Hermione
Hogwarts
September 1996

"Pay attention to his left arm 'Moine," Harry reminded her breathlessly, doing his best to keep up with her blistering pace.

"I'm not going to enter into conversation with him. You know that, right?" Hermione said, making her terms abundantly clear.

"Just tell us what he does," Harry reasoned. "You don't have to talk to him. And watch his left arm!"

Harry's face was hopeful, and so was Ron's, even if the latter's expression was a mixture of confusion and unfettered support.

She considered her two friends, reluctantly nodding her head, not wanting to disappoint them. Harry gave Hermione's arm an appreciative squeeze.

Hermione caught Ron's eyes lingering on the spot where Harry's hand rested.

Ron's eyes slid to Hermione's, and both their faces reddened. She did her best to hide her embarrassment with a tight smile but then abruptly swiveled away, nearly falling in the process, when her foot caught a raised cobblestone in the floor.

Her dignity in shambles, she retreated to the dungeons without another word.

She had barely poked her head through the thick door when a booming voice nearly sent her careening back.

"Miss Granger!" Slughorn's thunderous voice exclaimed.

"Good evening Professor Slughorn," Hermione greeted after collecting herself. To her left, she heard a scoff.

Knowing it was him, she sought out Malfoy's blonde hair and angular features. Their eyes connected for a fraction of a second before he vehemently looked away.

Hermione, however, let her attention linger.

He looked uncharacteristically undone that night. His hair was tousled and almost messy, like he couldn't stop running his fingers through it. The white oxford button-up he wore had the first few buttons undone, exposing a flash of glowing pale skin.

Heat built in her cheeks when she looked up and saw that Malfoy had looked back and caught her staring. She turned her face brusquely back to where Slughorn stood, praying to whatever gods there were that Malfoy didn't think anything of it.

She was just keeping an eye on him, Hermione justified. It's what she told Harry and Ron she'd do. Right. It was just spying, she thought to herself as she settled herself at the lab tables directly across the aisle from Malfoy.

"How lucky I am to have snagged two of the best potion makers at Hogwarts for a detention!" Slughorn declared boisterously from the front of the classroom.

"Now it's no good that you two were being naughty," the professor wagged his finger in a taunting way, "but I'll take it!"

Malfoy scoffed again, giving the impression that the Slytherin prince was destined to be in a bad mood all evening.

Slughorn tapped his wand against the board revealing the instructions.

Potentia Infinitus*

Brew time: three hours

"Three hours!" the words exploded from Malfoy's lips in protest. When Hermione looked over, her Slytherin counterpart struggled to contain his frustrations, looking physically uncomfortable. Slughorn merely chuckled.

"My dear boy, detentions are not supposed to be fun!" the professor teased.

Hermione, on the other hand, was beaming.

She could not believe their luck. They were going to brew Potentia Infinitus! The potion was only approved for seventh years, and oftentimes those students wouldn't even be advanced enough by the end of term to even attempt it.

She knew the potion by heart, naturally, but her curiosity was piqued by the asterisk, indicating it would be a brew method that wasn't Ministry approved for publication.

In the background, Malfoy continued his row with Slughorn, now in a more dignified manner, less angsty than shouting at the top of one's lungs. If she cared enough, which she simply did not, she would point out that by arguing the matter, Malfoy only stood to extend the amount of time he would need to be there.

Minutes later, Hermione noticed that Malfoy had stopped complaining. Chancing a peek at his station, she saw him head down, scribbling away at his parchment, likely constructing his own brew plan after giving into his fate.

"Please take note," Slughorn broke the silence, "that per the asterisk, the instructions are altered from what you may have seen in a book, not to say you'd know that off-hand but..."

"The amount of Venomous Tentacula is reduced by half," Hermione interjected, having identified the difference.

Slughorn looked impressed. "I would normally award you house points for something like that, but I suppose it would not be appropriate seeing as you're in detention." Slughorn laughed merrily.

Hermione bit the inside of her cheek and blushed fiercely. To others,it would seem she reveled in the praise. Perhaps for a time that was true. As of late, though, her skin crawled under the limelight of academic admiration. She had grown an aversion to it.

All she was, to the vast majority of her peers, was a know-it-all teacher's pet. That and a muggle-born. Between those two things, she was a caricature of a muggle-born witch who simply tried too hard to prove herself to a world that didn't accept her as she was.

The problem was, she found it difficult to suppress the side of herself that bloomed when her brain was challenged. The minute an answer hit her synapses, it was rolling off her tongue in triumph. A difficult problem to solve would send her into fits of glee. It would be fine, if not for the fact that she was endlessly teased for it, sometimes even by her friends.

All she wanted was to be accepted. Not just for who she was on the surface, but also for her multitudes — for others to see the witch that simmered below.

The absence of some judgmental sound coming from Malfoy's station drew her interest. When she turned to investigate, he was peering over at her with a conflicted expression. Yes, there was loathing there, but lingering right under the surface was something else that he fought against. She couldn't make sense of it, but her skin grew warm at the intensity of his look.

"Venomous Tentacula is mighty rare at present," Slughorn began, awkwardly twiddling his hands about, "so please mind your cuts. Any questions?"

"Sir, this potion calls for the cauldron to be covered for fifteen minutes after the Venomous Tentacula is added. That ingredient is known to reduce its potency when in vapor form. Wouldn't that reduce the effectiveness of the potion?" Hermione checked her notes again before looking up.

Slughorn inhaled deeply to respond, but Malfoy interrupted, momentarily stunning their professor with his lack of propriety.

"Venomous Tentacula in vapor form is only less potent at higher temperatures," Draco began, letting out a sigh to demonstrate how obvious this was. "However, if you bring the ingredients down to a temperature of zero or below immediately following a boil, the Tentacula reintegrates into the potion at a higher potency, which is why it can be reduced." Draco lazily looked up from his parchment. "Am I correct, professor?"

An uneasy chuckle escaped Slughorn's lips after the shock had faded from being interrupted by a student. "Right you are. Again, I wish I could give you points for such knowledge…"

"But," Malfoy continued drolly, now smirking ever so slightly. Hermione studied him intently and saw a flash of amusement dance in his eyes. She knew this look from the countless times he relentlessly bullied her friends. Now was when he went in for the kill.

"You forgot to include the step to cool the contents," Malfoy angled his head towards the board. Hermione tore her attention away from his face for a second to look, and sure enough, he was right.

Professor Slughorn's expression deflated the instant he confirmed what Malfoy pointed out.

With Slughorn's attention fixated on his mistake, Malfoy turned his focus to Hermione, and, to her surprise, his expression wasn't entirely unpleasant. He cocked a brow as if he was playing a game of chess with her, and, with his last move, put her into check. As his eyes drilled into hers something jolted uncomfortably at the center of her chest.

"...Yes, right you are," Slughorn finally said, his tone subdued. He waved his wand to correct the step. "Well then, erhm, carry on with your preparation."

Ten minutes had gone by when Slughorn, who had made a point to double check the instructions several times by then, took a breath, satisfied it was now right, and grabbed a stack of papers on his desk.

"Right then. You two seem more than capable, so I will leave you to it. You can leave your potions in the cauldron. I will bottle them tomorrow morning," Slughorn declared, making his way towards the exit.

Hermione let out a sputtering sound in surprise. He was going to leave her alone with Malfoy for three hours?

"Sir, that can't possibly be…normal. For detention that is, to leave students alone," Hermione stammered.

Slughorn laughed at Hermione's distress. "Oh Miss Granger. You don't want an old fuddy duddy like me peering over your shoulder for three hours. I quite thought you'd enjoy the freedom!"

And without another word, Slughorn swung the large wooden door open, closing it promptly behind him, leaving the pureblood Slytherin and the muggle-born Gryffindor to their brewing.

Suddenly, Hermione felt flustered and hot, despite the room being cold and clammy.

Worried he would catch her looking once again, but also unable to suppress the urge, she carefully glanced over to Malfoy's station to see his reaction.

Unlike her, he appeared oblivious to Slughorn even leaving and was completely engrossed in his work, his brow deeply creased in concentration.

He pulled his hand through his hair as his eyes narrowed on something he had written, and a strand of platinum blond hair fell across his forehead. She cautiously continued to observe, seeing how his hands pressed down onto the table top while he considered his next steps and how that action caused his neck to strain.

She watched as he huffed through his lips and sent the strand of hair that had come loose back up and over his head. It was such a human, non-detestable thing for him to do, Hermione thought softly, and a treacherous grin formed at her lips.

His steely eyes caught her honeyed ones from the corner of his eye. A flicker of red flashed across his stare.

"Fuck off, Granger," he growled so forcefully that she stepped back involuntary. Grabbing one of his bowls, he headed towards the store room without a second thought.

She gulped and prayed the prickle of embarrassment she felt crawling up her neck would stop immediately. She took another stabilizing breath.

Even if she was intrigued by Malfoy's widely erratic behavior, she couldn't engage. This potion needed every last ounce of her attention. She had to stay on track.

Draco

It had been two and a half grueling hours of brewing. A bead of sweat gathered on his forehead as he focused. There was absolutely no room for error.

Smugly, though, Draco knew his potion would be immaculate. Not to mention, he had made Slughorn look a right fool earlier, which did wonders for his dark mood.

He had spotted that fool's error almost immediately. His initial plan was to keep his discovery to himself. He'd quite like to watch Granger have a mental breakdown when she realized the instructions were wrong and her potion was ruined. But knowing her, there was a chance she would have figured it out, so he thought better of it and opted to just humiliate Slughorn instead

He squeezed the juice of a Zling, a little green fruit that looked much like a lime but smelled of peppermint, directly into the bubbling cauldron. He watched the three drops land in the mixture, sizzling on impact.

Draco wiped his brow. Despite his exhaustion, he found himself completely revitalized with the work. Maybe this detention was just the distraction he needed from his suicide mission. His new found tendency to fixate on Granger was not cutting it, and frankly his lack of willpower to control it, disgusted him.

He reached for his bowl that contained Venomous Tentacula. Having already measured and cut, he checked his watch for timing, and at the right moment, dumped it in. Quickly, he covered his cauldron, then performed a wordless charm to bring the temperature down to zero degrees.

He stepped back and took a breath — there would be a 15-minute rest period before the last set of instructions. His hands dropped to the lab table, bracing himself as he took in another deep breath, then blew it out forcefully.

To his left, he heard Granger perform the cooling incantation. Casting a furtive glance, he saw that she had just finished the step and now stood, similarly to him, hands braced against the table, head tipped back, inhaling deeply to catch her breath.

The image triggered the recurring, nagging thoughts which had been rustling through his psyche as of late.

Ever since those unwelcoming images of Granger burned into his brain, each time he caught sight of her, a new wave of intrusive desires took shape. Now, subjected to being alone with her, with an unrestricted well of opportunities to test his demons, he found it to be nearly unbearable.

He peered back at her from the corner of his eyes, being discreet. He watched as she pulled her frizzy hair into a messy bun atop her head, leaving a few curls behind, sticking messily to her face. The way she checked her notes was devastatingly unfair to his raging internal battle. As she reviewed, her finger swirled absentmindedly across her neck as she leaned her head from side to side, continuing to consult her writing. His attention drifted down with her finger to her chest where he caught a glimmer of sweat that reflected off the exposed skin above her v-neck hem. He watched as a single bead of perspiration drifted lower down her chest, down below….

Draco threw himself back from his lab table suddenly, knocking a metal bowl off his table and clashing loudly to the ground. Something guttural rumbled in his chest as he steadied himself.

This was getting to be too much.

Usually, he could count on her to evoke evergreen feelings of palpable disdain, specifically when he'd catch sight of her unruly hair. But now, he'd watch her in class, slowly crossing and uncrossing her legs in her seat, sometimes accidentally flashing a glimpse of skin as a leg escaped her robes, and it did something to him. Blood would course through him uncomfortably, specifically through parts of his body he wished his blood would avoid when looking at the mudblood.

He couldn't stop himself, though. It was a distraction; she was a distraction. Everything else was shit, and so what if he indulged in feeling something else other than self-loathing for one fucking second of the day? It's not like he'd ever do anything about it. He'd never consider shoving her against the potions bench, pulling back that wretched mop of hair until she moaned…

He slammed another bowl down to his table with a growl.

"What is your problem?" Hermione questioned harshly.

He gritted his teeth. The fact that he was going absolutely mental was the problem. He walked around to the front of his table, picking up the bowl that fell, then promptly slamming it back down on his workstation. When he looked up, she was in front of his cauldron, peering at his potion.

"What do you think you're doing?" Draco asked in a rush, walking quickly to where she stood. When he neared her, he was overtaken by her scent. It was a mixture of lilacs, something fresh and he couldn't believe it, but she smelled like books. She actually smelled like fucking books.

Her eyes flitted up to his and back down to his potion, seemingly unfazed by his tone. Watching her angrily from a distance was one thing, but her being this close was entirely unacceptable.

"Your potion is very good," she noted, standing on her tippy toes to observe it again.

His eyes narrowed, "I know."

"Ok," was all she said back before turning and walking back to her station. He was tempted to go and judge her potion without an invitation but decided against it. He didn't want to be that close to her again.

With nothing to do, Draco stood stiffly at his lab station. All of his prep was done, and his area was clean due to his constant tidying as he brewed, so all he could do was pretend to look busy by moving around loose bowls.

"You can perform non-verbal spells?" Hermione questioned from her table. He looked and saw her leaning against her lab's counter top, body facing him, arms crossed.

His body tensed. She needed to stop fucking interacting with him. Handling this madness in small doses was hard enough, but her constant attention was nearly lethal.

"Stop talking to me," he warned through clenched teeth, looking away from her.

"We don't start non-verbal spells for weeks, and you're already quite good at them. How is that?" she continued, not abiding his request.

Fine, if she didn't want to listen to him, so be it. Perhaps he could work out some of his pent up frustration by lashing out at her.

He smacked his hands on his table, then turned and marched up to the insufferable witch. Her arms dropped and she backed away at his approach.

"You want to know why I'm so good?" Draco hissed, a smirk gracing his lips. He felt the venom building in him, and he embraced it.

"Because my family are rich, connected, pureblood witches and wizards, that's how." he felt emboldened and leaned in closer to her, reveling at the fact that she edged away from him.

"We can do whatever the fuck we want, Granger. Which means when I'm not here, I practice whatever little spell I want to my heart's content. The Ministry couldn't be bothered. But you, they'd take away your wand in a heartbeat because you're a filthy little…" he stalled on the word that used to flow off his tongue.

Her toffee eyes flared and she took a step directly into him. She noticed his hesitancy. Crossing her arms, she tilted her head to square away with his. "Say it."

Draco looked down at her small frame, her chin jutting up at him, declaring a challenge. Her warm brown eyes took up his whole line of vision, a mix of toffee and fine polished wood.

"You're not worth my time," he spat back in a snide way, and turned to walk back to his station.

"I'm confused," she said, feigning ignorance. "I thought all purebloods ever thought about were muggle-borns. I'd dare call it an obsession. Your lot has fought and killed because you care so much about how we came to be," she paused, drawing a breath. Draco's eyes tracked hers as she moved closer to him again, making the distance between them negligible. The unabashed confidence and bravado was pouring out of her, and he fought his body's reaction to it. He clenched his fists at his sides.

"You know what I think, Malfoy? I think that I, or rather muggle-borns, take up so much of your time that we're all you ever think about." she snapped, years of pent up anger clinging to every enunciated syllable.

A suppressed part of his brain pleaded with the rest of him to consider her logic. But the wizard he was brought up to be, the pureblood prince, rejected it unequivocally.

His thoughts drifted to his upbringing, his parents, and then honed in on his father.

"My father is in Azkaban because of you," Draco accused under his breath. He gripped the table to anchor him down in place, remembering that if it weren't for her and her little friends, his father wouldn't have been apprehended last year, meaning he would not have been forced to become a Death Eater, or to kill Dumbledore.

"I'm sorry your father is in Azkaban," she told him softly. His eyes leapt to hers.

"You're sorry?" he repeated back incredulously, "you're sorry?" he all but shouted. She had no clue the damage her and her friends had done to his life.

"It must be awful to have your father in prison," she said and then added, "that's not something I would wish upon anyone."

She studied him, standing inches away, her eyes bearing a shade of vulnerability that belied her fierceness. He briefly thought he could be consumed by puzzling out the complexity of her.

He shook his head, cursing his intrusive, psychotic thoughts. His face became steely once again, and he forced more vicious sentiments to the surface.

"You and Potter are just a couple of fucking heroes, aren't you? Had to save the day…" his words dripped with hatred.

"Harry was tricked by Voldemort," Hermione blurted out, and a look of shock overtook her, like she was surprised by her own level of candor. After a pause, she continued. "Voldemort planted a vision in Harry's mind that he was going to kill his uncle, Sirius, at the Ministry. It was to lure Harry there to collect a prophecy only he could find."

Draco's jaw went slack. Why did he not know about this? According to the version he heard, his father, who happened to be at the Ministry when the break-in happened, was attacked by the Order plus Potter and his hapless bunch during a run-in, at which point his father called the other Death Eaters via his mark. Yes, they had tried to capture Potter once they discovered him there, and a fight ensued, but the Death Eaters had not been the instigators of the skirmish.

She could be lying to him, but, if he was being honest with himself, that felt unlikely. What would she have to gain? If anything, what she shared would be considered risky given his family's association with all things 'Dark Lord.'

"Why are you telling me this?" his voice lacked its previous bite.

Hermione looked down at the ground, shaking her head slightly. "I really don't know," she hesitated, then looked back up.

Her lips pursed in contemplation, like even she couldn't make sense of what was going through her mind. "Malfoy, you…" she looked apprehensive, but found her voice, "you are very intelligent. It doesn't make sense to me that you'd believe nonsensical things, that you could be brainwashed to hate the way your side does. How can you let it rule you?"

His skin burned and his vision turned white. How dare she presume to know anything about him, his life, his family, how he was raised? She knew nothing other than how to be a know-it-all mudblood wretch.

She could never understand what it meant to live the life of a pureblood wizard. Success in his world was not a given, it was earned.

With his sudden silence and the anger evident in his eyes, Hermione took a sharp step back, cautiously monitoring him as though he might explode. When he failed to say anything more, she reluctantly turned back to her station.

Hermione

She had gone too far. It was clear by the look in his eyes.

At first, she felt electrified by the repartee. When she challenged him to say the vile word for muggle-borns, and he didn't, it was as if she'd won an undeclared battle.

But as she pushed him further, he didn't react the way she expected. Before their detention, all he was to her was a bully, nothing more than a pureblood snob. Yes, she had grown interested in his behavior change that year, but that hardly felt earth-shattering. That night, though, even if it had been brief, she thought she saw something that existed below his surface. The recognition of it unbalanced her.

Leaving Malfoy's station, she checked her watch and was horrified to see that there was less than a minute before the next step.

Rushing to her table, she took stock of the bowls of ingredients that she had laid out in prep, doing her due diligence to make sure everything was still in order.

Once the charmed countdown clock on her watch lapsed, she ignited a flame under her cauldron and removed the lid. Within a minute, the contents of the cauldron were at a rapid boil.

The first step called for one lacewing to be lowered via a hover charm to the center of the cauldron, just above the mixture. Hermione pointed her wand at the ingredient and watched as the lacewing descended past the rim of the cauldron until it disintegrated in the potion's vapor.

She charmed the potion to mix counter clockwise on its own. After 10 turns, she spoke an incantation which redirected the mixture to go clockwise.

Finally, she would need to sift an ounce of ground root of mayflower into the potion. To get the right consistency, she had to grind the roots down to a powder with a mortar and pestle ahead of time. There were no shortcuts in magic to get the consistency fine enough to pass through a sieve, there was only brute force.

As she jerkily shook the ingredient back and forth in the sieve, releasing the fine powder, she heard Malfoy curse across the room.

His hand was straining through his hair, stilling on the top of his head as he looked around his station. Hermione knew that look all too well.

"What do you need?" she asked, continuing to sift the mayflower into her potion.

He gave her an insolent look, then turned back to his station, still searching.

"Malfoy," she repeated. He looked at her. "I can help you. What do you need"

He looked at his watch, and then back to Hermione, his features projecting the realization he was out of options. "I didn't grind the root of mayflower."

Hermione grabbed her wand and sent her remaining ground root over to his station. "I made extra"

The bowl landed in his hand. For a moment, he just stood there and looked at it.

"Do you need a sieve?" she asked, trying to get him into motion so he didn't ruin his potion.

"No," he responded curtly, wordlessly accio'ing a sieve from across the room. He measured out the amount needed and began adding the missing ingredient to his potion.

Hermione pressed a finger into her sieve ensuring the full measurement of the root had passed through. On her tiptoes, she looked down as the last of the mayflower root faded into the sticky purple potion like melting snowflakes.

With a look of approval at her creation, she let out an involuntary sound of satisfaction. She couldn't help herself; she had just completed the most difficult potion she had ever brewed, and she brewed it flawlessly.

Chancing a glance at Malfoy's station, she noted that he was now pressing the last ingredient through his sieve, getting every last bit of the root as she had just done.

Hermione did not want to fixate on Malfoy, so instead, busied herself with tidying up her station. With a flick of the wand, everything went into motion to be cleaned or put away.

As she sent the last of her workstation bowls to the front tap, she once again admired her perfect potion, and a reckless thought crossed her mind.

Potentia Infinitus was an incredibly valuable potion to have, especially during times of conflict. With just a sip, any drained magical abilities could be regenerated instantly. It wouldn't be a bad idea to have some of this very hard to come by potion on hand for the coming year.

Without second guessing herself, she pulled two half dosed sized vials from her book bag. Hermione was almost positive Slughorn would not notice if one dose was gone from the brew. There were at least 30 per cauldron.

Discreetly, she siphoned some of her potion into her vials. The brew was viscous, and appeared syrupy once visible in glass; it even had a soft shimmer to it. She corked each vial and placed them in her front pant pocket.

Satisfied that her station was tidy and clean, she gathered her things, looking forward to a good night of sleep after this exhausting and confusing evening.

As she moved to the center aisle that split the workstations, she looked up to see Malfoy heading in the same direction.

To her surprise, when they both reached the walkway, Malfoy gestured for her to go first, in an almost cordial manner. She muttered a quiet thanks, then headed for the door.

But when she reached out to pry the door back, she felt a presence behind her that warmed her subtly. Startled, she turned around to see Malfoy close behind her, leaning over her frame and pulling the classroom door open for both of them.

She gave him a suspicious look, but his eyes didn't meet hers. They were downcast and empty.

The two silently made their way up the dungeon stairs, the tension in the air feeling thick, only subtly being cut by the soft scuffing sounds of their shoes against the stone stairs.

"Thank you for the ground root," Malfoy said, snapping the tension. The words sounded like torture for him to say.

"Of course, " Hermione responded nervously.

Another few steps of silence, then Hermione couldn't help herself but to break the silence once more.

"I can't believe we got to brew Potentia Infinitus," Hermione gushed, sounding giddy.

Malfoy scoffed from behind, but she could have sworn she heard some humor in the sound of it, "you're not supposed to like detention."

Hermione glanced back at him and rolled her eyes. "It's exciting to brew a potion that complex."

"It wasn't that complicated," Draco argued. Up ahead, the glimmer of moonlight from the main corridor was becoming visible.

"Please," Hermione retorted. "What have you brewed that has been more complicated than that?"

Draco relented. "Fine, it was complicated." Hermione smirked.

They trudged up the last few steps and emerged into the hallway which was bathed in moonlight that poured in from the arched windows lining the narrow corridor walls.

When they paused at the top of the stairs,Draco cleared his throat awkwardly and he reached into his pocket.

"Since I know you'd never have the gall to do it yourself," he started, sounding instantly condescending.

From his pocket he produced a half dose vial of Potentia Infinitus. "I took two. You should take one. Since you helped me."

Hermione gingerly reached out and took Malfoy's potion that he held between his fingers, which made her suddenly aware of how close she was to touching him, and placed it in her book bag.

Momentarily, she was stunned by his halfway decent act in thanking her for her help. After a beat, though, she grinned and reached into her pocket.

"It seems only fair then that you should have one of mine then," she smirked, holding out one of her vials to Malfoy. "I also nicked two."

It could have been a trick of the moonlight, but she was almost positive he looked impressed.

He pocketed her vial and let his eyes dance within the general vicinity of her face, hesitant to meet her eyes.

After several seconds of standing in silence together, neither making a move to leave, Hermione shifted her weight from one foot to the other, inadvertently tripping herself on the same cobblestone she had nearly fallen from earlier.

Malfoy's seeker-like instincts caught her by the forearm before she could crumble and pulled her back into a standing position, but the minute she was up, he released her arm abruptly and backed away. Hermione could not ignore how he shook his hand like he had just tracked it through mud.

"What the fuck Granger?" he barked at her. The hand that touched her clenched and unclenched by his side rhythmically.

No less than a minute ago, Hermione thought she had it all wrong. What if Malfoy wasn't the one dimensional pureblood bully she had painted him as? Yes, he was still exceedingly unpleasant, but he was also wildly intelligent, and quick witted, and…

But now she knew; she had always been right when it came to Malfoy. He was nothing more than an ignorant, cowardly man, who thought just by touching a muggle-born, he could somehow be dirtied.

"Really Malfoy?" Hermione huffed, glaring at his reaction. "Are you absolutely serious right now? You think somehow I have dirtied you. Just by you touching me?"

Malfoy's face hardened.

"How about you learn to properly stand?" He snarled, leaning in towards her menacingly. "What is wrong with you anyway!"

"What is wrong with me!" her voice rose to a fever pitch. "I tripped. People trip all of the time. Are you absolutely mental?"

Malfoy went to turn but her arm shot out and pulled his shirt back towards her. His attention moved down to where she grabbed him, his jaw going slack at the audacity. She paused momentarily, staring at her hand and feeling the shock of having done it without thinking.

"How dare you…" he bellowed, lurching himself towards her. She didn't back down, but dropped her hand quickly.

"How dare I?" she shrieked back at him. It was all coming out now. "You're the one that is projecting your nonsensical muggle-born propaganda on me. Are you listening to yourself, Malfoy? You're just an ignorant pureblood!" Hermione's voice reverberated off the stone walls that surrounded them.

His chin jutted towards her face, and she felt a zing of electricity course through her.

"Making sweeping generalizations yourself now, aren't you, Granger?" His body tensed as he looked down at her.

Something in her squirmed. She shifted her body trying to free herself from the feeling, but it wouldn't shake loose.

"What Granger? Did you wear yourself out yelling at me like a fool?" he mocked her. She was taken aback by how close they had come to one another, which was ironic, given the catalyst to the argument.

He smiled menacingly at her lack of response. "Admit it, you don't have a clue what you're talking about. You may be a little know-it-all, but, when it comes to the wizarding world, you know nothing. You're an outsider. You'll never belong."

She thought a sob would tear through her, because in that one line, he had captured every one of her insecurities about being a muggle-born witch.

Hermione leaned into him, forcing him a fraction of an inch back, "you're pathetic, Malfoy," she hissed, biting back the sting of tears that she was sure he could see.

This time, he said nothing, he just stared at her with a vacant expression.

"Learn to think for yourself," she choked out, angry at herself for getting emotional in front of Malfoy. "If you're going to live a life of hate, at least choose it. Don't be a coward and fall into it."

The tensity of their stares flared. Again, she worried she had gone too far by the look on his face. But then, his expression simmered back to cold metal as he looked blankly down at her.

It was at that moment she noticed he smelled like a forest in summer, after it had just rained.

She had to get out of there. She would not get worked up over Malfoy, of all people. With nothing else to say for herself, she turned on her heel and stormed away.

A constant stream of muttered half-thoughts continued to quietly pass through her lips in her retreat. Cursing purebloods. Cursing Malfoy. Cursing the wizarding world as a whole.

But what unsettled her most was this undefined, hazy awareness that something was growing within her that wasn't just anger. She could feel it itching its way up to the surface, demanding to be addressed. But how could she address something that she didn't understand?

Back in the Gryffindor common room, she was relieved to see that Harry and Ron had not waited up. She wasn't sure what she would tell them about her detention with Malfoy if they had grilled her on the spot. It didn't seem like they would care that she now knew he smelled like a perfect summer evening in the woods. Or that he was a viciously gifted potion maker.

She marched straight to her room, dropped her bag, gingerly pried the two vials of potion from her pocket and placed them in her dresser drawer. She transfigured her clothes to pajamas, shuttered the curtains of her four post bed, and buried herself under the covers.

Desperate for sleep, Hermione tossed back and forth in frustration. A hundred confusing and irritating thoughts kept roaring through her mind, keeping her in the waking world. With a huff, she resigned to her fate that she would likely not get much rest after the night she just had.