A/N: Ok guys, I wasn't sure before, but I have a plot set! Went to bed with my fever (which is finally gone YES!) and woke up with an idea I can certainly run with! Hope you enjoy! (: If you see this going somewhere, feel free to share your ideas, I'll gladly try to incorporate them. (:

"You're cold," Draco said, reaching for her arm to pull her towards him on the log. He'd noticed her shivering slightly and rubbing her hands together.

"I'm fine," Hermione shifted herself away from his touch, unsure of his intentions at all as he still hadn't explained why she was out there in the first place.

"Don't be silly, come on. It's not like you haven't touched me before now." He reprimanded, watching her pull her cloak tighter around herself.

She remembered. Of course she did. "What was that, third year when you refrained from calling me mudblood for a whole ten minutes?" She almost smirked.

He rolled his eyes. "Hey, that's not fair; I hadn't called you a mudblood all day." He quipped, grinning.

It was outside Care of Magical Creatures class, the time they were discussing, when Draco had been bothering Harry about the dementors. Of course, he and Crabbe and Goyle had been covering themselves with their robes and "oohing" like ghosts, mocking Harry for his fear of something that not a single wizard on the planet was not afraid of.

Hermione had stepped in, walking straight up to Malfoy, calmly, and with a smile telling him that 'you really shouldn't act like such a tool, Malfoy. You'd do a lot better around here if you'd just-' of course he had cut her off, grabbing her by the upper arms as she approached them, and turning her around so that he was no longer facing the crowd. For some reason, he was very gentle, she could have moved away had she so chosen, but curiosity and a willingness to encourage any sort of good behavior from the blond was keeping her where she was. He walked her backwards, dropping his head down to speak quietly with her, hands only holding tightly enough to keep her from tripping over sticks and stones.

'It'd be best if you didn't call me out, Granger, you'd do a lot better around here if you'd just follow the hierarchy.' He had said.

'What hierarchy? The one you made up so that you'd come out on top?'

The conversation had grown darker then, and his fingers had flexed slightly, crinkling her shirt for just the slightest moment before he relaxed again. He didn't take his hands away for a second though while they spoke. Harry and Ron were obviously causing a scene about it behind him, but that matter did not require his attention at that moment, his two very large friends could obviously handle some skinny little children. 'Trust me; you'll be safer if you just let me do my thing, you understand?'

'No.'

Of course she had been very difficult, something he chuckled about even then. 'Granger, just remember to stroke the side.' He winked before dropping his arms and taking a step back, leaving Hermione to walk back to her friends.

"You were very odd that day," Hermione noted, conceding to him as he tried again to pull her closer, wrapping his cloak around the two of them.

"You were too. You were so calm, I didn't understand it."

"Is that why you were nice?" She asked, shivering subsiding as she let their mixed warmth soothe her.

He chuckled darkly. "No, I'm always nice," he said, knowing she would scoff, which she did. "I have nothing against you, Granger, as you can see I'm keeping you safe right now."

She turned in his cloak to face him. "No, no I don't see. I don't know what danger your keeping me from, you know, you could be setting me up to get eaten by some kind of forest monster."

He laughed again, this time with a genuine smile. "Forest monster, is that the best you could come up with," he continued to laugh. "Granger, it's your friends I have an issue with. If you weren't around them all the time I probably would never have called you names."

She mumbled to herself and pulled his cloak tighter; causing his hands to slip over her arms the same way they had that other time. He didn't pull away; he let his fingers linger there. "So why are you helping me? I mean, if that's what you're doing."

Draco sighed. "You're Harry Potter's best friend," he sneered, "Of course you're a target."

"A target of whom?" She asked, frustrated.

"Of everyone, don't you see? The school is half filled with Death Eater's children by now and half of them are beginning to work for the Dark Lord and you being who you are and what you are, are the perfect thing they could use to make an example of." He took a much needed breath after having not breathed at all during his spiel. He was glad when Hermione seemed to contemplate this.

"You mean..." She didn't finish, instead she went back to their shared memory, clearly having come to her own conclusions and no longer wanting to discuss the matter. "Why weren't you angry with me when I confronted you? Why did you pull me away?"

"I wanted to talk to you."

"We hardly spoke-"

"I know," he cut off, waving away the words from beneath the dark cloak. "I just... I don't know. Like I said, Granger, I never disliked you; you seem like a very smart interesting girl, who could probably hold a very decent conversation."

She didn't respond, she just let the words linger in the air.

It took a number of moments in that uncomfortable silence before he spoke again, voice cold and void of emotion. "They were going to grab you." He said simply, and then continued. "They were going to hold you down and curse you, and carve Voldemort into your arms." She tensed against him, obviously not enjoying this knowledge. "Then they were just going to leave you there, not care about what happened. Let you bleed to death maybe, or someone would eventually find you I suppose, didn't matter to them. What's Dumbledore going to do? Expel the entire Slytherin house?"

"The whole Slytherin house?" She asked with wide eyes.

"Might as well be." He shrugged. "We can probably go back now."

They stood and illuminated their paths with their wands, each carrying a number of Hermione's books. He didn't leave her side until she was safely in front of the portrait hole leading to the Gryffindor common room. His eyes had increasingly been darting around, looking for anyone who might see them, portraits included. But she was safe now, for now... and he possibly wasn't, but he could deal with that later.

"Thank you," she said, turning to face him before stepping through the hole. "If what you said is true... Thank you." He nodded, watched her climb through, and then turned on his heel to head back to the dungeons. He'd succeeded.