She was walking down the Grand Staircase...heading towards the Great Hall...The castle was deserted; everyone else was in bed. She heard something, a soft rustling noise, and turned around with a gasp. Her heart beating fast, Hermione squinted around the dark hallway for the source of the sound. She could see nothing, and the pounding in her ears meant that she could hear nothing either. Hermione continued to tiptoe into the Great Hall, lifting up her cape so as to be as silent as possible. None of the torches were lit, and the House tables looked bare and cold in the darkness.

Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder, and she whirled around and kicked out at whoever was behind her. She heard a grunt as a dark manly figure keeled over in front of her, his blond hair looking almost shiny in the dim lighting.

"Malfoy?!" She gasped in astonishment. "What on earth are you doing here? Were you following me?"

He lifted his head and met her stare with eyes so full of sadness that they shocked her so much she could think of nothing else.

"Hermione.." He panted, seeming unable to catch his breath. She couldn't remember ever hearing him say her first name before, especially not without his usual scorn. He looked and sounded like he was in pain..He was still holding his stomach like her clumsy kick had broken his ribs.

"I meant none of it. Hermione." His crytal blue eyes were looking at her in a way that she had never seen them look at anyone else before. His voice was desperate, and Hermione's head was buzzing with the sound of it.

"Hermione..Granger- I-I''m so sorry. Everything I said, everything I did.. I feel nothing but regret."

His eyes rolled back in his head, and then his body hit the floor with a thud. He was on his back, and Hermione could see blood staining his white shirt underneath his pale hands. His blond hair flopped over his dead eyes, his mouth hung open slightly, and his neck was at an unnatural angle.

It felt like all the air was being sucked from her body, and she fell onto the cold marble floor next to him, and then-

She woke up. Drenched in sweat, with her hair sticking to the back of her neck in a hot and messy tangle, Hermione Granger sat up in bed in the Gryffindor dormitory, gasping for breath. She had just had a dream...but what had it been about? It had felt like a nightmare, and her heart was still racing ever so hard.

She leaned over to her night stand and checked her watch. It has ten past three in the morning. Why was she having dreams about Draco Malfoy at three o'clock in the morning?

It was all coming back to her now. Had she killed him? Also, was he saying sorry for the way he had always acted towards her?

This is ridiculous, she thought. It was just a dream. I need to get back to sleep or I'll be tired in class tomorrow.

So with that logical thought in her mind, she got back into bed and tried to fall back to sleep.

But as much as she tried, she could not shake the image of Draco Malfoy's vacant eyes as he lay dead at her feet.