Track to listen to while reading: Animal, Neon Trees.

~ Here we go again, I kinda wanna be more than friends...~

Things were shockingly different after that.

That is to say, it wasn't immediate, or obvious. Nothing spectacularly amazing happened after that night- Harry didn't renounce the Slytherins and become the patron of kindness and bi house interaction, and Hermione didn't go around preaching about the hidden niceness in Slytherins and how they were all just misunderstood.

Not even close. The stupid squabbles still broke out, the dumb pranks were still played. To the rest of Hogwarts, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger continued to be two seperate people in two separate houses, completely unconcerned with each other except for the few unfortunate times their paths crossed.

He still ran with Malfoy and the other boy, who she learned was named Theodore Knott, and occasionally a girl named Daphne Greengrass who had a nasty reputation of stealing everything not nailed down.

Hermione saw that those four were the Slytherin counterpart of her, Ron, and Neville, with a few major differences. Knott and Greengrass were troublemakers to the core, Malfoy was his sniveling self, and in public, Harry acted just like them.

When Malfoy picked fights with Gryffindors, specifically Ron, he joined in just like normal, and they'd respond in kind. To the school, they hated each other more than ever- Hermione would curse him spectacularly, and he'd spew venom with fresh malice.

When Fred and George caught Malfoy unawares one day and died his head a flaming red, Harry vowed revenge along with his crew, and when they retaliated by charming Ron's freckles to spell out a VERY unsavoury word, Hermione sympathized while he blew his top, shaking her head at those AWFUL gits.

But afterwards, when the sun went down and they met in one of their secret places, either the alcove in the library or the Owelry, they'd both laugh until their sides ached and tears streamed down their faces.

It was an act, a game, and one of the most fun Hermione had ever played.

When they weren't pretending to be enemies, it was pleasant and different, in a nice way. At first after they called a truce, it was a bit awkward and stiff, mostly just them doing homework and occasionally talking. But after a while, they started REALLY talking, which turned into trading jokes and insults.

Harry Potter had a tongue like a blade and a sharp, cynical, sarcastic attitude, but Hermione was more than witty enough to keep up with him. Being raised by muggles like her, they had more in common than she thought. He understood her references and didn't look at her like an alien when she said Twizzlers were her favourite candy.

He didn't like to talk about himself very much though, and that was a surprise to her. She was smart enough to stay away from the topic of his parents and his Aunt and Uncle because those were obviously painful, and she sensed that his relationship to the Malfoy's was complicated at best, so she mostly left that one alone as well. Except...

"Are you really related to the Malfoys?" she asked him one night, while they both petted Hedwig by the wide Owelry window. His smile faded slightly, and he'd shrugged quickly. "Yeah, I guess."

"How, if you don't mind?"

"All the pureblood families are related somehow and someway." he explained. "Dad was a pureblood. Some Potter a billion years ago married a Malfoy, or a Black, or something." He drew a finger down Hedwig's wing. "It's brain melting, trying to track it all. Technically he's a fourth cousin twice removed, or...I dunno."

"Black?" she squeaked, two octaves higher than normal. Harry nodded, eyes temporarily shaded behind his thick bangs. "Yeah...Black." He was quiet for a minute, and then he'd looked up at. "Actually...I need a favor from you."

Hermione cocked an eyebrow and drew her leg underneath her. "What?"

"You know about the Dementors, and how they're here for Sirius Black." he said severely. "But nobody will tell me about him, even though they're all convinced he's coming here to knock me off. I need your help to look up stuff about him."

Hermione slowly looked away, considering. "I mean...they said he was a servant for the...for You-Know-Who..."

"It's something more than that," he said coldly, bristled with frustration. "I'm tired of being in the dark. Draco's having a field day, he knows but he won't tell me. You're smart- you can help me figure it out."

"Harry-"

"Please?"

Something...odd, happened then. She turned to look at him again, and the way the sun was setting outside cast dusky orange and purple shadows across his cheekbones, turning his eyelashes iridescent and highlighting the brightness in his irises, making them glow like Lumos.

He looked...attractive?

'Hot,' hissed a slimy, traitorous voice in her brain.

NO!

"Hermione?"

She blinked- he was still waiting for an answer.

"S-sure...alright, I'll help you."

"Brilliant." he smirked, closing his eyes and freeing her from his stare to lean his head back against the stone wall. Hermione pressed a hand to her heart, which had decided to start racing without her permission, and breathed deeply to untwist the knot that her stomach had tied itself in that she hadn't noticed.

"Weasely, cut up Malfoy's roots for him." Snape ordered.

They were in the middle of making a Shrinking Solution, and in another double class with the Slytherins. Malfoy finally decided to drag himself out of the hospital wing, and he'd staggered into the dungeons with the attitude of a wounded war veteran.

Pansy was beside herself, like he'd had his arm actually taken off, and it was driving Hermione up the wall. Apparently he'd decided to be a bigger git today than usual, setting up his station right next to Ron and Hermione and forcing them to do his work.

"Proffesor, Weasley's mutilating my roots, sir."

Ron was seconds away from going berserk. Hermione glanced over her shoulder across the classroom, and saw a pair of green eyes rolling in their sockets. Behind his cauldron, Harry pressed a hand to his head and pretended to swoon. Hermione bit her lip to keep from laughing and turned back to her potion, just in time for Snape to order her to skin Malfoy's shrivelfig.

Acid green, acid green...green...

She felt like she had a fist in her stomach, and her lungs were tight. She chalked it up to the fumes from the potion...it had to be, right?

Malfoy was hissing something to Ron, and the tall ginger's face was getting redder and redder with every passing second. Hermione caught the words "Hagrid, injury, father, fired", and put the rest together by herself. Her fingers shook angrily, and the back of her neck reddened and itched. Malfoy was nothing but a foul, evil little-...

Twenty minutes and five points from Gryffindor later, Neville's toad was unpoisoned and Hermione was turning back her Time Turner, heading for Rune Studies.

While she was caught in the vortex, watching past moments fly by, she saw herself and Harry Potter more than she expected. Every time her eyes caught on his face, those strange feelings stirred in her, the same ones from that night in the Owelry.

A warm shiver crawled down her spine, and a slight tingle started up between her thighs. It was no secret that Harry Potter wasn't unattractive- far from it. It was just...she desperately didn't want to notice, and the next thing she knew she'd be another witless, simpering fan girl. It would NEVER come to that.

Besides, they were just barely friends, and she didn't NOT need THAT getting in the way.

Despite keeping that thought firmly in the front of her mind during her next two classes, her fingers prickled with the phantom sensation of being smoothed through messy black locks, and every time she licked her mouth, a tiny part of her brain replaced it with the feel of slightly chapped lips on her own, making her squirm.

Afterwards, for the first time in her life, Hermione realized that she couldn't remember a thing from her class.