Draco Malfoy was furious. He had been for the past few days. He'd been slamming doors, stabbing at his food and shooting death glares at everyone around him. Everyone had caught onto the fact that he was angry-it was hard not to- and were avoiding him like the plague. He'd been deducting house points ruthlessly from anyone who had attempted to talk to him.

Hermione had seemed irritated too. He wasn't sure why, and he was trying hard not to care. She'd also been avoiding him, which bothered him even though he'd been avoiding her as well. They hadn't had any contact since the kiss. At least, not until Hermione sat down in the cushy chair opposite him, folded her arms and glowered at him for a full five minutes before he finally gave up and looked at her.

"What? " he spat out the word.

"I don't know, Malfoy. Why don't you tell me? "

"If you're going to waste my time talking about that ki-"

"No, forget about that. I wanted to know how you've managed to unfairly deduct over 200 points over the last 3 days."

The words stung him. He had wanted to be the one who dismissed the kiss. It was always him who brushed the other person off, not the other way round. He wasn't used to being hurt.

"Because they deserved it. " He turned back to his book, dismissing her presence.

"Really? Right. Well I have a written complaint against you. Signed by all the first years you deducted house points from along with the reasons you deducted them. Since when is 'looked at me funny' a valid reason to deduct points? "

The common room was empty, the Slytherins had collectively decided that it wasn't worth risking losing more house points by staying in Draco's vicinity.

"He did look at me funny. " Draco stated flatly. "Like he was questioning my authority."

"I'd question your authority too if you acted like such an idiot all the time."

They were both standing now, glaring at each other; Draco's book lay forgotten.

His eyes flickered down to her lips and the urge to do something, anything, rushed through him.

"I'm going to bed. " He snarled at Hermione.

"Good, everyone prefers you when you're asleep anyway. " she retorted. She strode away before he could get the last word, a faint smile of satisfaction lighting up her face.

She hadn't expected to have to deal with Malfoy again for another few days so she was displeased when the next morning she was held up on her way to class by a blockage in the corridor caused by him.

"What's going on here? " she asked sharply, taking in the scene. Four angry looking Ravenclaw seniors stood facing Draco. Their shoulders were hunched and their hands clutched at their wands. Draco looked at ease, like he usually did, but only his grip on his wand betrayed the fact that he was expecting a fight.

"Nothing I can't handle, Granger." he said calmly.

"Malfoy thought he'd deduct house points from us for 'looking too sleepy' so we thought that maybe we should... Teach him a lesson to wake us up". The largest Ravenclaw boy had been the one to speak.

"Was that a threat, McLain? " Hermione asked coolly. She recognized him as a member of the Arithmancy enthusiasts club.

"Yes." A girl stated. She looked bored with the ongoings already.

" You want to fight two prefects in the middle of the corridor? Really? Aren't you Ravenclaws supposed to be smart? " she asked incredulously.

She saw Draco running his fingers over his wand from the corner of her eyes.

"Well the way I see it, if he gets scared enough, it'll save us from losing a lot of points in the future." McLain said.

"Well when you put it like that... Expelliarmus! " she took a moment of pleasure to appreciate the looks of surprise on their faces. She had caught them off guard. She turned to Draco.

"How many housepoints did you deduct? "

" Ten each. " he looked annoyed, he had clearly been looking forward to the fight.

"I'll deduct another 10 each for threatening prefects then. " She smiled pleasantly at the Ravenclaws before tossing the wands back into their hands.

"I'll deduct another 20 each if you actually fight. "she added. "Which we both know is reasonable. "

She strode away from the Ravenclaws with an angry Malfoy striding after her.

"What was that? " he snapped at her.

"Firstly we're late for class, secondly do you really want to yell at me in the middle of the corridor? "

He pulled her into a nearby empty classroom, locking the door behind them.

"I didn't need your help. " he spat at her.

"Okay. " she stated simply.

"That's it? Okay? That's all you're going to say? "

"I don't have time for your temper tantrums right now, Malfoy. I don't want to be late for class. "

A look of pure incredulity passed over Draco's face and he stared at her for a beat of silence. All of a sudden he was kissing her. His hands were on her waist, her back was pressed against the door and her hands were clutching at his silky hair. She felt like she could finally breathe for the first time in days. She felt as if everything would be alright and their mess wasn't unfixable.

But he pulled away and that feeling disappeared like a bubble being popped. He shouldered past her, unlocking the door and rushing out.

Hermione was late for class, and not once, during the lesson, did he look at her.

There was only a week left before the Christmas holidays began and Slughorn had yet to mention the fact that Ron and Pansy still had to take their week's detention. They were both secretly but fervently hoping he'd forgotten about it. Now that Pansy was no longer a prefect, Potions was the only class in which they were forced to spend time together.

The potions class had just ended and the students were slowly packing away their books; it was cold in the dungeons and no one was eager to leave the warmth of their cauldron's fire. Slughorn pulled them both aside before they could leave.

"You'll both report to my office at 7 for your detentions. Don't grimace at me Mr Westley, I haven't forgotten. It would be hard to forget after what the pair of you did to my classroom. "

Which was how they both found themselves in the restricted section of the library at 7:30 that evening. They had been expecting a boring detention like writing lines or cleaning out cauldrons, but what they received instead was much worse- the had to go through the potions cupboard records of the last 500 years and write down which ingredients weren't used anymore and which potions they'd been used in.

"It's for a project of mine" Slughorn had explained jovially.

The work itself was tiresome and involved searching for each ingredient in the current potions stock(which had more than 2000 ingredients) and then researching the properties of each. To make matters even worse for Pansy, Ron was continuing to staunchly ignore her and she'd resorted to answering her own questions out of boredom.

"Why is the potions cupboard stock records in the forbidden section of the library anyway?"

"Probably because it's so boring even Filch doesn't want to keep it in his office. Or, for some reason people think that the records are valuable. " She made a noise of mixed disgust and frustration.

Ron was still steadily ignoring her. Abandoning her work, she got up from the table and began to read the titles etched onto the spines of the books around them before finally pulling a book out of the shelves.

"Forbydden Magyck of the 1500's" she read aloud. Ron didn't even glance her way.

She began flick through the pages absentmindedly. "A binding spell? Seems like a sort of lame spell to be forbidden. Sounds lame too- Bindis windis? Who came up with that?"

The smirk was wiped off her face as a hot flash of pain in her palm made her drop the book at Ron's feet.

He glared at her before stooping to pick it up.

"Could you be quie- OW" he dropped the book too, clutching at his own palm.

"Stupid book. " he muttered, picking it up again and shoving it into a random shelf.

"Let's just go back to the common room" Pansy suggested, "Slughorn will never know. "

Ron grunted at her, clearly annoyed, but got up and follow her. They walked to the common room together in uncomfortable silence.

Pansy was relieved when they both parted ways so they could go to their respective dormitories.

"Night" she murmured, not expecting a reply back. She began to climb the stairs to the girl's dormitories.

The silence of the common room was broken by Ron and Pansy's collective howls of pain as their hands began to throb painfully. Pansy fell to her knees from the pain, while Ron clutched at the wall for support.

He looked down at his palm, a large black cross was burned into his palm- the symbol of a binding charm.

He looked at Pansy, horrified.

"Did you... Did you bind us together?"

A/N: leave me a review if you want me to upload faster :) and have a great day

Ps could you please leave me writing tips? I'm trying to improve