Flight, fight, and fright.

Hermione stared at the broom. It lay on the grass, mocking her for her lack of flight skills.

"Hermione, just feel it. Pull the broom towards you." Harry coached, holding her right upper arm to direct it over the broom.

"Feel welcoming."

"I can't feel welcoming when I want to set it on fire!" Hermione snapped, waving her hand in the air as Harry laughed softly. He let go and picked it up, holding it upright next to his frame. She reached, and he let it fall.

With a gasp, Hermione lurched to catch it, and the broom swiveled mid-air and fell lightly into her grasp. Harry smirked. Hermione stared down at the soft, smooth wood gleaming up at her.

She looked up at Harry, who was standing with his arms folded, green eyes glittering. She straightened, and huffed. His smirk grew to a grin.

"Oh, shut up Harry." She sighed.

He started laughing.

Hermione had officially decided that if she were to help Ginny better, she was to get over all her initial fears. She made a list to show these fears, and added suggestions as to what she should do.

Brooms. – Ask Harry if he'll teach me?

Failing– Never failed anything. Study harder.

Death Eaters – Get cozy with Malfoy and Zabini. Right.

With this list, she marched down to Harry and asked him to teach her to fly. Ignoring Ron's witty remark about high towers and freefalling, she dragged Harry out to the pitch with Ron's Comet and Harry's Firebolt.

"It's a miracle. Now that you have it, mount it." He instructed, pointing to the broom. Hermione stared at him, a vision of dogs in mating season floating behind her eyes. Shaking her head, she threw her jean clad leg over the broom.

"Good."

"Shouldn't we be doing this at a full moon, teaching my cat to balance on the broom as well, and letting me cackle while flying?" she asked, nastily staring down at the expensive driftwood.

She heard Harry sigh and mount his own broom. She suddenly felt stupid, standing on the pitch with a broom in between her thighs.

"Stop standing. Sit on it. You have to trust it." Harry explained.

"You make it sound like it has a mind of it's own." Hermione said nervously.

"It's part of the charm."

"Charm charm, or charm as in characteristics charm?" she questioned.

Harry ignored her.

"Now, feel like you are going to go up. Feel light." He said soothingly, demonstrating, and hovering a few feet above ground.

"I feel like a whale. This stick isn't going to support me." She said, looking up at a lazily floating Harry, and pointing down at the broom with one finger. He rolled his eyes.

"Come ON, Hermione." He called. She crossed her arms, willing herself to believe that leaving the ground was a good idea. She'd never liked flying, in aeroplanes, or on brooms. The thought of space travel sickened her, and climbing trees was firmly cut out of her childhood. She liked her feet firmly on the ground. Both of them.

"Are you afraid of failing?" Harry taunted, a smile on his face as he watched the girl struggle between the urge to cling to the grass, and come up in the air to pummel him.

She took a deep, calming breath. Happy thoughts.

Skinny. Weightless.

She sat gingerly on the broom, feeling awkward with the balancing.

"Now, come on up, and join the world of normal people." Harry crowed.

Hermione fumed, chewing her lip, and looking at her feet, loosely touching the ground. Now or never.

She felt like flying upwards, and the broom complied, with a swift upwards pull that lead Hermione to shriek and cling to it. It stopped as soon as her desire to stop did.

"Does it read your mind?" she asked breathlessly as she shakily leveled with Harry, who was stretched out on his broom, legs dangling over, face on his arm watching her.

"I don't think so. It more responds to muscle tensing." He told her.

"Is this a theory?" she asked, looking at the ground.

"Maybe, I have a theory it's theory." He answered, grinning boyishly as she glared at him.

Hermione's knuckles were white, and her muggle attire made her cold. She pulled her thick Surrey football sweater around her.

"Now. We're gonna try a lap around the pitch, higher." Harry said happily.

Hermione stared at him, cinnamon eyes wide.

He flew away.

"Harry!" she yelled, and it came out like a sound a strangled duck would make.

Urging herself forwards, she flew unsteadily after Harry, who was happily zooming around on Ron's Comet, making it go as fast as it could.

"What are you? A fruit fly?" she gasped, as he randomly changed directions.

He barrel rolled to her with a jaw-jutting grin on his face.

"Are you getting it?"

"Yes."

"Do you like it?"

"You tell me."

"Are you afraid?"

"Not…really. Not of the concept of flying. Just…heights."

"Of being high up?"

"No." she said, surprised, as Harry knowingly narrowed down her fear.

"Of falling, perhaps?"

"Yeah. Of falling." She said slowly, staring in his green eyes as he lifted a jet black eyebrow. He suddenly grinned.

"Alright. We'll help."

"Huh?" was all Hermione managed to get out before he pushed her off her broom.

She screamed before she even registered she was falling. The rushing sensation flooded her stomach, as her body arched and twisted unnaturally in the air. It lasted about 4 seconds, before she felt like she'd landed on a feather bed.

She gasped, and coughed violently.

She sat up, Harry landing beside her.

Coughing, she shied away from him when he reached for her.

"Hermione. It's a net. It's always up unless there's a match going on." He explained, sounding worried.

She managed to control her coughing, heart beating painfully fast.

"HARRY JAMES POTTER! What is wrong with you? Are you trying to kill me? What was that for? How was that supposed to cure my fear of falling? Huh? If anything it made me more afraid! How could you? Why did you? What is so .."

"HERMIONE!" Harry yelled over her.

"What?" she snapped, angrily wiping away the tears that had developed.

"You have to do something before you decide on being afraid of it." He said, calmly.

Hermione balked.

"How do I get down? If I fall again, mark my words, Potter, I'll haunt you for spite." She said venomously. He rolled his eyes, and grabbed her around the waist.

She squeaked as he flew and deposited her on the ground.

"It's your unwillingness to experience that you fear." He told her bluntly. Hermione snorted, and scooped up her bookbag.

"Thanks, but no thanks, Harry."

"Whatever pulls your wank." He said, shrugging.

Hermione started.

"HARRY! I expect that from RON!" she scolded, sounding insulted.

He laughed, and sped away from her jelly legs jinx.

Frustrated, Hermione turned and stalked back up towards the castle, leaving Harry to zoom about like a bird.

Her walk up to the castle was uneventful. She worked on calming herself until she could breath properly again, before walking haughtily into the castle.

"Granger." A silky voice drifted from the shadows, and she closed her eyes, counting to 5.

"Malfoy." She said icily to his advancing form.

"I saw you on the pitch."

"Well, good for you." Hermione said snappishly.

He ignored her.

"You need to relax."

"You need to take your relaxation and shove it where…"

Draco Malfoy basically appeared from the shadows, a look on his face Hermione could not decipher.

"Were you just about to insult me?" he asked quietly.

Hermione bristled.

"Yes, I was. Still am." She responded, narrowing her eyes. The light caught the blond hair that fell lightly down in the unslicked style of his hair. Puberty had given it a gold tone, instead of the bleach blond that had been there before. She could clearly see his oddly silver eyes, complete with a blue ring around the iris. His skin was like hers, naturally blemish free, and the contours of his face melted linelessly together.

A pang went off in Hermione's gut that she quickly suppressed, getting the Snape-like feeling of mind reading. He stepped closer to her.

"And why would that be?" he asked, staring straight down at her. Hermione could easily have put her hand out on his broad chest, and pushed him away, out of her personal space bubble. His calmness normally drove her up the wall. Now, it was like the warm and safe silence before a typhoon.

The pang scorched her again. It was turning more into a bubble now.

"Because you're impossible. You're bipolar. I see a side of you I'd talk civilly too, and you go all mad axe murderer." She said, staring straight back at him.

"Maybe I'm just like that." He said, lifting a shoulder elgenatly.

Hermione narrowed her eyes.

"Then I'm done with you."

She made to go, and he grabbed her arm.

"I'm not done with you." He said evenly.

Hermione drew herself up, then remembered her list.

3. Death Eaters – Get cozy with Malfoy and Zabini. Right.

This was cozy. Her pounding chest knew that. He was looking at her.

"What do you want?" Hermione asked, licking her lips quickly.

There was a ghost of a smirk , but it vanished.

"You know what I want." He said, his voice normal, and aloof. No longer calm, and slightly seductive.

"What? A fight? Truce? Help?" she trailed off, preparing herself. "Sex?"

He smiled. A smile that showed his straight, white, pureblood teeth.

"Are you offering sex now, Granger? I was thinking along the lines of a civil truce. You're in a plan cooking around here. I want in too." He said, now stepping back.

Hermione instantly missed his presence around her, and hated herself for it. She took it out on him.

"I'd never offer sex to you, Ferret. Civil truce? Trying to kill me, insulting me? Calling me 'Mudblood' and forcing a potion on me? Calling me GRANGER? Oh, yeah. Nice truce. I'm not in any 'plan'. Even if I was, I would NEVER let you in on it. You messed up a LONG time ago, buddy. Don't even think of rolling in with the happy crowd now." She ranted, fuming. His eyes narrowed, and Hermione inwardly recoiled. Her stupid Gryffindor bravery kept her stock-still and clenching her fists.

"That's bullshit. You're in on a plan, and we both know it. You'd better submit, I have friends in high places." He whispered, gripping his left forearm.

Hermione's temper exploded. He was such a liar.

"You're not a death eater Malfoy, so don't even think of bullying ME." She snarled, her words echoing around the empty hall. His face showed surprise, then triumph, and Hermione realized what she had just exposed.

"SHIT!" she shrieked, covering her mouth and spinning away from Malfoy, searching the floor frantically for answers.

"You're in on a plan, Hermione. And you know it." He said evenly, the smirk of winning in his voice.

Hermione whipped around.

"You're such a dunce, DRACO." She snarled, her face bright red.

"Don't call me Draco. You haven't earned it." He said dangerously.

Hermione pounded his chest with her fists about six times.

"Then DON'T call me HERMIONE. You have NO RIGHT. YOU'RE NOT HIGHER THAN ME AND YOU NEVER WILL BE."

"So, you're higher then me, now?" he said skeptically.

"I never said that."

"That's such bull."

"I didn't!"

"The virgin Granger. Insisting on something she already said." He sang. Hermione stared at him.

"THAT MAKES NO SENSE, FRUITCAKE!" she howled.

"Virgin." He muttered.

Hermione stopped. She lightly punched his stomach, so he shrunk away from her to avoid her hit.

"Jesus woman, you're violent."

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Hermione ground out, kicking him.

"Is that an invite?"

"You'll never get one. Ever."

He glared her, as she stood still for the first time in 5 minutes.

"Then, I guess I'll have to make one." He said, flippantly.

Hermione didn't register the insinuation, even as he closed the gap and covered her lips with his. Her eyes slipped shut as she melted into his embrace on instinct.

She felt his arms go around her waist, as she was pressed against his body. Her hands ran up his arms and across the expanse of his shoulders.

He sucked her lower lip between his, and massaged it with his tongue. Hermione began to kiss back experimentally.

Suddenly, a name bust into her head.

DRACO MALFOY!

Her eyes snapped open, and she shoved herself away.

"Uhgh!" she said, pressing her hands over her eyes, and still reeling from the sensation. She could still feel the heat of his lips on hers. Hermione whipped around.

"What in Merlin's name was THAT?" she said. He shrugged.

"You started it."

"I did NOT."

"You liked it."

"I…"

It hit her that, she did, in fact like it.

"I did not!" she hissed. He rolled his eyes.

"What is wrong with you?" Hermione questioned. He sighed in exasperation.

"Obviously, you're dumber than I thought. I'm the black sheep. You're right! I'm not a death eater. I don't know how you know that little tidbit, but I have a feeling the old geezer told you! You just don't understand that I want to stop this goddamn war, because I know what's coming. You're in on something, I know it. You always are. Potter and the weasel are too stupid to take action by themselves, but you aren't. I gave you the potion so you'd grow some balls."

"I don't need BALLS Malfoy, I need you to bugger off and die!" Hermione snapped, shouldering her bag nervously.

"I want you to help me. I was calling a TRUCE. A Malfoy calling a truce with a .."

Hermione thinned her lips, her eyes flashing dangerously.

"MUGGLEBORN! I'm employing you to help me." He finished, not even noticing her warning signs.

Hermione stared at him. She was still tingling.

"Do you need my help, Draco?" Hermione asked quietly.

He stopped.

"What?"

"Do you need my help?"

There was a silence when he mulled over surrendering the fact that he needed something from her.

"Yes."

"So, the stuff about stealing and Gryffindor, and drugs…"

"It was stolen. I'm still getting threatened to find it." He answered nastily.

"But, it was a ruse."

He glowered.

"Maybe, a little, in a way. Are you going to help me, or not Granger?"

Hermione thought about it. She knew he wasn't going to get to the center of their plan. Ever. It just wasn't going to happen.

"Maybe, Draco. Maybe."

His eyes flashed.

"Yes, or No?"

Hermione lifted her chin.

"It'll be No if you keep pestering me. Stop calling me mudblood, stop insulting me, stop wishing death upon my friends…" she paused to consider, silently wishing she wouldn't add it "And don't kiss me."

He ground his teeth, she could hear the nasty scarping sounds. She resisted wincing and telling him off about ruining enamel.

"AND?" he finally said.

"I'll consider hearing you out." Hermione said sweetly.

"No guarantees of course that I'll help you. I don't even know what you want help with, exactly, and why. So. We'll need some time to make sure that you're not Lucifer in disguise, and then I'll help you find Jesus' sandals." She continued, using muggleisms he'd never dreamed off.

"You, are one messed up bird, Granger." He said nastily.

"Bugger off Malfoy."

"Will you come?"

Hermione clenched her fists. How come he could do that to her so easily? Make her want to pound him. Make her want to…be closer to him. Hermione shook her head.

"Goodbye, Draco." She said with a businesslike nod, before walking away as fast as her legs would allow.

iiii!iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

Hermione lay in bed, while the snores of the other girls rose around her. The clock read 12:43. Hermione rolled over, looking our the window beside her bed, her blankets kicked off, and the purple silk number that had been sitting on her pillow sitting deliciously on her slight frame.

Draco had kissed her.

She was forcing herself to call him Draco. She'd been so preoccupied with what he'd done that morning; she'd skipped lunch, dinner, and homework. Much to Harry's displeasure. He'd forced her to eat some yogurt and something else she couldn't remember before she went to bed. Her hair was in loose corkscrew curls , splayed out around her. She'd just realized that her hair was halfway down her upper arms tonight, and had left it wet, after saying her spell. She liked the calming, frizzless, loose curls effect it had on her hair.

She stared at the lake, and the moonlight reflecting off it's small waves, thinking about Draco, arms slung around her waist, delicious lips pressed to hers.

The scary thing was, she liked it. A lot. She'd do it again. And again. And again.

Feeling slightly disloyal, she rolled over and sighed into her pillow, leaving the hangings open. She knew she was going to reconstruct that moment in her dreams.

As she feel asleep she had no idea that the other participant was laying awake, revisiting the exact same thing in his own green and silver four-poster.

OKAY! I got sick, and then forgot about it and then I typed it and word shut down, so I was shunning typing programs…..shame

I know. I don't deserve your love. I'M SO SORRY. I give you guys this in my defense. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE review! PLEASE!

PLEASE!

I'm begging! I'm on my knees!