Now, most young women long for the greater part of their teenage years for a handsome young man, perhaps with platinum blonde hair that has a habit of falling in his eyes in a rather sexy way, to call out to them for one purpose or another, but at this moment Hermione Granger wasn't sure if she was pleased at all to hear the voice of none other than Draco Malfoy. The day had held some rather odd events as it was, and she wasn't exactly sure why Dumbledore's eyes had been twinkling so merrily before, but she was almost positive it didn't bode well for her in the Malfoy situation.
"Malfoy," she replied, turning to face him and trying to appear nonchalant, not sure if she should blush or smile or be her usual self in his presence, and finding herself doing a strange mixture of all three. She was curious to talk to him as she couldn't for the life of her understand why someone who hated her would kiss her. Especially why he would kiss her as more than a peck, making it, in Hermione's books, a rather good kiss; despite her kissing partner. Or rather it was because of her kissing partner that it had been a good kiss, but because he was Malfoy it shouldn't have been a good kiss. Or, at least, she shouldn't have enjoyed it as much as she had.
"Granger, are you there?" Malfoy asked, raising his eyebrows in her general direction and looking like he wanted to bolt down the hall the way he'd come.
"Well that's a silly question," Hermione responded curtly, feeling the blush slide from her cheeks and the smile drop away, leaving only her usual self to manage in such an awkward situation.
"Why do you have to wear coconut flavoured lip gloss?" He questioned, seemingly out of the blue.
Hermione was momentarily taken aback, and proceeded to spend a few moments staring at his questioningly before she actually answered his rather abrupt question. "I don't. I think it's icky."
Malfoy decided to ignore her lack of eloquence and put it down to the fact that he was amazingly sexy and the fact that it was a rather awkward conversation to begin with. Instead he looked at the bigger picture- namely, that she didn't wear coconut lip gloss. "Well, you are right now."
"And how would you know?" Hermione responded haughtily, not knowing exactly why it bothered her that Draco Malfoy was dictating what kind of lip gloss she was wearing and wondering if Miss Manners had ever had a particular rule about young men and lip gloss.
"Because I kissed you earlier," Malfoy responded, choosing to sound sarcastic and roll his eyes at her rather than feel the onslaught of embarrassment and self-consciousness that came with the words he had spoken.
Hermione licked her lips thoughtfully. Draco Malfoy decided she was just testing and not trying to be sexy in any way, shape, or form, despite her success at it. "It is coconut!" Hermione exclaimed, and Malfoy once again fought an urge- this time to say something along the lines of 'Duh!'. "But I never wear coconut lip gloss."
"Aha!" Malfoy said, sounding rather like a character for an old movie and looking the part too as he stuck his finger up in the air triumphantly.
Hermione looked at him with a mixture of bemusement, and perplexity, and then decided to take the bait. "What's 'Aha!'?"
"You couldn't possibly be my soul mate if you don't love coconut lip gloss!" He proclaimed, the look of utter triumph still apparent on his face.
"Soul mate?" Hermione Granger was utterly and completely confused. They had said it was a love spell, this was true. But Harry and Ron had assured her that the fact that Malfoy, of all the young men in Hogwarts, had been able to wake her up was simply a fluke. Of course, it was probably more accurate to say that they had been reassuring themselves and, whilst they did care for her, were too far into shock to really worry what she may or may not have done with that information.
There was a rather awkward silence, a pregnant pause, a gap in between words that seemed to draw on and on. It had a lot to do with the fact that Draco Malfoy wasn't entirely certain he'd been acting like his usual debonair self a few moments before, or how to deal with a young lady who'd just received the information that the young man standing in front of her, a young man who she had hated for the greater part of her school career, may or may not have been her soul mate. But most of all Draco Malfoy was incredibly preoccupied from all his innermost thoughts by the rather shallow thought of watching Hermione Granger lick her lips repeatedly as she stood, deeply in thought.
Hermione, for her part, wasn't quite sure what to with the information she had just been handed in a rather abrupt and awkward way, or what might have been going through the mind of the young man who had woken her up and who had hated her for the greater part of his school career pertaining to the kiss and coconut lip gloss. Most of all, however, Hermione Granger was focused almost completely on that one strand of lovely blonde hair that continued to fall across the right side of his forehead in a rather annoying sort of way.
And so our young heroes, young characters, young lovers, if you will, did they only thing they could do. They let their lips meet in a kiss and proceeded on from there in such a way that Professor McGonagall would have been scandalized to see them. On the other side of the castle, Albus Dumbledore sat with his eyes twinkling as he contemplated his serious lack of lemon drops.
