Hermione managed to make it back to the common room without seeing anyone. When she reached the portrait of the fat lady she took a deep breath trying to compose herself. She didn't want anyone to see her crying because that led to questions, and she was too mortified to tell anyone what she had seen. She was stupid for thinking that Ron would ever like her. She suddenly remembered what made her go look for Ron and felt a pang of betrayal when she remembered the conversation she had with Ginny back in the library. Ginny was supposed to be her friend, why would she lie? This revelation brought fresh tears to her eyes. She rubbed her eyes with the sleeve of her robe and readied herself to enter the common room. She was just about to relay the password to the fat lady when she heard a high pitched giggle from around the corner immediately followed by a female voice saying "Stop tickling me."
Hermione went rigid. She knew that voice, she looked around for a place to hid. She didn't want Ginny to see her looking like this. Before she had time to formulate a plan Harry and Ginny walked around the corner, holding hands.
"Ginny why are you with Harry?" Hermione stared at the pair with her mouth open. "What about Dean?"
"Hermione what's wrong." Harry interrupted. "Why've you been crying?"
"I thought you were going up to talk to Ron?"
"Ron? Oh no...you didn't see..?" Harry asked with a panicked look on his face.
Hermione nodded once and burst into fresh tears.
Ginny looked between the two, confused. "What did I miss?"
"Ron made it.. quite clear that he didn't want me by...by snogging Lavender on the Astronomy tower." Hermione said in between sob.
Harry came over and hugged her. Apparently she didn't need to say anything more to him. It was apparent by the soothing words he was whispering to her that he already knew about Ron and Lavender.
"How long?" she asked him, sniffling.
"Since the second week of term. She started showing up to Quidditch tryouts and telling him how wonderful he was at it. And then he made the team – and one thing led to another. If you want my opinion, I don't think he's serious about her. He still talks about you all the time. And he didn't want you to find out about it. He's been terrified of how you would react when you found out."
He relayed the password to the fat lady and led Hermione into the common room. Luckily it was almost empty. He steered her to a chair by the fire and sat her down, then he and Ginny sat on either side of her offering soothing words and comfort.
She stared into space for quite a long time. People came in and out of the common room and she knew they stared at her. And who wouldn't? She had tears streaming down her face, and her eyes were red and puffy.
She suddenly stood up and declared that she needed to be alone. She climbed back out of the portrait hole and wandered aimlessly around the castle. What she needed was something to take her mind off of Ron and Lavender. She thought about studying, but found she had no desire for that.
She passed a pair of third years who were talking about Harry and Ron's prank at the beginning of term and wondering what the Slytherins were going to do to retaliate. She suddenly remember seeing Malfoy, completely dry coming into the Great Hall after the rest of the Slytherins. She thought about how pallid he was looking lately, and how distracted he seemed in Potions. There was definitely something going on with him.
She ran back to Gryffindor tower.
"Harry..." She panted, out of breath from the run, "Could I borrow your Marauders Map and your Invisibility cloak?"
"Um, sure?" Hermione followed him up to his dormitory. He rummaged through his trunk and pulled out the map and the cloak. "What are you going to do with these?"
"Oh uh, I need in the restricted section of the library." She grabbed them and hurried out of the room before Harry could ask anymore questions. She didn't want him to know that she was going to follow Draco Malfoy. He wouldn't approve of her doing it alone, and she didn't want Ron and Harry tagging along.
She climbed out of the portrait hole and found an empty classroom. She tapped the map and whispered "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
She watched the entirety of Hogwarts Castle appear on the old, faded parchment. Her eyes went first to the Slytherin common room. She didn't see Draco's name there. She checked the library, the Great Hall, and the grounds. He wasn't there either. She was checking the Dungeons, when she noticed two names in Snape's office. One was Professor Snape himself, and the other was Draco Malfoy.
She tapped the map again, whispered "Mischief Mangaed" and stuffed the map into her bag. She pulled on the cloak and hurried down to the dungeon and hid near Snape's office, wishing she had some of Fred and George's extendable ears. The door suddenly opened and she pressed herself flat against the wall before remembering that she was invisible.
"Thanks Professor" She heard Draco call to Snape, then he walked down the corridor whistling.
She followed him up to the seventh floor across from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. He paced three times in front of the tapestry until a door appear where there was once a solid wall. He checked to see that no one as around before entering the room. Hermione quickly followed before the door closed back up.
The room of requirement looked completely different now than it did the previous year when they had been using it for secret meetings of Dumbledore's Army. The entire room was filled with discarded junk stacked as high as the walls. She followed Malfoy down a narrow pathway to the back of the room where a large cabinet sat.
Draco muttered to himself as he tinkered with the vanishing cabinet. He had to get this right. He had to save his family from Lord Voldemort. His hands shook as he took an apple out of his bag and placed it into the cabinet shutting the door. He reopened the cabinet and found that the apple was gone.
"It worked." He mumbled, quite pleased with himself.
"What are you doing with that cabinet Malfoy?" Hermione asked from behind him.
She had taken off the cloak and stuffed it into her bag while he had been fiddling with the cabinet. She walked closer to the cabinet and noticed the apple was missing.
"Where did that apple go?"
"H-how did you get in here?" Draco asked, backing away from the cabinet. "I put enchantments on the room preventing anyone from coming in."
"Well I am the brightest witch of our age." Hermione said smugly.
"You tell me how you got in here or I'll - I'll..."
"You'll what?" Hermione replied as she pulled out her wand. "You'll hex me? Or are you going to perform an unforgivable curse on me? Well, which one is it?"
Draco stood there stunned for quite some time. He couldn't believe this was Granger? What had gotten into her? And why did he like it so much? She was kind of...sexy. He shuttered at that thought. Mudbloods were not supposed to be sexy.
"What's gotten into you Granger?"
"What's gotten into me? You want to know what's gotten into me. My friends have all been ignoring me for Quidditch practice. I just found out that Harry is dating Ginny, so they really have no time for me. Ron is off snogging some whore in the astronomy tower all night when he was supposed to like me. And I'm stuck with you as potions partner all term." Hermione was practically screaming by the end of the revelation and sometime during her speech she had moved so she was standing right in front of him.
She hadn't meant to tell Draco all of this and she now that she had she felt like an idiot.
He just stared at her, not sure if now was the right time to make another mudblood reference. She seemed a bit unhinged at the moment, like she might actually use the wand she still had in her hand. Her face was all red and blotchy from when she had been crying, her hair seemed to have grown to twice it's size and she was looking up at him with a murderous look in her eyes.
But for some reason, these things that he would normally have made fun of her for seemed endearing. He had never been this close to her before, and he didn't know how good she smelled, like lavender and mint, or how brown her eyes were and before he knew what was happening his lips were on hers and they were softer than he ever would have imagined. His hands grabbed her hair as he turned and pressed her body up against the vanishing cabinet. The kiss deepened and he seemed to have lost himself in her.
A small moan escaped from Hermione's lips and sent a shiver through Draco. Then as suddenly as he had started the kiss, he stopped it.
"What the hell are you doing?" He backed away from Hermione and fled from the room before she had a chance to remind him that he was the one who had started the kiss.
She licked her lips. Still unable to believe that she had just been snogging Draco Malfoy. One minute she was staring at him waiting for him to make fun of the fact that her friends had basically abandoned her and the next minute he was kissing her. She didn't want to admit it to herself but Draco was actually a really good kisser.
Frustrated and confused, she hit her fist on the door of the cabinet. The door popped open from the force and she saw the shiny green apple sitting at the bottom of the cabinet. She picked it up and noticed a bite had been taken out of it. There was also an unsigned note that read:
"Good work Draco, the Dark Lord will be proud."