Disclaimer: I don't own these characters or the concept of wizards or Hogwarts or anything. Except for this story.

Just wanted to say thanks to all reviewers so far – you've all been great, and please keep reading! This chapter has the first kissing scene in it – and believe me, I didn't plan it, it just happened!

To reviewers - Special thanks to: Soot Box, prin69 and Incarnation. Thanks also to: -AuroraVBorealis-, mysteriouscharm, Stegijsa, Eliot Z. Wheatherbee (great name!), zizzle, BlueEyedSoccaBabe, BlondeCurls, foxeran and lastly Goddess of life and death. Cheers!

Rash Decisions

Hermione felt Malfoy come up beside her and look out onto poor Ron as he sang and blushed even more profusely than before. Malfoy simply snorted as he observed the twelve roses and the poor desperate red head below. He wasn't surprised, he'd always known how Ron had felt about her, it was written all over him.

"Go away Malfoy; don't make things worse for me." Hermione hissed out of the corner of her mouth, a fake grin plastered over her face, wishing Ron would finish.

"And miss this? You're joking, this is gold." Malfoy sneered, smirking sadistically as Ron began to grow redder when he saw Malfoy.

"Please, Malfoy, please go?" Hermione pleaded, looking up at him this time with big shining hazel eyes.

Malfoy couldn't explain it, but at that moment he felt that there was nothing left to do but to leave her be. To never again mention the incident that caused so much humiliation to her. He couldn't bear to see those eyes full of tears, he could barely look back into them as it was, so left her be. Yet as he stalked away towards his bedchamber, he couldn't control it; he had to take one more look at her leaning out the window, and wondered to himself what was going on inside her head.

Ron could take the embarrassment of being seen serenading a girl with twelve singing roses. He could take it because when he saw Hermione's 'smile' he knew it had to be all worth it – even worth Malfoy teasing him about it for the rest of his life. As he sang the last chorus, he actually got down onto his knees and threw his hands passionately into the air, he had felt this was dead appropriate, when in all reality, the onlookers just laughed and jeered harder. But Ron was completely blind to this, because Hermione was still looking down to him, still with the same smile fixed on her face.

Once he had finished, Hermione heaved a sigh of relief, and applauded Ron half heartedly, not wanting to make the situation worse by hurting his feelings. But this kind gesture had the wrong effect on poor Ron, who, still blinded to the jeering, thought what he was doing was normal. He was overjoyed to see Hermione applauding him, so he started up again, singing a ballad by the Weird Sisters. Hermione cringed as she heard the roar of jeering rise again. She could even hear some of the comments now:

"Look at the idiot down there!"

"Cant even sing!"

"What does she see in him?"

Fortunately, Ron didn't seem to be noticing these taunts, until -

"Hey Ron, your girlfriend doesn't look too chuffed at your serenade! Look at her!" A black haired Slytherin yelled from a downstairs window, and Ron heard him all too clearly. He looked up properly at Hermione, who looked dismayed that he'd started another song. She was biting her lip, blushing profusely, eyebrows narrowed.

Ron stopped singing, and slumped his shoulders in despair, suddenly all the insults and jeers became louder and louder, and didn't stop.

Hermione realised that he had noticed that she wasn't enjoying his performance, and saw him slouch over broken hearted, not able to look up at anyone. She had to so something to show all those jeering idiots. So she did the unthinkable, even though her heart and her head protested, it was the only thing to do.

She grabbed her cloak and ran out of the common room pulling it on messily so it half-hung off her shoulder.

"Granger! Granger, what the hell are you doing? You're not actually going to go down to that warbling weasel are you?" Malfoy shouted after her, shocked at her irrational and brave actions.

"Yes I am!" She yelled back as she clambered through the portrait hole, startling the Sirens who shrieked as she bounced past them.

Malfoy was shocked.

"She must like him." He stated aloud, although he wasn't quite sure why he did. How could she ever want to be with someone like Weasley? He was poor and not very good looking, not even that good on the Quidditch Pitch. What did he have that made him stand out?

Hermione, however, wasn't having deep thoughts as she charged down to the grounds. She hadn't planned what she was going to do, but as she flew out into the blustery grounds and saw Ron, she knew what she had to do.

He was trying to up root the roses and stop them from singing. He didn't know the counter charm because Fred and George had done it for him, so he was having some trouble, and his onlookers weren't making it easier for him, and the roses just got angrier and louder the more he tried to rip them out of the ground.

Hermione took a deep breath and ran up to him. She tapped him on the shoulder and he turned to face her. When he saw her, he flushed red, frowning at her, he opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Hermione got on her tip toes and kissed him.

The jeering became faint again as the couple kissed alone in the middle of the grounds, but the sun did come out bathing them in afternoon light, speckled as it passed through the trees. Hermione closed her eyes as she kissed her boyfriend, but she felt nothing. The scene was perfect, and the kiss should have been perfect too but, still, she felt nothing as her lips bumped gently against Ron's. No spark, none of the fireworks you are supposed to experience when you kiss someone. Just Ron's lips and embarrassment. And for the first time, Hermione felt that she was doing something very wrong indeed.

Ron, however, was overjoyed, although his attempts to deepen the kiss didn't work. He felt like a tidal wave had just passed over him, like a fire had been ignited inside him. To him, everything felt so…right. And for the first time in weeks, he felt like everything was going to be okay. This proved that she liked him, didn't it?

Malfoy stood at the window looking out upon the little display below. It physically sickened him to see them kissing. He convinced himself that it was because the thought of the mudblood and weasel kissing was gross, but this wasn't completely true. He felt sickened because he was jealous. He wasn't sure that he wanted to be the one kissing her down there, in front of all the onlookers; he just didn't want her kissing him.

Finally, they stopped kissing, and he watched them walk hand in hand back into the castle. As they walked up the steps to the big oak doors, he could have sworn he saw her look up at him, a fire burning in those expressive hazel eyes, making his heart pound violently against his ribs, and beating out a steady rhythm so loud he was sure that she could hear it.

The next morning, Monday dawned pouring with rain. Hermione looked out onto the rain-soaked grounds at the spot where she and Ron had kissed the day before and sighed. What was she to do now? That kiss had sealed her fate. She was now officially leading him on, and she was either going to have to break his heart, or have hers slowly suffocate.

She quickly got dressed, her head buzzing with a million thoughts at once, and was in another world as she drifted into the common room.

"Morning, Granger. How's lover boy? Still an embarrassment to you and the rest of the world?" Malfoy sneered as she passed, his eyes darkened by the fact that he hadn't slept at all the night before.

Hermione whipped out of her trance immediately when she heard his cold voice. "Ron is my boyfriend, Malfoy. He's not an embarrassment to me." She snapped back coldly, not meeting his eyes.

Malfoy smirked, and began to walk towards her. "Is he really? You're in denial, Granger. One day, when you're growing old with that ginger idiot, you're going to really regret that little display on the grounds yesterday." He said as he advanced, smirking even more as he saw her reaction.

"You don't know how I feel about Ron." She replied coolly, he voice shaking slightly, but this time her gaze met his.

"Oh, I know. I think you do too. Don't you see, Granger? You're going to let him suffocate you." Draco hissed, his eyes flashing with passion as he spat out his last sentence.

"Thanks for the advice, but you wouldn't understand. Since when do you have a heart?" Said Hermione, her words cutting right through Malfoy. She knew she had gone too far with that comment, but was not going to apologise to him. Why did he care so much, anyway? He was probably just trying to ruin her life, like he always did. She just ripped her gaze away from him and stalked out of the common room to breakfast.

Malfoy watched her leave, dismayed. He did have a heart, the same heart that had pounded hard when he met her gaze yesterday. It was the same heart that leapt when she spoke to him, however angrily, the same heart that he always ignored. But immediately after these thoughts flooded his head, he shook them out. "Malfoys don't listen to their hearts," he repeated to himself like a mantra. He had to defeat these feelings.

That morning, Hermione was to have Arithmacy with Professor Vector. She was delighted, as she loved this lesson, and it meant she didn't have to spend it with Ron who kept trying to make more advances on her. She was so relieved to say goodbye to him outside the classroom and walk into the beautiful marble hall to her seat at the front.

Malfoy strutted in a couple of minutes late, looking slightly ruffled and tired. Professor Vector was not impressed.

"Mister Malfoy, 5 points from Slytherin for your lateness, take your seat please." He snapped and Malfoy lazily sidled to his chair.

The lesson was enjoyed thoroughly by Hermione, who, for the first time in a while, had been able to ignore Malfoy entirely. She took ten pages of notes and happily answered many questions (always correctly) during the lesson.

Draco, however, struggled with everything in the lesson. It wasn't that he was thick or that he couldn't understand if he tried, he just couldn't keep his focus off Hermione, who kept infuriatingly answering all the questions correctly. The events of the day before were still plaguing his mind and he couldn't work out why he was so bothered about it. He stared at her angrily and dragged his hand through his silvery locks, trying to work out why he could tear his gaze away, the lesson washing over him completely, until the end-

"I shall be giving out practice test papers so you can all revise for your NEWTs properly. I shall be expecting an 'O' from each and every one of you!" Professor Vector exclaimed cheerily, sending large pink booklets to each student. Hermione took hers eagerly and began flipping through it excitedly, knowing inwardly that she could do every question easily. Draco took his, and looked at the first page dismayed. He hadn't been paying attention all year, and every question baffled him.

At the Gryffindor table that evening, Hermione sat between Harry and Ron and cheerily, she even let Ron drape his arm around her shoulders as she ate, she was in such high spirits. But she couldn't help but notice that Draco looked extremely troubled, he wasn't eating and every now and again she caught his eyes, which were flooded with raw emotion.

At the Slytherin table that evening, Draco sat next to Pansy who constantly whined in his ear all evening about how lonely she'd been, and how she hadn't seen her Drakiepoo for ages. He, however, wasn't listening in the slightest. He was too busy focusing on Hermione, observing her angrily as she ate happily with stupid scarhead and her boring boyfriend. His blood boiled when he saw Ron's arm creep over Hermione's shoulder protectively, he couldn't take it anymore.

"Drakie? Where's my sexy dragon off to? Drakie, why are you leaving? Is it me, do I smell funny? That's just Crabbe's feet, it's not me!" Pansy protested in an annoying high pitched voice as Draco rose from the table. He didn't say a word as she called after him; he needed to clear his head.

Hermione was surprised to see Malfoy leave his dinner so abruptly, and was amused and relieved that he ignored Pansy's whining. She was curious when she saw him storm through the Great Hall doors, and wanted to follow after him, but knew if she did, Ron would want to walk her up to the Head Quarters.

When Draco arrived in his bedchamber, he flopped back on his four-poster, his hands tangled in his ruffled blonde locks. All his problems shouted at him and scolded him in his subconscious and he couldn't escape. He needed to find some way to forget Hermione, to banish her from his mind. He needed to find some solution to his low exam marks, or his father…his father would disown him. And Draco couldn't stand that. He couldn't stand the blow to his ego, the shame. Then suddenly, the answer came to him like a bolt of lightening to his brain.

I'll cheat