess what? Grow up! I'm tired of it. I'm tired of it especially coming from you. I thought there was some hope for you but I guess I was wrong because you're still the same, you're still annoying and you're still a good for nothing son a of a bitch!"

"Now you listen here mudblood!" He cried rising to her level. "You have no right to tell me how I should act, what I should say and where I say it. I have every right to be the way I am and guess what? I am a pureblood meaning you and all your filthy pestilential nation can pack your bags and go to hell, because you don't belong here!"

If she could take back all the things she said, she would. She would go back in time if she could, just not to hear him say these things again. There was a time over the past weeks in being with him that she came to understand him a little better and eventually grow to like him. He was nice in his own way, egotistical yet charming, condescending yet he made it look good. But to hear him say all these things once more was like rewinding a tape that was too well into the song to be rewound. This wasn't Draco. This was his mask. She would have to break it. Grabbing a book she threw it at him, whether or not it flew into his nose, or if he caught it, she didn't care. She just wanted to escape.

Draco caught the book. Her eyes were glazed with tears but with extreme will power she held them back. The plunging flood waters of guilt rose on him. He wanted to hurt her but she was his special one. Had he not realised the effect she had on him? Had he not realised her numbing effect?

Had he not realised his feelings towards her?

Hermione made her way to the nearest exit. "Hey! Where are you going?" asked Draco, his tone sounding desperate. "Don't turn your back on me." He warned. She whipped around tears streaking her face.

"Why do you hate me? Why on earth do you despise me so much? What is it about me that angers you so much? Why do you believe that my presence rots the perfectly clean air you have no choice but to breathe?" She demanded desperately. Her tears fell freely.

These questions, her so many questions shocked him into silence. He dropped his vengeful façade. "You don't want to know." He muttered quietly turning his back on her. She ran up to him, grabbed his robes and forced him to turn and face her imploring eyes.

"For God's sake answer me!" She yelled, desperately tugging his robes. He simply looked at her hard, with his cold grey eyes. He narrowed his eyes at her and searched hers for some meaning and truth. He saw strength in her that he had never seen in anyone before. Even here as she cried grabbing him. She was strong. Despite this, he refused to tell her a century old truth. He hesitated to tell her the very reason why he was supposed to hate her so. Grabbing her wrists, he pried her hands off him and told her quietly. "I have a valid reason, but my real question is, is can you handle it?" His tone was low and calm.

She rolled her teary eyes and exasperated. "Try me." Sounding frustrated. Her aggravation was growing at his poised level of solemn patience. "You'd better tell the truth or by god I swear I will hex you into oblivi -"

"Fine!" He barked abruptly, his patience running thin. "You really want to know? You really want to know mudblood?" He hissed, advancing on her. In a state of mild shock, she cautiously stepped a few paces back, widening the distance between them. "It is your very presence that offends mudblood, your existence and the existence of your kind disgusts me!" He spat, glaring at her.

"But why?" She interrupted innocently.

"Why? Why! Because my family has spent twelve hundred years to get to where we are today! Because my family has spent twelve generations of pure wizarding race to flourish magic to keep it strong and alive. To not let magical blood die out. All the effort my entire family exerted into keeping the pure wizarding race alive! It all goes to waste!" He spat venomously. "It all goes to waste because you -" he pointed swiftly at her. "You and your kind are born out of the blue to those, those people! All the effort, the work, the time, the generations that have made my blood pure goes to waste! It is all wasted because effortlessly those non-magic people spawn creations just like you!" He yelled furiously.

Hermione stood shocked and dumbfounded, staring at him blankly. And so she finally knew the truth. She finally knew the reason why he so passionately hated her. It was jealousy. Plain and simple jealousy. Although as seemingly void of complications as it was, she never knew that such hatred could run so deep.

"We should be more powerful than you…" He said to her darkly. "…and we are." He could have been lying to himself then, perhaps to reinstate his pride after that shocking revelation. Once again, he turned his back on her. "As much as I know you would hate to admit it, but, muggles are different from us you know. You should know that." Without another word or glance over his shoulder, he strode away from her and out of sight. As she stared at his retreating figure she didn't know what to feel. However, she knew she wasn't relieved to know the answer. She wasn't relieved at all. A very negative feeling rose and stirred in her stomach. It wasn't very unlike the emotion of sadness. Again, heat prickled in her eyes as hot, wet tears stung in them. She willed her tears, forced her tears to stay back and blinked them away but despite her combined efforts, it was no use. A stray tear rolled passed her cheek.

She need not contemplate the veracity of his horrid revelation. She could see it clearly in his eyes. She witnessed something that ran so deep to his very core. It had scared her, but the idea of such an unfathomable hatred saddened her even more. The hatred, the loathing was like DNA imprinted in his heredity, in his blood. Degrading and manipulating a muggleborn person into the feeling of worthlessness must be some gratification of his brutal passions, she thought bitterly. Never had she known that such a condemned hatred existed, all the while that deepest and purest loathing was burning alive deep inside heart of her fellow peer and hated enemy. He obviously had no fear in being upfront and expressing his feelings about her. She had just never taken the time to fully comprehend the meaning and depth concealed within his harsh words.

Draco had rushed out of there. At first his steps were quick and deliberate, but now they had gradually been slowed to the steady beat and rhythm of thought. He couldn't believe he had just told her. As truthful as they were, they were not his words. They would never be his words. Those words and those feelings, that anger was that of his father. His father taught it to him. And Draco was only to respond robotically, mimicking and reciting them just as he learned so. He had wounded her by telling his family's truth. But Hermione had to know the real truth: those were not his words.

He did not see any trace of her on the next day, or the day after that. Draco had wondered whether she had disappeared off the face of the earth. But he knew that at their next meeting, they would have to meet. Predicting what would happen at that meeting was beyond him.

Hermione spent the majority of the next two days in solitary confinement. If she wasn't in classes, she was in her dorm, if she wasn't in her dorm then she wasn't anywhere. She studied day and night, the boys and Ginny had excused her behaviour for simply 'being Hermione' however it was a mere device to occupy her mind with material other than her scattered thoughts. Concentrating on her silent pain rather than her studies were something she would never be prepared to do… they were the hardest two days of her life. In all her life at the school, never had the walk up to the Library been so difficult. If this were any other occasion, she'd bound up these steps eagerly awaiting the musty smell of old Parchment waft towards her nose, the subtle underlying sound of scratching quills and the calming tranquillity settling the air. Other than home, it was her most beloved atmosphere in the world. However, this time it was different. Slowly, one by one she climbed the steps, dread rising as if it were a hastily rising tide suffocating her. The lump in her throat slowly grew and even though stray students passed her, only she could hear the drumming of her heart and the hollow emptiness of her dreaded footsteps echoing before the Library doors.

Hermione arrived quietly, a shroud of melancholy and withdrawal hovered over her like a thick, black veil. Silently she sat and opened a book. She said nothing, no greeting, no quip, no salutation. It was only for Draco to be tentatively aware of this. He had sensed her disposition more than he had seen it. Stopping his reading, he looked up to her. Obviously, he knew that it concerned with the other night and what he had revealed to her. She felt his lingering gaze. Boldly, she faced him.

"Hello." She said weakly. Her greeting was almost as soft as a breath. It was left at that.

"Evening" he replied as if it were an ordinary unchanged night. He chanced a glance at her eyes. Flecks of hurt and pain. Unable to stand this saddening sight, he shifted his gaze to the floor.

As the night wore on her shroud of sadness refused to unveil. To Draco, it was driving him crazy. He felt as if he were literally trapped inside the same room with someone who had just attended a thousand funerals. But not only was she quiet and reproachful, she chose to ignore his existence entirely. Aside from her reluctant breath of 'hello' she was as silent as the grave. There was not an answer to his given questions and declined acquiescence to his requests. She acted as if he had never existed… and it was an incredibly difficult task to ignore Draco Malfoy. But quite on the contrary, it was a difficult task to ignore Hermione Granger also. That session had been one of the most frustrating and tedious two-hours of his life, second to History of Magic of course.

The candles burned down low, creating pools of wax around the table. Hermione quietly packed her things and stood. As she was about to leave, Draco stood also.

"Granger wait."

She turned forcefully on her heel and walked.

"Granger I said wait!" In an instant he was behind her, his firm pale hand gripped her shoulder. She whipped around.

"What the hell do you want?" She snapped.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked, his grip on her shoulder tightened. Like he had to ask…

"Like you care." She scoffed.

"I don't. Now tell me, what the hell is wrong with you?" She didn't answer, instead she turned and took a step. Draco held her back. "Tell me." He commanded firmly.

"It doesn't matter." She said quietly. She made another attempt at walking away. Draco kept pulling her back.

"Yes. It does." He insisted.

"It doesn't matter!" She cried, raising her voice. As much as she tried to emancipate herself, his grip was too strong. He kept pulling her back.

"Yes it does dammit. Tell me!" He raised his voice to a level far higher and demanding than hers.

"No! What does it matter to you? Let go of me!" She took a step. He pulled her back.

"Just tell me!"

"No! Let. Me. GO!"

"Tell - !"

- SMACK!

In an instant she had whipped around and slapped him cleanly across the face. In a state of weak shock, he released her and stepped back, delicately fingering his reddening cheek. Shocked with her own actions, she cautiously reached up to touch his cheek in some form of lament or apology. But he jerked away from her touch. With her eyes tearing, she slowly took her hand back and held it close. Her lip trembled as he stared at her in shock.

She knew she was going to cry. She knew it…

She ran. Leaving everything behind she escaped. She just had to leave, she needed to, and she just couldn't face him anymore. It hurt too much to feel the way she did about him only to be loathed deeply in return. She just couldn't do it. Reaching the next corridor she rounded the corner and slowed to catch her breath. She listened to the soft sound of her footsteps echoing in the dark and quiet halls. Wait…no these footsteps were far too quick to be her own.

He had the nerve to follow her.

A streak of platinum blonde came to view in the moonlight and she immediately quickened her pace until she eventually ran desperately away from him. It did not take long until he was trailing her by mere metres. Running out of breath, she drew her wand and sharply turned to face him. He stopped abruptly.

"Why the hell are you following me?" She demanded, brandishing her wand dangerously.

"Granger…" He breathed weakly, trying to console her in some way. Her eyes glistened with tears as slowly they rolled silently down her cheeks. He took a step.

"Take another step and I swear by this wand I'll make a eunuch out of you." Shocked by her formidable threat he stood his ground. He knew that she was more than capable of it (although where she learned such a spell, he didn't know) and he certainly didn't want to be castrated by any wand of hers.

"I won't apologise… I won't apologise for the truth." He admitted finally.

"I know you won't." She replied raising her head as the tear streaking her cheek shone before it fell. She looked back down, however not lowering her wand. Feeling safe enough to risk his balls, he took a step forward. "I said don't come near Malfoy."

Draco stopped. There was a scratching sound…light and soft footsteps. Definitely not human. "Ssh…" He said softly.

"Don't ssh me!" Hermione snapped.

"Shut up Granger!" Draco hissed, stepping closer to her, listening hard for that sound. His father had trained him to be a Death Eater, he deprived him of his spoiled childhood for this. They were definitely footsteps and definitely not human. They were soft, animal like. It took Draco a split second to realise the only furry creature that prowled deviously through the halls at this time of night. He grabbed Hermione's hand and startlingly pulled her off to another corridor.

"Malfoy! Excuse me! Unhand me this instant!" Hermione vociferated loudly. Draco whipped around and increased pressure on her wrist, his heart drumming loudly in his chest.

"Granger, just shut up. Mrs Norris is coming. Now either come with me and hide or be found and stripped of your leadership." Draco hissed impatiently.

"What? I don't hear any -"

"I said keep your bleeding voice down!" Draco continued to drag her around random corridors.

"I can walk you know." She muttered. However, Draco ignored her. Her poked his head around another corridor. A faint glimmer of lamplight winked in the dark distance.

"Shit" He muttered and ran with quick speed past the corridor, evading the light. As he ran, he didn't quite realise that his hand was still clamped onto Hermione's with a vice-like grip. In his abrupt marathon, he yanked Hermione off her feet where she clumsily stumbled through the corridor. Her footsteps resonated off the walls. Hermione looked somewhere between guilty and shocked, while Draco looked mortified at the loud, "Who's there?" That came from an agitated Filch. Without hesitation, he ran, dragging Hermione along with him. It would only take a full time Hogwarts student to know the astonishing speed that Filch hobbled by.

"Malfoy, what are we going to do?" Asked Hermione desperately, watching the faint glimmer of light grow into dooming illustration of her end.

"Like I know!"

"Who's there!" Filch demanded brusquely into the distance. Hermione took a deep breath and grabbed Draco's hand. She pushed him into the next corridor.

"We just have to keep going!" She hissed. They turned a corner and found themselves almost face to face with Filch. He was hobbling at least ten metres into the distance. Draco grabbed Hermione and pulled the both of them back into the shadows. The dark corridors only draped part of the corners in complete shadow, leaving them only little room to conceal themselves in completely. He grabbed her from in front of him and pushed Hermione up against him, his breathing quickening, his heart-rate insane as sweat slowly crept through his pores. "I'm scared." Hermione whispered as Filch beckoned closer and closer, his lamp illuminating the corridor dangerously. It was as if they were fugitives.

"With your extreme saving-the-world misadventures with Potter, I'd rather think you'd be used to this by now." Draco whispered from behind in her ear, dreading and watching the ominous light draw near.

"Shut up." She whispered back. In response he clamped his hand over her mouth and pulled her back further into the shadows.

"For once, listen to your own advice." He breathed. Hermione's warmth breath warmed his hand as she unconsciously drew back closer into him. Filch was now merely feet away. They could hear his heavy footsteps, his quick and ragged breaths and even the creaking of the lamp as he swung it around hoping to catch the two.

"Come out, come out…wherever you are." Whispered Filch.

He stepped closer to where Draco and Hermione had hidden, extending his arm to allow the lamplight to illuminate almost everything. He took another step. Hermione's chest started to ache and her throat started to burn, until she realised, she had been holding her breath for so long. Filch was too close to let her breath escape now. Eternity had been contained in the agonizing second that Filch stood there suspiciously glancing at the shadows as if the devil himself were to jump out and yell April fool.

Filch dropped the lamplight and began hobbling down the corridor, apparently convinced that the wayward students had escaped him. When the winking light disappeared around the corridor Hermione relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh thank god." She breathed, turning around and hugging Draco for support. Insane tension had seized up all her muscles. "My god I was so scared." She mumbled into his robes.

Draco could no longer stand it. While Hermione was breathing sighs of relief, her proximity was shoving Draco into madness. He shut his eyes in order to quell his temptation, and mentally scream in his silent torture. The last time she had been this close to him he was really tempted to… but there was no stopping him now. Forsaking everything he knew and chucking it out the window, he did the one thing he had been wanting to do all night: He kissed her.

Hermione had felt it before she even realised what was happening. The moment his lips crushed against hers, her inanimate shock had turned into an insurmountable hurricane of desire. It was a definable moment, one might figure it ought to be written in history. However in this sacrilegious harmonic moment, all else did not exist. And so in the heat of possessive passion he began to kiss her. It was in these slow caressing fashions that she experienced surges of pleasure, all emanate from where their lips were lustfully joined. In mindless lust, she kissed him return. Deprived of warmth, her hands ran blindly over his the smoothness of his chest, tingling from the very of the fabric. They found themselves around his neck pushing, urging him closer. Without a thought he responded.

Succumbing to this insatiable passion she gripped his silky hair without pause. In this one small kiss she was suddenly basking in his evanescent presence. She could feel his presence engulf her taunting her, tempting her to desire for more. Draco was no longer in control. She felt the moisture of his tongue graze across her lip asking for more. Shockingly, she opened to him allowing him to skilfully deepen the kiss heightening all pleasurable feeling as fiery monster roared in her chest.

Although her body was reacting to impulses on its own, a minuscule section of her mind still had at least some control of her body and feebly attempted to intervene.

But Draco knew his stuff. His hands snaked through her robe, like a predator eager for its prey. It snaked underneath her the fabric of her shirt towards the soft delicateness of her stomach and back. She shuddered beneath his touch.

Stop… Said a tiny voice in Hermione's mind. You know this isn't right. But his hands, his lips, he himself was entirely too intoxicating. The way he skilfully explored her cold skin, warming it with the simplest touch. She clung to him desperately, her hands fisting through his silken hair curling around his neck. She had experienced feelings she had never experienced before. She wanted to touch to taste to feel.

STOP. Her mind screamed. Her body had a mind of its own. Stop before this leads to something you will regret! The impact of that sentence was enough to regain Hermione from the endless abyss that was Draco. It took every fibre and every Hermione-ish bone in her body to reluctantly turn her head away. Shakily, she stepped back as everything evaporated in an instant.

Draco jumped back as he too realised what he had just done. He was mortified. Breathlessly he stood there staring at her looking appalled at his own actions and immediately Hermione suddenly felt cold. A refreshing zephyr greeted her as Draco brushed passed her and ran. She could have cried then as she was left lone in the darkness, but instead she waited a moment to be sure that Draco was truly gone.

As Draco made his way back to the dungeon a sudden thought occurred to him. This night was much fulfilling the definition of a word he had known as… tryst.

As Hermione remained motionless, she unconsciously licked her lips. His sweet taste remained. She was left with a slight feeling of repulsion but a part of her was feeling not a trace of regret, which was odd if you thought about it. He left her wanting more, which is just what she was doing. She wanted more and yet at the same time, she cursed herself for such a contumacious and heinous thought. She would continue denying that until the end of her days.

"I hate him." She said to herself, "And that's that." Hermione ran away from the scene, promising to herself that she would never again be involved in such a… such a … her mind instantaneously produced an increasingly fitting word: tryst.

- Haven't really proof read it… just so you know, don't really write smut-ish type scenes. But I will chuck one in whenever I feel like it. This chap, undeniably one of the shortest ones, only six pages but anyways, I hoped you enjoyed it! Yay they finally kissed! Review if you want, no pressure.