Hello readers! Cheers for reviews, lots of twists and turns in the story ahead, so keep reading!

Sunday

Over the next few days, Ron barely got to see Hermione at all; she was always in the Library studying or in her Quarters, supposedly alone. Although she convinced him it was all because of the approaching exams, Ron was sure there was something more to her avoidance, so on one lazy Sunday morning in the Gryffindor Common room he appealed to his best friend for advice.

"I think Hermione's avoiding me." He suddenly blurted out as he and Harry were doing their Divination homework.

"What do you mean?" Asked Harry, not looking up from his badly scribbled notes.

"This is serious mate. She never wants to spend time with me; she's always in the library studying…or in the Head Quarters with…with Malfoy." Ron crushed the parchment in his hand, a frown on his face as he mentioned Malfoy's name.

"You know what Hermione's like. NEWTs are soon." Harry replied calmly, scratching out a mistake on his work and consulting a large, brightly coloured lunar chart beside him.

"Yeah…but she never asks me to study with her or anything. I'm her boyfriend; she should be carving out her study-periods to spend time with me!" Ron grumbled indignantly, angry that Harry wasn't as ardent as he was in Hermione's supposed offences.

"Well, maybe you haven't shown her enough attention." Harry replied, this time looking up at Ron (who was now scarlet with rage) "I know what you can be like. Maybe you need to show her that you want to be the best boyfriend you can be."

"I AM a good boyfriend. She's just being all…female." Ron groused, absent mindedly poking the ashes in the blazing fire with a long rusty poker, letting sparks and stray embers fly.

"Right."

There was a silence between the two, but Ron couldn't focus on the work in front of him and expressed something that had been nagging the back of his mind for a while.

"Do you think something is going on with Hermione and Malfoy?" He asked, trying to sound casual, but secretly desperate to hear something reassuring.

"No, I really don't."

"But there's a chance they could be. They share a Quarters after all."

"They don't share a bedroom, Ron, just a common room."

"But there's a chance isn't there?"

"Well, yeah, a slim one though."

Ron sat back in his chair, looking thoroughly deflated, as if what Harry had just said settled the matter.

"Have you noticed him acting weirdly recently?"

"Malfoy's always acting weirdly."

"But…more so than usual?"

"I don't know, look, Ron, I suggest you just treat Hermione really well and accept the fact that work is a large part of her life. There is nothing between her and Malfoy; they've despised one another since first year. And after all, would precious pureblood Malfoy want to associate himself with Hermione?" Harry said reasonably, and then, picking up his quill suggested simply. "Maybe you should get started on your homework, it's gonna take us ages."

While this conversation calmed Ron down for a short time, soon enough his niggling doubt came back. He knew it had to be something to do with Malfoy…but her couldn't help but wonder that maybe if he did show some more attention to Hermione, she might want him more.

Hermione, however, was determined to avoid him as much as possible, and not out of spite, she just didn't want to have to pretend anymore. She was also truthfully wrapped up in so much school work – the NEWTs were getting closer by the day, and she was determined that not a day would go by when she wasn't studying like a lunatic for them.

Her hair, as a result of all the stress and lack of attention to it, had become extremely bushy – much to Malfoy's amusement as he watched her scribbling furiously in the Common Room the same Sunday morning.

"Morning, Mudblood." Malfoy greeted casually as he strode proudly into the room from his bedchamber, still wearing a silk green dressing gown with the Slytherin crest embellished proudly on it.

Hermione disdainfully lifted her hand, showing she had acknowledged him. This irked Malfoy, as recently Hermione hadn't been paying much attention to him, even with his best insults. Ever since their little meeting by Harriet the Hairy, she had seemed to want to pretend he didn't exist.

Malfoy racked his brain for insults or comments – anything to command her attention in a conversation or argument – anything. Then it hit him.

"I didn't know being the, erm, faithful girlfriend of Weasel could make you so…bushy." Draco sneered, smirking widely as Hermione's focused hazel eyes shot up to meet his for the first time in days.

"Bushy? No that's just the stress of work, Ron's fine." She said, her words mumbled and disorganised as they left her mouth.

"Really? So, that's why you don't spend anytime with him then?" Draco replied sneakily, trying to hit a nerve wherever he could, he was convinced that she couldn't conceivably be happy with Ron.

"Well, I've had a lot of work and not a lot of time on my hand for him. It's none of your concern, Malfoy." Hermione replied coolly, realising that Malfoy was trying to induce a quarrel, so, determined not to rise to his bait, she returned to a large dusty volume on Ancient Runes.

Malfoy gave up his attempts, he didn't want to show he cared any for Hermione and Ron's relationship – and why would he show it? It's not like he had any feelings he needed to hide…he simply decided to flop down on the sofa and observe Hermione as her quill sped across the parchment.

"How can you work all the time?" He finally blurted out abruptly; still annoyed that she would focus so hard on work when he was in the room.

"Because I want to do well in the NEWTs this year, as should you." She replied simply, blowing her page of work dry, the ink still glistening on the page.

"But it's so dull. Maybe that's why you take such pleasure in it"

"Too difficult for you, Malfoy?" Hermione retorted, smirking to herself. She knew how much Draco hated having his intelligence questioned.

Malfoy's pallid face suddenly filled with scarlet colouring, his eyebrows narrowing. He had always struggled to do well at school, although he pretended to not care in the least. His father had always piled on the pressure for top marks on him at home – and when he had found out that Hermione, a mudblood, was beating Draco at almost every subject, he was furious.

"Malfoys always win. We are of noble blood, Draco. We are above mudbloods, halfbloods and even many purebloods alike, and you are bringing shame onto the family name. If you do not beat this…this girl in more subjects, I will have no choice but to…let you go. I won't have this sort of shame on my family, Draco."

Lucius's voice rang in Draco's ears as clearly as it had all those years ago. And to this day, Draco still didn't know what his father had meant by 'let you go', but was sure he didn't want to. His hands trembled as he thought of all the work that was piled up in a cupboard in his bedchamber. He knew he needed help…and the only person to help him would be Granger. But his pride forbade him to ask for help.

So, instead, he stalked into his bedchamber, and came back, much to Hermione's amusement, arms full of parchment and school books. He dropped them bad temperedly on the table in front of Hermione and took a seat, taking out an elegant black quill.

Meanwhile, Ron had given up on work and had left Harry for the boy's dorms. He lay back on his four-poster, thinking hard. Harry's words were still flying around his brain, maybe Harry was right. Maybe he wasn't showing Hermione enough attention, romantically. Then he was struck with a sudden idea.

He raced down into the Hogwarts Grounds, to a particularly large flower bed near the Greenhouses. A particularly beautiful patch of pink roses caught his attention, and he eagerly scampered up to them. He checked no one was around, and then picked a whole bunch, a wide grin on his face. Girls love flowers he told himself over and over, reassuring himself.

In the Head Quarters, Hermione and Draco were both studying hard. Hermione's quill was serenely sliding across the parchment as she completed a series of difficult Arithmacy problems. Draco huffed and puffed and scrawled angrily as he tried to answer the same problems, in vain.

Hermione looked up from her work, surprised at the amount of noise Draco was making as he worked. Then she looked down at his messy work, and was very surprised. Draco was certainly struggling, and for the first time he seemed quite vulnerable so Hermione decided to be gentle with him.

"Malfoy, would you like…a hand with that?" She asked gently, looking at him with big hazel eyes.

"No, what makes you think I need your help, Mudblood?" Malfoy snapped, his cold eyes whipping up from his work, immediately feeling slightly guilty as she was just being kind, and soon regretted turning down her help.

Hermione was hurt – she was just trying to be nice to him, to ease his work load. But she blew it off. It's just Malfoy she told herself and returned to her own work.

A few hours of gruelling work later, Hermione went to the window for some air. She flung in open, looking out onto the serene grounds, and it looked beautiful in the late winter sunshine. Then suddenly, she saw movement below.

Ron

Ron with twelve enormous pink roses

Ron with twelve enormous pink SINGING roses

Ron with twelve pink SINGING roses, SINGING himself.

Serenading Hermione

As Ron sang loudly, lots of other windows from dorms nearby flew open, curious heads poking out. The grounds were full of jeering laughter as Ron sang to Hermione, blushing furiously.

His song went something like this:

Oh, Hermione,

These roses are for you

Oh, Hermione,

These roses sing for you

Oh, Hermione

I'd do anything for you

Oh, Hermione,

I'd do anything for you

And that was just the chorus; there were many, many sickly sweet verses also, and the roses harmonised beautifully with him. Hermione blushed with both anger and embarrassment. What had possessed him to do this? She needed to do something about it, but she didn't know what. She couldn't tell him to shut up; doing that would just make the situation more humiliating, so she had to just stand there in all the humiliating attention.

Malfoy, on hearing Ron's terrible singing voice, had to see this, and took a viewing spot next to Hermione, overjoyed to see that she was furious.