A/N:

Thanks you to my reviewers!!!! I feel so loved!

FiReFaIrY14- Glad you like it so much. For you, and you desire to read more apparently, I have written this chapter more quickly and it did not get lost in the midst of my file.

Lunastar03- Thanks for reviewing; I do appreciate it very much. I know what Hermione looks like and this has been pointed out to me already. It was an oversight, but I don't really have time to go back and change it so she shall remain as she is and you and the rest of my wonderful readers will have to live with it until I can get around to actually fixing the first several chapters.

Nicole- Oh, thanks. I will try to update more, but my schedule is packed. Very little spare time right now. Good to know you like the dream part and hear your thoughts about Kelly. No one ever tells me either of those things and it's nice to have a change of pace once in a while.

Rani singla- Thank you. I shall.

Alenor- Thanks for the compliment. I'm glad you like it. Yes, I did make Kelly up. She belongs to my imagination and me. I will try to update sooner.

Chapter 9: Distractions and Other Such Problems

It was the first bright, sunny day in weeks. Golden light bathed the castle ground, glinting off the slowly shrinking raindrops that clung to the grasses, trees, and castle walls. Hermione was sitting out on a bench in the courtyard with some of the other students during midmorning break. Feet pulled up in Indian style underneath her, she was hunched over her book, studying over her runes. She expected the professor to give them a quick quiz over the night before's reading, but she was somewhat distracted. That dark little part of her imagination kept pushing an image to the surface of her mind. He had looked not handsome, but lovely in the spelled light from the ceiling, a ghost of the figure in her dreams.

This was ridiculous. She was Hermione Granger, nothing and no one distracted her from her studies. The question was why was he still dancing in her mind? There should have been runes and spells, not a boy, foremost in her head. Frustrated, she closed the book and leaned her head back against the wall. The cool stones pressed into her hair and she opened her eyes to stare at the fluffy white clouds that could turn any moment and decide to become storm clouds. Weather was such a fickle thing.

Turning her attention back to the yard before her, she was surprised to see Kelly talking with one Neville Longbottom who was blushing a furious shade of pink. Seeing her glance, Kelly said goodbye to Neville and trotted over to take the vacant seat on the bench next to Hermione. There was a healthy rose color in her cheeks and her eyes twinkled with something close to glee.

"What's with you?" Hermione inquired, raising an eyebrow at her.

"I just got Neville to go out on a date with Lavender." She was overly pleased with herself.

"She's going to kill you. You are aware of this, right?"

"I know, but she'll thank me when she's done ranting. He's really a sweet boy, why should Lavender be forced into a date with him?'

"Why don't you do it?"

"Me?" Kelly sounded surprised, as if the idea had not occurred to her. "Oh, no. Neville needs to begin small and work up to me. I would overwhelm him, I think. I might just do it though. You never know, right?" Kelly winked and got up to walk, an extra spring in her step, into the building to do what, Hermione did not know. Grabbing her own books, she decided it would be better to just head on to class. She would be early, but it was better than being late any given day.

The corridors were cool and dim. For a few minutes, she simply stumbled in the general direction she knew the classroom to be, blinded by the sudden change in light. She tripped. Her books went flying across the hall. Rough hands clasped her hands and helped her to her feet. Vision clearing, she could look up at the face connected to the hands. It was a nice Hufflepuff boy who shared almost all of her classes with her. Drestin McConnell. That sounded right.

"Drestin, right?" She asked, brushing herself off.

"Yeah, and you're Hermione. You know, you should really stand still until your eyes adjust to the light. This wouldn't happen if you did." He was grinning while he said it. Eyes the color of blue crystal, iridescent like fresh spring water that reflected the blue of a new spring sky looked at her from under thick lashes and tendrils of burnt auburn hair. Like it was a natural thing he did all the time, he pushed the strands back out of his face and smiled a smile that could melt butter when it was below freezing.

"Thanks for the help," she laughed as she gathered the scattered books back into her bag. He handed her the last book and she put it away. "Well, I'll see you around, Drestin. I really appreciate you help." With that last delightful thought, she turned and walked down the hallway, feeling his gaze on her back like fingertips that were barely brushing her flesh.

Dinner that night was an affair. Harry was complaining about the first quidditch match of the season, while Ron was moaning bitterly about his last grade on a transfiguration paper. It was always fun to listen to the boys moan and groan. A little farther down the table, Lavender could be seen turning many different shades of red. The dormitory would be an unpleasant place to be for several hours now, thanks to Kelly's meddling ways in the lives of her friends. Parvarti and another girl were talking animatedly as they fussed with their hair. Probably talking style.

Hermione stuffed her last bite of lemon merangue pie in her mouth and looked out as the busily talking student body. There were people smiling, laughing, yelling, studying, or just being plain idiots all around the hall. It was the usual evening rumble of students letting off daily steam. Her gaze was drawn to the Slytherine table. There he was, staring at a plate of half-eaten porkchops. She had another meeting with him that night, and she was not looking forward to another night of having to leave he room because he was so enthralled by the ceiling. It was very annoying to have to teach under such conditions with a student whose mind was so obviously elsewhere.

It was Ginny who had once brought up Draco's mental state and what being worshipped by a good portion of the female students had done to his ego. As she had put it, and most of the girls in the room at the time had agreed, that Draco was viewed one of three ways, depending on who was doing the viewing: as a testosterone driven creature that slept with everything on legs, a gentle soul who was only looking for true love, or as a normal boy that wanted sex when it was offered, but was worshipped because of his incredible good looks, quick whit, and sharp intellect.

At the time the discussion had some up, Hermione had stayed firmly on neutral territory, not caring to voice her opinion about him. She was normal, like the rest of them, and did indeed find him attractive, but she wasn't going out of her way to fawn over him. The images from her dream floated back up and she frowned, thinking. Was her subconscious trying to tell her something? Why would it use Draco as its messenger? Honestly, if she had been the subconscious, she would have chosen a book to tell her what she needed to know, not a sex-obsessed teenage boy.

Hermione suddenly realized that Draco was now staring right back at her. She had not blinked for several minutes, stuck as she was in her reverie. Harry poked her a couple of times to see if she was still with them. Blushing, it seemed to be a theme that day, she apologized for zoning out on them, grabbed her books, and walked out of the Great Hall with the rest of them. The idea of going up to the common room was not an appealing one so, in her usual fashion, Hermione wish the boys good luck with their own homework, and followed the familiar path to the library.

She would not let anything, even Draco Malfoy, disrupt her studies.

A/N: I know, I know, I took too long to update and it's a short chapter, The next will be better, I promise. It will be longer since I have a holiday coming up.

Well, read and review, please. You know the drill. Wanderer