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……

Draco couldn't believe what was happening. He was being nice to Granger. He shuddered visibly as he walked down the train looking for another slytherin. He needed to toughen up and remember who she was, and more importantly who he was. He was a pureblood and she was a mudblood. He would never admit the hidden thought that lurked somewhere deep inside him, which told him that if, just if, she wasn't a mudblood she would have been his perfect match. She had intelligence, confidence – she wasn't afraid to fight with him and she also had a modest amount of beauty. What girl could be better for him that her? No. He refused to acknowledge that.

He had never had any girl near him before, in the way that Granger was. Sure he had slept with hundreds and knew exactly how to please them and obviously that required him to be near a girl physically; but it also usually involved a bed, no clothes, a private place with no other people and occasionally fire whisky. This thing going on with him and Granger involved clothes, a public place and emotions. All that politeness and all those tears, he didn't know what to do with them, and what was worse was that he had to be 100 sober when all of this happened. He felt like the giant squid out of water. Merlin help him, no wonder he kept slipping up and doing the wrong thing.

There was only one thing he could think of doing, to fix this entire mess of a problem. Make Granger feel inferior to him. He wasgoing to be in charge, he was going to decide what they were going to do, and he was going to make sure that there were absolutely no emotions involved from now on. He could not afford to be weak, especially as he was trying to hide from his father, who for some reason wanted to kill him. He had no idea why that would be. He had already worked out that it couldn't be about the fact he got married to Granger, because they themselves had only found out that they were married the morning before they unknowingly ran into Lucius. They hadn't told anybody, so nobody knew except for the person that had set this up and Draco had already decided that the Dark Lord and his death eaters had nothing to do with this. Marrying two people, a mudblood and a pureblood: a 'good guy' and a 'bad guy', against their wills had to be an act by somebody from the order. Only they were full of the shit that blood didn't matter, and everybody, deep down inside was good and that leopards could actually change their spots. Well not everybody in this world wore rose coloured glasses and Draco knew that. So who was it in the order that organised this, and why did they feel it so necessary to arrange it behind his back and not even offer a simple explanation. But what all this thinking was leading to, was that no person from the order would immediately tell his father that he was married to Granger, so what in Merlin's name did he do this time to have Lucius wanting to kill him? Being as clueless now, as he was when he first started to think about this whole mess, Draco decided to save these questions for a rainy day, and find something more productive to do with this long train journey. If only he could realise how wrong he was.

As Draco arrived at the final carriage, he walked inside to find all the Slytherin's. He wasn't very close with any of them, but in order to make sure he wasn't a loner, and to keep his popularity, he tolerated all the Slytherin's at Hogwarts. The was only one person that he talked to seriously sometimes, and that was Blaise Zabini, but Draco wouldn't really call him a friend. He really didn't need any proper friends. All that mattered was himself, and nothing had ever happened to him, past or present, that had forced him to reconsider that particular statement. What brought him out of his thoughts once again was Pansy, her voice loud enough for everybody in that particular carriage to hear, saying:

"Draco, there's been a horrible rumour going around the Hogwarts Express saying your married to that mudblood. Please tell me that it's not true."

"Look, I don't know what you've been told, but Hermione isn't a mudblood. She's a pureblood and a high ranked one at that. She's a Spungen." The last word was said in such a way that everybody knew it was important.

Draco had said that with such conclusiveness that no other person in the carriage dared to say another word on the topic. In fact, he sounded so furious that nobody had dared to make a sound immediately after he had spoken, and it was only until another Slytherin started talking about their holidays that everybody started to act normally again. Draco might not have had many friends, but he sure as hell had a lot of power, and nobody wanted to get on his bad side. Only one person in the carriage had picked up on the fact that he hadn't actually answered the question asked of him. It had been gracefully sidestepped and forgotten by everybody, who instead were preoccupied with the horror of saying the wrong thing. Of course, for Draco, that had gone remarkably well. Nobody had doubted what he said, and as much as he hated to admit it, the idea of giving Hermione a pureblood background, had saved a lot of hassles and made their 'relationship' more believable. The only thing he had to watch for was he himself calling her a mudblood in public – because that would ruin absolutely everything.

……

'Bloody hell' thought Hermione as she stood side by side with the Head Boy, listening to what her requirements and duties would be for the next year, and explaining to the prefects what their duties would be. Could things get any worse? She wasn't worried about what her duties were going to be or how hard the year was going to be, but instead who the head boy was. It was none other than Harry Potter. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem, if he wasn't so tied up with the fact that she had married Draco Malfoy. She couldn't understand what was so awful about it from Harry's point of view. After all, it wasn't as if she was going to make them bond and be friends and it certainly wasn't Harry that was going to be stuck with him twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for eternity. Now, if that was what she was forcing Harry to do then she would understand why he was mad at her. But no. Instead it was herself that was subject to staying with Malfoy for the rest of her life, and by the looks of things, she was taking it better than Harry. And to Hermione, that made absolutely no sense.

As soon as the other prefects had left to patrol the corridors, the room was left with only Hermione and Harry in it, alone. To say that the silence was awkward would have been the understatement of the century. Hermione had no idea what to say, but she needed to break the silence somehow. Finally she decided to go with something simple.

"Harry, I hope you're not going to be mad at me forever."

No response. Hermione tried to think what she would have said if she was really in love with Malfoy and she had got married to him by choice. That was hard. She had always been a good liar, because everybody expected her to always tell the truth – and for obvious lies she made it clear that she was lying, and from then on everybody assumed she was a bad liar. But it was going to take an awful lot of talent to pull this off.

"I mean, I guess I understand if you are a little upset that I didn't tell you, but you have to understand, we had to make it public at the right time, to avoid any speculation."

Still no response but she could tell that Harry was getting tense. She didn't know why she wanted to anger Harry. She didn't know why she wanted him to lose his temper, but in a way she knew that by getting him to yell at her, it would be alright if she yelled back. And then she could scream at him and tell him that it's not all right for him to be mad at her, that it's not okay, the way he makes little digs and snide comments about her marrying Malfoy and that his behaviour hurts her deep down. Down where it really matters.

"Fine Harry. Have it your way. But remember, it's you who isn't talking to me, and eventually you are going to have to talk to me because we are going to have to work together for an entire year. Stop making this hard on me as well."

That was all it took. Harry lost his temper entirely.

"Don't. You. Dare. Blame. This. On. Me. You're the one who has run off and gotten married to the ferret. You have suddenly forgotten everything he has called you in the past; all the times he has made you cry. Doesn't that matter to you? When we first met, you were a girl who punched Malfoy, and certainly never would have forgiven him for all the money in the world. You thought he was a spoilt arrogant prat, and now you have married him, without even breathing a word about any of this to you best friends. What made you change? Why have you decided to abandon your friends? I hate you."

As he yelled at Hermione, the fact that he didn't say her name once didn't escape her notice. That hurt her, but not as much as the fact that he drew upon the fact that she had 'changed'. She knew that she hadn't, and that she would still punch Malfoy if she had the chance: but she couldn't tell Harry that. If she did the truth would come out, and then she would get into trouble with Malfoy, and who knows what would happen. So she just had to sit there and bare it. Hear all his taunts, and not be able to tell him the truth. That hurt her more that words could describe. But she couldn't let Harry win this argument as well. Her pride wouldn't let her.

"Look. I know you are finding this hard to deal with, but I haven't changed. I am still the same old Hermione – just with a different last name. I don't see why this is so bad. You don't have to talk to Draco. You don't even have to look at him. I'm not forcing you to be his friend. Our friendship, between you and me, has nothing to do with him. Why are you so mad Harry?"

Harry's voice sounded cold and detached as he answered her.

"Who said there is a friendship between us. As far as I'm concerned, there isn't. You have let yourself down. You are a slut. You are purely a death eater's wife."

After Harry had said that to her, Hermione suddenly thought that she had no idea whether or not Malfoy was a death eater. The thought had never occurred to her. Sure, she had known his father was – but to be married to one. Could she handle that? What could she say to Harry? Well, she had spoken too many lies to stop now.

"Draco is not a death eater. Don't you think I would know that already? No matter how much you hate me, do you really think I am stupid enough to be involved with a death eater? And I would know more than you would – I have seen his arm. And there is nothing there. You just didn't stop to think about anything except for yourself and what you think is right. Well I guess this has proven that you really are not my friend, because if you were you would be happy for me. And you're not."

She no longer cared if he believed her or not, because she was that angry with him. She wanted revenge. She wanted to make him so angry that he would know what she felt now. As the rest of the train ride continued in the awkward silence that it began in, Hermione's thoughts wondered to Malfoy, and what he was doing. Was he thinking of her? Did he even care what she was going through? She doubted it. Every so often prefects came, reported on the fights that occurred in the corridor, and left. To Hermione, the fights that were being described seemed so pointless in comparison to the big mess she was in at the moment. They all had simple solutions and were forgotten in a few days. If only Harry would forgive her as easily. But he wouldn't. She was left with the second best option to feel better, which was revenge. And after a very long train ride, spent entirely in silence, she knew exactly how she was going to do it.

……

A/N: I'm sorry that it took so long to update this – I went away for a while and didn't have access to the internet!!

Well anyway – THANK YOU soooo much to everyone that reviewed my last chapter:) I really appreciated it. I hope this chapter was ok…and please keep reviewing; it really makes writing worthwhile.

Just wanted to get some input from all the readers – from this point forward there will definitely be some answers coming out – but what I want to know first is which side do you want Draco and Hermione to end up on. They can either both go to the dark side or they can go to the order – or Hermione can be part of the order and Draco part of the death eaters. If you can give me a preference of where you want them to end up I would appreciate it. Basically if people leave their preferences then I will go with the most popular one, but if nobody does then I will decide. Thank you, and I hope this isn't too weird, just wanted to let you readers have a choice:)