A week had past since Zacharias had kissed her and neither had brought up the subject on what had happened during the week. They spoke normally to each other but Hermione could see that he thought about their kiss through the look in his green eyes whenever they talked. It went all dreamy... gentle... and sweet... akin to the look that she had seen Blaise Zabini give Luna all those weeks ago...

She was walking by the black lake with Zacharias, taking their usual afternoon walk. The sun was descending and giving off warm colours to fight off the darkness that was attacking it. She saw a smirk on his face when she turned to look at him and wondered what he found so amusing as it wasn't a cocky one. In a way it looked sweet and it suited him. "What's with the look on your face?" she asked.

He chuckled. "Since when did Ms. Granger talk like Mr. Smith?" he asked with a grin.

"You're growing on me," she told him with a smile.

He chuckled again before pointing a little ahead of them. His finger led Hermione to look at a male and female figure. The male figure had short black cropped hair and appeared to be of average height with a well toned and dark body. The female figure was short with long dirty blonde hair and pale skin and seemed to be skipping along side the male gleefully.

"I think that Zabini and Lovegood are going out or something." Zacharias began as they both watched them. "I heard Malfoy's real pissed. There was this huge fight yesterday, a duel and everything after he found them talking together. His anger led onto a confession of some sort from Zabini and then poof there was a fight. Apparently Zabini's and Malfoy's friendship is over too, the Slytherin's are divided in two. The fifth and fourth years are all on Malfoy's side and the years above are on Zabini's. The third years and below don't want any part of the fight. Did you hear that the main reason why the years above are on Zabini's side? Warrington is apparently going out with Katie Bell! Lucky sod, she's bloody hot... Malfoy's still with the nurse right now with severe injuries and an oversized leg. Zabini's quite a dueler, you don't want to mess with him."

She nodded as she took in the information and she continued to watch the couple. She could see that Blaise was wondering whether to hold Luna's hand or not as it was swaying from side to side in bigger waves than usual. When he was just about to hold her hand, Luna turned her head around to look at Blaise, causing him to bring his hand up to his cropped hair. Even from where Hermione was standing, she could see the blush of embarrassment on his face. It was a heartwarming sight and way too cute. She then looked at her own feet and listened to the sounds that her shoes were making against the pebbles. It was then that she realised how close she was to Zacharias as she could see that his shoes were not very far from hers.

"Zach?" she cautiously said.

He turned to face her immediately. "Yeah?"

"You're walking too close to me," she said. She then thought about Cormac and decided to use him as an excuse. "What if one of Cormac's friends sees us?"

He shook his head, causing his blond hair to sway from side to side before settling in a disheveled position. It made him look cute in a way as his hair reminded Hermione of muggle surfers.

"Um, sorry," he muttered, giving her some more space. He then put his hands into his pocket and made his hair sway again. "If his friends see us, I wouldn't care. If they want a fight, I'll give them one. But if McLaggen finds out, he might get pissed at you. I don't want McLaggen to take his anger out on you or something, I don't want you to get hurt or anything. Um yeah."

His comment made Hermione's heart warm but she reminded herself immediately that they were no more than friends. She also had some pathetic excuse of a 'boyfriend' too. She decided it was time she returned to the Gryffindor common room. She gave Zacharias a quick hug before dashing off, leaving him alone by the Black Lake.

When she stood by the castle's entrance, she turned around to look at Zacharias once more. She could see that he was looking out towards the lake, throwing pebbles again. She smiled to herself as the memory of him teaching her came to her. She then made her way back to the common room with hidden smile.

____________

The next day...

Hermione was eating her breakfast in the Great Hall and was sitting with Zacharias, Ginny, Neville, Luna and Zabini at the Gryffindor table. The other Gryffindors hadn't taken the presence of Zacharias and Zabini well at first but they gradually forgot that they were even there and so left them be.

Zabini had his arm around Luna's shoulder and was whispering something into her ear to which she responded with a giggle. Neville and Ginny were in a deep conversation which left Zacharias and Hermione with nothing much to do.

"The mail is going to come soon." Zacharias muttered after taking a bite of his apple.

Hermione turned her head around to look at the New Golden trio and found that Ron had been looking at them the whole time with a glare on his face. Lavender literally had her boobs rubbing against his shoulders but he appeared to be oblivious to the fact that it was much to her surprise. Lavender was one of the more curvier girls in her year group that weren't exactly small. Hermione wondered why he was glaring at her and thought that it maybe had to do with the fact that she was sitting next to Zacharias, whom he didn't like very much. She shuffled herself a bit more closer to Zacharias and touched his arm to test it and saw that Ron's face was getting redder. She giggled.

"What's so funny?" Zacharias asked her as he ate his toast. He shook his hair, making his bangs sway.

"Ronald's face." she replied.

He chuckled. "No duh he's ugly."

She laughed out loud at his comment which caused people to turn her way. Zacharias stuck his tongue out on them which Hermione responded to by punching him in the stomach. "Zach! Don't be so rude!"

There was a sudden echo of beating wings around the hall and there was an owl's cry. She could feel everybody's anticipation to the letters vibrate on her skin as what seemed like a thousand owls flew in, sending a rain of mail down on them.

A huge box landed in front of Luna and when she opened the box, a whole stack of Quibbler articles were revealed. It surprised Hermione that her owl messenger had managed to bring her something so big. "Anybody want one?" she asked with wide eyes.

Ginny took a bunch of them and started to pass them around. It appeared that everyone wanted one.

Letters were dropped in front of Zacharias, Neville, Ginny, and Blaise. Hermione thought that maybe nobody sent her anything as no mail were dropped in front of her for about five minutes. She felt her heart slump when suddenly an Eagle Owl landed in front of her, carefully sticking it's foot out in a gentle manner, presenting her a letter. Being well mannered and emanating the smell of autumn leaves, it was obviously Viktor's owl.

Hermione suddenly felt her heart slump again as she felt the feeling of missing Viktor reach her. She suddenly realised that she missed him quite a lot.

"Who's it from?" Ginny asked her. "I've never seen this owl before. It's so well mannered!"

"Lemme have a look!" Zacharias suddenly said in a playful way, snatching her letter from her hands.

"Give it back!" Hermione said, knowing that Zacharias was only kidding about.

"Come and get it!" he yelled before running off.

Hermione rolled her eyes and got off her seat. She took her wand out, preparing herself to fire a spell at Zacharias when she saw that he had run out of the hall. "I'm so going to kill him!" Hermione said, making her way out of the hall.

When she walked out, she found Cormac McLaggen looking dangerously angry at Zacharias.

"Give me that letter!" Cormac growled at Zacharias. It appeared that neither knew of her presence.

"Why?" Zacharias casually asked, looking at Viktor's letter.

It surprised Hermione that it was just the three of them who were standing by the hallway. It seemed like everybody was eating in the hall.

"So that I can give it to my girlfriend?" Cormac replied with a smirk. "She obviously told you to give it back to her. Being her boyfriend, I would more than gladly beat the crap out of you if that's the only way to get her letter back."

"Your girlfriend?" Zacharias scoffed, resting his hands on his waist. "You don't even spend time with her or have a conversation on things she wants to talk about, all you ever talk about is Quidditch! Do you even know how much she hates the sport?! Don't you dare call yourself her boyfriend if you don't even know a thing about her!"

Cormac rolled his eyes. "She's never told me she doesn't want to talk about it."

Hermione realised that it was in fact true. She had never told Cormac anything about not wanting to talk about Quidditch. She was about to say something when he suddenly made eye contact with her.

"Hermione?!" he said, looking surprised.

He walked up to Zacharias and snatched the letter from his hands before walking up to Hermione. He hugged her for about five seconds then kissed her on the cheek before taking her hand in his. He then turned to face Zacharias. "Go back and eat your breakfast, Hermione and I are going for a walk."

As he began to drag Hermione towards somewhere, she turned to look at Zacharias to find that he was gone. All she could hear were the echoing footsteps his shoes were making as he ran off somewhere. She suddenly felt a horrible pang hit her as she felt responsible for hurting his feelings. It took Hermione a while to realise that they were on a completely different floor and standing on a balcony as her thoughts had been on Zach.

"Good morning," Cormac said, smiling at her.

Hermione looked around to find that the sun was still rising, on it's way to the top of the sky. The Black Lake were shimmering it's rays into her eyes and she blinked a few times to get used to the brightness of the lake.

"Your letter," Cormac said.

He shoved it into her hands and she immediately put it into her pocket, hoping that he hadn't seen who it was from.

"Have you had breakfast yet?" he asked her.

She nodded.

"Me too." he said.

"What was that kiss for?" she asked him. "The kiss on my cheek earlier, you didn't have to do that in front of Zacharias."

"You're on first name terms with him?" he asked her, ignoring the question.

"Yeah, he's actually a close friend of mine..."

She looked at Cormac to find that he wasn't exactly paying attention. At least he was talking about something either than Quidditch.

"Are you free tomorrow?" He suddenly asked her. "Or maybe today? Like around six-ish?"

"Yes, why?"

"I want to take you out on a date," he said. "I'll meet you at six today by the Astronomy tower."

He suddenly leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her, bringing her into a hug. Her immediate thought was to put her arms around him and she did. He hugged her tightly as she rested her head against his chest and she could smell his grassy scent. She could hear his heart beat at a rapid pace as if he was nervous. She didn't know why she couldn't feel the sort of resentment she had for him as they continued to hug, it was as if it had never been there. He then kissed her hair and released her, giving her wink.

"See ya later," he said, before disappearing out of the balcony entrance.

_________

One hour later

Hermione was sitting alone in her History of Magic class and was writing notes down from the board. Zacharias wasn't in class. Hermione guessed that he was still hurt and was probably skipping class, which she knew he did whenever he felt like it, it was a miracle that he had never been caught. Professor Binns didn't seem to notice his absence as he hadn't deducted points from Hufflepuff yet.

"May somebody please tell me about the vrykolakas?" Professor Binns mumbled more to himself than to the class as he pointed towards his board. A sudden picture of an ordinary man appeared. "It would be nice to know that you kids know something before I teach."

Hermione raised her hand up and the Professor gave his nod of permission to speak as she was probably the only one in class who knew something about it.

"Vrykolakas are basically people who assume the form of a wolf and go out on bloodlust hunts. So basically when they are human and still alive, they are werewolves. Once a vrykolakas dies, though, it turns into a vampire that can shape shift into the form of a dog, hyena, or a wolf. Once a vampire, it can lives eternally. It is believed that once it becomes a vampire, it haunts battlefields, sucking on the dying breaths out of fallen soldiers. You can kill vrykolakas the same way as vampires."

"Well done," Professor Binns said. "Ten points to Gryffindor."

Once his back was turned, Hermione felt a paper ball hit her head. She turned around to find that it was Draco Malfoy who had thrown the piece of paper at her. She opened the ball to find an animation of Draco beating up Zacharias.

"Oi you muggle," he hissed at her when she turned to face him. "Where's your boyfriend?"

"Cormac? He's in charms." she replied.

He rolled his eyes as if she had given him the completely wrong answer. "Zacharias you blockhead."

Hermione's heart sank as Draco reminded her of the guilt she had felt for hurting Zacharias. She guessed that he was either out by the lake or hiding in the room of requirements. She turned to look back at Draco who had an expectant look on his face.

"Well?" he hissed.

"I don't know," she whispered. "And he's just a good friend. Has your leg gotten better or do you want me to ask Blaise to enlarge it again? Or would you prefer it if I castrated you on the spot?"

He grimaced at the thought and looked away from her immediately.

She sighed, hoping that Zacharias was all right.

Three hours later

Hermione was by the Black Lake again, with the Bronze trio and Blaise. Neville was going on about some water plant that nobody was interested in. Ginny was painting her toenails red, the muggle way, whilst Luna was helping Blaise with his astronomy homework. Not having been able to read her letter earlier, she decided to read it now.

Dear Hermione,

Hey, sorry for not writing in a while, I know you've missed me.

I'm glad to see that the colour of the stone has been green for some time and I hope it stays that way (Green stands for happy). It's gone slightly pink at times too which looks absolutely beautiful with the green... Is my little sister in love? Tell me a bit more about it because I'm sure that it's not the red haired boy. I have a feeling that you've gotten over him. Is it Potter? Or maybe some guy I haven't seen before?

I just wanted tell you that I've got two v.i.p tickets for a Quidditch game. I know you hate the sport but I want you to see how well my teams getting. We've won fourteen out of fifteen games! The game is a week before the Christmas party so I'm sure it's going to be fine for you. Invite a friend over with you. I've asked Dumbledore to give you and a friend a day off from school. He seemed chill about it and I hope you are too because I know that you love studying.

By the way, for Slughorn's Christmas party, I'm taking Alice Cullen with me. She's told me you two are friends so I'm sure I don't need to tell you much about her. Also, I have Alice's letter attached just below mine. She said that she couldn't send it over by herself for some reason so she asked me to. I'll look forward to seeing you again at the game.

Love,

Viktor

Dear Hermione,

I know it's been ages since I last wrote and I'm so sorry about that. I've been arguing with Jasper, it's been pretty ugly. He keeps going on about needing to spend some time apart from me so I'm like whatever. I've been seeing this for some time already, he's met some other girl. Enough with depressing you...

Was I right about the McLaggen boy asking you out? I envisioned an argument between him and this blond haired boy, and you were in the middle of it. Are you all right? It wasn't really a big fight but it's left the blond boy quite hurt. He's been spending time by the lake after that and skipping classes. I think you should go talk to him.

I've had other visions too. You're taking the blond boy with you to the Quidditch game and it appears that you two were quite close... I won't get into detail because I'm going to spoil it for you! The other visions I've had were you with the McLaggen boy going out on a couple of dates and you telling this snake boy about not returning the feelings for him and that he doesn't actually like you. Snake boy is the infatuation I believe. He's going to end up dating this red haired girl who is with you at the time that you are reading this. Tell the red haired girl to go to the hall now because she's left her potions book there. The snake boy is there too...

I haven't got much to say now except that I really, really miss you. I'll see you at the party!

L.O.L

Alice

Hermione looked over at Ginny, realising that she was going to end up dating Draco and she grinned. As arrogant and mean as Draco was, Ginny was going to find a way to tame him.

Hermione read the two letters over again and wondered if Viktor and Alice were an item as they had both mentioned the party... She was upset that Alice wasn't getting along with Jasper but it was nice to hear that Viktor was going out again. Hermione had thought that he was deciding to live a celibate life.

She frowned as she looked at the third paragraph of Alice's letter. A lot was going to happen and reading the bit on Zacharias and Cormac was making her stomach feel weird. Was she going to end up going out with them both? Maybe not go out but.... sort out her feelings for the both of them at the same time? Thinking about it made Hermione feel like Lavender... she was known to be a whore.

"Neville, will you shut up already!" Ginny asked with a frown on her face.

"What? Oh. Um. Sorry." Neville mumbled.

"Give him a break," Blaise said, who was now sitting in between Luna's legs with his head resting against her belly. Luna's fingers were playing with his hair. "It was fun watching him talk to himself."

Neville blushed with embarrassment whilst Blaise laughed, being the Slytherin he was. Ginny rolled her eyes whilst Luna looked at Neville apologetically for her boyfriend's behavior.

"Hermione? You've been reading that letter for an awfully long time," Ginny said, once Blaise stopped laughing. "Who's it from?"

"Viktor..." She muttered as she went through the letter again.

"Anything interesting?" Ginny asked.

"Do you like a certain snake?" Hermione asked her.

"What?"

"She means do you like a certain Slytherin." Blaise muttered.

Ginny pretended to look dumbfounded but the blush hidden under her cheeks could be seen by Hermione.

"Why?" Ginny asked.

"Something in the letter concerning you and a certain snake," Hermione said. "Go to the hall, I think you left something there."

Ginny looked confused for a moment but a look of realisation appeared on her face. "My potions book!" She stood up and began to run back to school whilst yelling "I'll see you guys later!"

"What concerns her with a certain Slytherin?" Neville asked Hermione. He looked rather angry. Hermione hoped that he didn't have feelings for her because his heart was going to break...

"Just something..." she muttered.

"Okay."

Hermione conjured two pieces of parchment and quill with her wand and started to write.

Dear Viktor,

I bet you've seen the stone go black again? I've been feeling slightly hurt and depressed lately... By the way, I don't think yours is working because I haven't been able to see any colour. Did you charm it or something so I can't see how you're feeling? That's not fair you know! It'd mean I can't stalk you the way you stalk me!

Well... I'm sure that Alice has already told you loads about the two soul mates and the infatuation so I won't go into detail there. I'm just so confused! I'm sort of going out with this guy that I don't even like but there's this other guy that has got me thinking that maybe I like him? He's been ignoring me today too and well... It just hurts to think he is.

I'm going to bring Zacharias as my friend to the Quidditch game since he's been a good friend to me. And please tell me more on how you got with Alice! I didn't know that you even knew her! She's quite pretty isn't she?

I miss you loads and I'll see you at the Quidditch game!

L.O.L

Hermione

Dear Alice,

I'm so sorry to hear about you and Jasper but I'm thrilled at the same time to hear that you're going to the party with Viktor! He looks kind of like Emmett right? I know I'm asking for a lot, but please stay with him for some time! He hasn't gone out with someone for a long time!

You were right about Cormac asking me. I said yes and I feel like a complete idiot for saying so, even if it was to annoy Ron. I don't have feelings for Ron anymore and now I feel trapped. Cormac got into a kind of fight with Zach and now I feel bad. Zach's been ignoring me since and I feel like it's all my fault that he's hurting. He's been skipping classes that he has with me too...

Knowing what is going to happen is depressing me. I know it's going to be hard for you Alice, but I'd prefer it if you'd stop telling me what's going to happen now. I just want life to go as it is without knowing what's going to happen. I'd feel less depressed and safer in a way, if you know what I mean. No offense by the way.

I'll see you at the party with Viktor!

L.O.L

Hermione

"Blaise, may I borrow your owl?" Hermione asked.

"Um sure."

"Thanks."

Hermione then stood up and made her to send the letters to her brother and friend. She was hoping that as she did so, the date with Cormac later was going to turn out all right.

A/N Here's the update and I hope you like it. Reviews and flames both appreciated as long as it's constructive criticism. I'd also like to know if I got any grammatical errors or anything as I have a feeling I've got loads since I'm not a very good proof reader. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!