My sister, who I share a room with, just laughed in her sleep and it thoroughly creeped me out… my spellchecker's telling me I spelt "creeped" wrong. I know it's not technically a word but this spellchecker has no issues with the words "Dumbledore" or "Gryffindor" so I want to know what's going on.

I keep meaning to renew my disclaimer but forgetting so here it is, at last: my disclaimer. I am not JK Rowling, god knows I wish I as, but I am not, therefore I own nothing here except my own little quirky plot line.

He was avoiding her, she could tell. It had been days since he had admitted his… feelings for her and so far they hadn't even made eye contact. Hermione couldn't help but glance over at the Slytherin table, but he refused to meet her gaze.

Pansy leant over the table, gathering her boys in conspiratorially. "She's staring at you again, Drakie." She whimpered. The boy's shouted in appreciation, clapping Draco heartily on the back. He smirked convincingly, enough to satisfy them.

"What do you suppose a man like him thinks about?" Hermione mused to Ginny.

She sipped from her pumpkin juice and turned to see where Hermione was looking. "Well, my best guess would be sex, how hot he is, sex, being evil and sex. Why do you ask."

Hermione sighed. "So much sex. Do you really think that's all that's on his mind?"

"I did give other thoughts, but that was the main one. I don't know and, more importantly, why do you care?" Ginny peered at her suspiciously, though, being as hormonal as the next teenage girl, her interest was purely in her friends thoughts.

Hermione shrugged. "Just wondering about something he said to me the other day that didn't really make much sense." She paused. "I suppose I know exactly what it was that he said, just… whether he meant it or not, or whether he even intended to say it."

Ginny looked at her blankly. "I'm don't really go a bundle on the cryptic clues, so if you want my advise I suggest you give that to me again with the blanks filled in."

So Hermione proceeded to recount her brief but confusing meeting with Malfoy almost a week before, enjoying the reaction her scandalous affair received from Ginny. When she'd finished her story she waited for some spark of wisdom, some decisive note some answer.

"What a weirdo." Was all she got.

"What do you mean?"

"I never expected Draco Malfoy to be anything less than a silky smooth operator but you've clearly got him in a bit of a state." Ginny laughed at the stunned look on her, frankly, quite gorgeous friend's face. "Good for you. He seems a tough nut to crack, that one."

Hermione's mouth hung open. "He's a tough nut to crack because he's a muggle-hating deatheater, Ginny! Why would he even look at me?"

"Same reason you're looking at him, pure teenage lust."

"I very much doubt that somehow."

"And yet you're not denying you've been looking." Hermione pondered this. Perhaps Ginny was right, perhaps he was just looking for a quick way in. It fit. The sudden interest, the determined small talk, the confused admittance of wanting to be more than "just friends".

"I think I need to talk to him."

"I think that's a very good idea."

The opportunity didn't arise until the next day, a double advanced potions lesson meaning that she and Draco were left as good as alone at the front table for two and a half hours.

The first fifteen minutes passed by in silence as they took note of what Snape required of them in the lesson, then together they headed to the store-cupboard to collect their ingredients. Hermione was unaware of the few other students who had achieved the necessary grades to take the class, all she could concentrate on was the conversation she was about to initiate.

"Malfoy," She began, shrinking back in surprise when he looked up with the biggest smile on his face she'd ever seen.

"Yes?" He asked cheerfully.

She gaped at him. It wasn't exactly the reaction she'd expected. She suddenly became very conscious of the others around her, watching her, waiting for her response. "Um… Could I speak with you later?" She heard a low wolf whistle issue from behind her and ignored it.

"Why not now?" He asked, and she got the faint impression that he really was avoiding her, and a private talk was exactly what he did not want.

"Because here we run the risk of being over heard, and I only have your reputation in mind when I ask that it might be better to do it elsewhere." She told him calmly, keeping her voice as quiet as possible, she could almost feel the ears pricking around her in frustration.

Draco perfect smile cracked and he straightened up. "Sure, sure we can do it later. What ever you're most comfortable with." Hermione looked at him confusedly. "I look forward to it." The Slytherins behind them burst into a gale of guffaws.

The class dragged by after that. The solemnity draught they were making was just as dull as the name suggested, and Hermione found herself yearning for the bell to ring.

"What was that all about?" She asked, catching Draco as he flew down the corridor, for once, alone. He stopped abruptly, clearing having not noticed she was there, and sighed heavily. She had never seen him look so distressed and, crazy though it was, the sight made her want to do nothing more than put her arms around him and assure him that everything was going to be alright.

He caught her gazing at him and shifted self-consciously. "I'm sorry, it's just… you know, my friends… they wouldn't really approve of us actually speaking so I just shifted it around to make it look like something crude. I'm sorry, it was insensitive of me." His curtness made her uncomfortable.

"That's… alright. Like I said before, I know you have a reputation to uphold but you're friends didn't seem to mind you talking with me previously."

"Yes, but if they knew were having… proper talks, they would think it'd had got too far." He shrugged, unsatisfied by his explanation but not knowing what else he could say. "So what was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Would you prefer to go somewhere private?" She asked, arching her eyebrows, knowing the conversation would be far more comfortable if neither of them was constantly waiting to be caught.

He smiled weakly, nothing like the bold false smile she had seen in potions. "Where are you thinking?"

The Headboy and girls' office was situated on the fourth floor and was not widely known amongst the students. Even Hermione herself had only visited a handful of time to study when she could find peace nowhere else. It was spacious, but strangely empty, it had no cosiness about it, no feel at all.

There were two desks inside and Hermione seated herself behind hers. Draco, not knowing what to do with himself, not wanting to sit behind the other because it would make the conversation even more awkward than it already was, remained standing.

Hermione pointed her wand at the floor before him and silently charmed a chair into existence. He sat down, and she pulled her own chair around to the front of her desk and sat facing him.

"I wanted to talk to you about what you said to me the other day beneath the tree." She was looking at him sternly, much like the many teachers who had told Draco off at some point or other in his school career. "I want to know what exactly you meant by it."

He shrugged, here was his chance. His chance to take a great leap forwards in winning the bet. And yet… something was holding him back. Some little part of brain was niggling at him that he was doing this for all the wrong reasons. He'd come to know her, to accept her over the past few weeks, and to exploit her in such a way, to trick her, now felt very wrong.

But would dating her really be such a bad thing? He suddenly realised that he was coming to accept exactly what he'd been refraining from admitting. He genuinely liked her. He looked her over inconspicuously, taking in her hair, no longer frizzy, but curly in a messy sort of way. He face, perfectly structured, with smooth features set in golden skin. He looked down her front to her breasts, he could hardly complain there. Not too small, but not so big as to be intimidating, not like Pansy, whose breasts had always been something of a fear of his. Hermione was slight, with a small waist and toned legs.

Why should he mind being with her?

It was the blood that ran through her. The stark red liquid he had always imagined to be far darker than his own, far thicker, running through her like treacle, though his rational mind knew that was not true. Prejudice was all that was holding him back. And, he supposed, now, a sense of moral duty to her. He could foresee the disastrous outcome if he were to admit his "feelings" without truly meaning them and that was not what he wanted, but what if he did mean them? Nothing bad could come of that, surely.

"Hermione, I meant that I like you." Her name sounding strange falling from his lips like that. He knew he's addressed her in the same way before, but now it was different, profound almost.

She sat in silence and he desperately tried to read her. She finally looked her, confusion riddling her face. Her question was one he hadn't been expecting. "Why?"

"Ah… I guess, because I can talk to you. You seem to understand where I'm coming from most of the time. You're realistic, you know your boundaries, unlike all the other girls I've liked." He paused, noticing she was barely listening. "You are friendly to me when you really have no obligation to be. You are pretty and aren't flaunting it around for the whole world to see, again, like all the other girls I've dated."

"So you're saying I'm boring and prudish." She raised an eyebrow, and he couldn't for the life of him tell if she was joking or not.

"No." He said. "No, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying you're not insecure enough to pretend to be something you're not, and that's the most admirable quality a person can have, I think."

"Do you pretend to be something you're not?" She asked curiously.

"Of course I do. You see me do it every day. You witnessed it in potions earlier. I'm a victim of prejudice, Hermione. Just as you were as far I as I was concerned, which is the only reason I didn't get to know you sooner."

Hermione stared at him. "Malfoy, you created those prejudices. I'm a victim of you and yours."

"It's different now." He murmured, not denying that she was perfectly correct. "I can't explain it, but somehow it is different."

"Why did you even bother trying to talk to me at the start of this year?"

He considered telling her. Admitting everything just to get him out of this situation, but he couldn't. The betrayal of his friends, hell, the loss of his pride, would be all too much. The hundred galleons seemed unimportant no more, but while she remained undecided on his fate, there was no way he was giving the game away.

"Because… it seemed like time to make amends. Only one year left and all that. I don't want to leave on bad terms."

"You're a death eater. Anywhere you go, you leave on bad terms."

"Hermione, just forget it, ok. I can't explain it."

She stood up, pushing her chair back around her desk. Now she was the one refusing to meet his gaze.

"I think we should go now, it's nearly dinner."

She lead the way out of the office, striding away fast, her head buzzing with the conversation she had just had. His words had made no sense to her and yet… and yet…

Please review, it's lovely hearing from you all again!

JustADoll

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