AN: I know everyone is anxious to get into the deep Dramione, but I am asking patience! Trust me, I want nothing more than to do that as well, but unfortunately there is this stupid thing called a plot that I have to take care of first :P. I promise, Dramione is coming sooner than you might think.

You guys and your reviews are the reason I keep writing. Remember, if you don't review, how do I know I should keep going? I love you all. Also! I have a tumblr, so if anyone would like to follow me there for updates and hints about the story as I write it; my tumblr is on my profile. Now, enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own only my plot.

Great Hall, Lunch, Draco's POV:

He thought he had been doing remarkably well.

He had not spoken to or glanced at Granger since that unfortunate incident in the bathroom earlier, and now that she was sitting on the other side of the Hall, he was feeling much better about life. That is, he was until he sat down in his seat and found everybody staring at him.

"What's the matter with you lot?" he asked, his gaze lingering slightly on Pansy as the words she had hissed at him at the beginning of Potions ran through his mind.

'What do you think you are doing? We're trying to befriend the girl, not make this harder on her than it already is! What did you say to her this morning anyway? You couldn't just do this ONE THING right and act like the gentleman I know for a fact is hiding in there somewhere, he's fighting hard to survive, you know, it would do you some good to stop trying to kill him with your upbringing!'

Draco gulped. By the look on her face it seemed as if she was ready to give him some more of that here at the table. Blaise spoke up instead, much to his relief.

"What's going on, Drake?" he asked. "You're the one who started all of this, why are you backing out?"

Damn. Well I can't very well tell them that not only did I show the mudblo- no. Stop that. I can't very well tell them that I showed weakness in front of Granger and then proceeded to think about fucking her after I saw her half naked. Alright then, simple enough.

Lie.

"Erm…" Draco blinked at the confusion on Blaise's face.

Lie through your bloody teeth, Draco! You used to be good at this! It's simple, open your mouth…

"Bloody hell Blaise, what are you on about? You and Pansy both! I never said I wanted to be friends with the chit and make sure her life is all chocolate frogs and puppies- I was civil to her, simple as that. If you to want to be her new keeper then go right ahead, just don't go dragging me into."

Ah, there he is! Draco Malfoy, the pompous prat! Good to have you back. Now, stop acting like a maniac so that you don't run off your friends.

A large shadow fell across their section of the table, and Draco looked up to see Greg, Millie, Theo and Daph all standing there. Not only that, but as Daphne slammed her bag down onto the table, Draco could tell she was pissed.

Wonderful! A distraction!

"Daph?" Pansy stuck a cautious arm around her friend. "Daphne are you alright?"

"She called me a blood traitor, and then when I met her in the hallway she informed me that in no uncertain terms, I am no longer her sister." Despite the fact that her face was nearing the same color red as the lining of her cloak, Daphne's voice sounded cold and dead.

Everyone at the table flinched upon hearing these words. Disowning someone when you were a pureblood was serious business, and Draco thought back to the days when he wished his family would just disown him and be done with it so that he could try to salvage what remained of his life.

He wondered how his mother was doing. Maybe he should write her tonight… or would that be too soon? It was only the first day of school… he didn't want to seem needy… but then something clicked in the back of his mind. His sorry excuse for a father was in Azkaban and he could owl his mother whenever he damn well pleased.

Tonight his mother was going to get a nice, long letter.

"Oh, don't listen to her Daphne. If she wants to act like a stuck up brat, then let her. Nicolai called me the same thing this morning," Pansy was doing her best to soother her best friend, but Draco knew that look in her eyes.

Pansy was pissed, and she didn't care who knew it.

"Why would he call you that? You're still a Slytherin," Daphne challenged, the bitter tone evident in her voice.

A moment of panic went through him when he realized that if he hadn't bribed that stupid hat he'd be where Daphne was right now. Merlin help him but he felt guilty.

Pansy sighed. "Dean and I are looking after Granger, Thomas, and Smith-"

"Not Smith," Blaise interjected. "Smith is creepy enough that he can fend for himself."

Pansy rolled her eyes and continued. "Fine, we're just looking after Granger and Thomas, then. This morning Clarissa was trying to attack Granger over something stupid and I intervened. He didn't seem too happy about it." She said all of this with the forced nonchalance that seemed to come as second nature to all of them now. The air seemed to thickening with the anticipation of how everyone would react to the fact that they had adopted the former Gryffindors, when Theo started to laugh.

"Don't worry, we've been adopted too," Theo said with a grin. Daphne offered up a small smile in response.

"Little Red kept the Prat-il Twins from beating me into a pulp last night, and both Potter and Longbottom seem to have decided to become Theo's new bodyguards," Daphne added.

"Good." Pansy nodded, as though she was surer of herself than she was before. "I didn't like the thought of you two being alone in enemy territory."

"Neither did we," Theo said, and it was the most somber Draco had seen the guy look since the day they were all forced to take the mark.

Draco sat back and looked at his group of friends, and noted the defeated looks in all of their eyes. What were they thinking? Did he have the same look in his eyes as they did?

No. He couldn't possibly. He had been able to have a hand in his fate, unlike them. He had been allowed to have a choice. Why though? Why him? Surely he can't have been the only person to offer up anything in order to remain in their old House, so why had the Sorting Hat made an exception for him? A deep-seated feeling of uneasiness wafted over him. He felt like something was being planned, and that's why Draco had been made an exception.

Suddenly Draco felt very alone, and was thankful for the disturbance happening across the Hall for pulling him out of his thoughts.

He looked up just in time to see Little Red's wand aimed at her brother and watched as she cast her infamous Bat-Bogey Hex. Once it started to take effect and the entire school began laughing, she seemed to nod her approval and then marched herself straight to the Headmistress. Merlin, was she asking when her detention would be? What had Weasley done?

Out of the corner of his eyes he saw a flash of Slytherin robes exiting the Great Hall. Draco turned his head to see the Nicolai was making as if to stand and leave, a strange flash of adrenaline went through his system.

"Pansy," he began.

"I'm already gone," she answered. Quickly she hefted her bag up on her shoulder and ran off after Granger.

Good, if Pansy was doing it that meant he could still stay as far away from her as possible, and his promise to the Sorting Hat was still being kept.

Sort of.

Hermione's POV:

It felt so good to be sitting at the Gryffindor table again, she almost felt like her old self. Seamus and Dean were talking with their heads bent to together, Luna had come over to say hello, and Hermione was listening to Ginny telling her about what had happened between Greengrass and the Patil twins. The only thing missing was Ron, but as far as she knew, no one had seen him since Transfiguration, which he shared with Seamus as a Ravenclaw.

Thinking that maybe he had forgotten something in his room, she promptly shrugged it off and once again began to bask in the presence of her friends. Though as much as she tried to ignore it, thing were different between them all. Used to be they would talk about anything and everything just to pass the time, instead they were forced to try and play catch-up, doing their best to get everyone's story before that ran out of time.

She wondered how much this new change would drive them all apart. Hermione could already feel that she was getting stares from other Gryffindors. Most were younger students who didn't seem to know what to do with the fact that there were Slytherin's sitting at their table, but the others she was getting were hostile. She ignored those.

Hermione's heart ached for the way things used to be.

In hushed tones, Ginny slowed dragged every single aspect of The Bathroom Incident from Hermione, piece by piece. It wouldn't have been painful if Ginny didn't stop to sigh over her 'magnificent morning view'. So wrapped up in this, she wasn't expecting Ginny to turn serious.

"So, did you have any nightmares tonight?" she asked, searching Hermione for a lie. The question startled her, but she had grown tired of people worrying over her.

"No, none last night," Hermione said, though she could tell Ginny didn't believe her. "Honestly, I think I was too shocked and exhausted from everything that had happened to have any."

This seemed to mollify Ginny a bit, but before they had a chance to go any farther, Ron finally decided to make an appearance.

For the briefest second, Hermione had dared to hope that things would be okay. Then she saw him first turn to glare at Dean, and then his face changed to that of near hostility when he looked at Hermione.

She could have sworn that she heard the remaining shards of her heart break in her ears.

"Ron! Have a seat, mate. How's it been so far?" Harry asked with an almost forced sense of positivity. His smile wavered slightly and Ron did nothing but glower. Finally he spoke, and his voice was rough.

"Since when do we allow Slytherin's to eat with us?" Ron's eyes never left Hermione's. She felt her lip quiver.

"Since Hermione and Dean became them," Harry was calm, his voice placating. He seemed to be pleading with Ron using nothing but the tone of his voice, and it wasn't working.

"Sorry mate, I don't eat with traitors." His lip curled into a snarl, but that snarl was nothing compared to Ginny's.

Hermione had had enough; she grabbed her bag and fled her seat. She had just reached the doors when she heard Ginny shriek out a hex, followed by Ron's anguished yell. She ignored it. If that was how he was going to act, then fine! She didn't need him! Who cares if they'd been friends for years, and then had been something more? She did NOT need Ronald Bilius Weasley.

Did she?

Hermione refused to let tears fall down her face as she stomped off to the Arithmacy classroom. She would be early, but she didn't care. She just had to get as far away from Ron as she could. Maybe if she got far away fast enough she could pretend that her heart was still working. Hermione heard footsteps running after her and turned her head as Parkinson caught up. The girl didn't say a thing, but she matched her steps with Hermione and put a hand on her arm.

Hermione knew that she was acting as her guard.

Slytherin Common Room, Draco:

Hermione had done nothing but answer teachers' questions and do her work for the rest of that day's classes. Then, at dinner, she had held a polite and light conversation with Dean, Pansy and Blaise about what they had thought about the new DADA teacher before going silent again. Now, she sat before him in front of the fireplace in the Slytherin Common Room as the House gathered for its required two hours of quality House time.

She had sheaves of parchment before her, as well as a number of files, and Draco had a pretty good idea what she was up to.

"Malfoy, I think we should just get our Head's duties taken care of now since we're stuck here anyway. That way we won't be forced to see each other on our own time." Her voice was cold. Why was her voice cold? And then he remembered.

Oh yeah, her voice is cold because I want it to be. Because if it isn't then goodie two shoes Grangers will know all of my deepest darkest thoughts within an hour because he couldn't keep his mouth shut. That was why her voice was cold.

"Very well, then Granger. Did you see the lists of the new prefects for each House?" He asked. He saw her 'of course I saw the new list, what do you take me for Malfoy' glare cross her face, but then watched as she carefully smoothed it away. She seemed to be trying hard to keep things civil between them. Now, now, we can't have that can we? She's supposed to dread working with him, not be able to tolerate it.

"Yes. Now I've been looking through their schedules to try and set up their patrols, but since many of them are Quidditch Captains, you included, I can't really start until we have all of the team schedules…"

But Draco wasn't listening. He was watching her write with her abnormally tiny little hands. How could a person above the age of eight have hands that small? It just wasn't normal. Maybe she was just a mutant freak after all. The thought comforted him.

"… So I have the temporary one all drawn up already if you want to take a look at it. Are you even listening to me?" she demanded, a little fire growing in her eyes.

Oops.

"Yea, yea I've been listening. I don't need to take a look at the bloody schedule, but were you planning on leaving any work for me to do? Not that I don't mind the free ride, but I did earn this, you know," He teased. He enjoyed the play of shock on her face as she realized that she had already done basically everything. The struggle on her face was grand to watch as she tried to come up with something to say.

Thoughtful person that he was, he decided to help her.

"It's alright Granger, I know you just can't help being a busy-body know-it-all," he took a breath and smirked about what he was to say next. "Or was it that you were trying to keep your mind off of that little fight between you and your boyfriend the Wanking Weasel?"

He watched the pink rise to her cheeks with relish. Now his plan was working. He felt his face transform into a smug little smirk and leaned back in his chair, the picture of a man at ease.

"Ronald is not my boyfriend. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to business!"

Draco decided that he had enough fun for one night. He needed her to stay away from him but he didn't want things hostile, he supposed that it was time to play nicely… for now. There was always tomorrow.

"My mistake then," Draco was still smirking. "Now about the Halloween Masque, the Patil twats and that Goldstein fellow are usually the ones who end up excited about that sort of thing. So if we…"

And on it went. For two straight hours they went over the Masque, patrols, tutoring schedules, etc. until Draco thought he might go mad. Honestly, did this girl ever take a moment in her life to stop and relax? They had gotten quite a bit done they all felt the wards keeping them in the common room lift, and Draco couldn't be happier for it. If Granger asked him to double check one more list tonight he was going to hex her into oblivion.

Volunteering for that nights patrol, he left as quickly as he could just to get away from her, and began. For another hour he walked the castle until his exhaustion from no sleep the night before finally caught up with him.

He made it back to his room and stayed up writing his mother for as long as he could, about all that had happened. He wrote about the deal he had made with the bloody Hat, he wrote about the conflictions he'd been having, and continued on for several pages on how if it wasn't for the fact he had given that ruddy old hat his word he wouldn't be associating with Granger at all. By the end of it he'd written so much that there was no way he would ever send it, so instead he moved the lengthy letter to be forgotten among the items on his desk and moved to write a much shorter, more distilled, version of events to be sent to his mother. He'd barely managed to get the cap onto his ink bottle through his exhaustion before calling a house-elf to take it to the owlry for him. And when he fell into bed, Draco was instantly asleep.

And once again he woke up to her screams.

AN: Okay, yes, I know that this was mainly a filler chapter, and I hate them as much as you do, but unfortunately it was completely necessary. I PROMISE you that there will be some actual action in the next one, and I SWEAR that you won't regret the wait. I'm as anxious for the good stuff to start happening as you are, guys, really! I hope that you all don't hate me and that you still send me the wonderful and heartwarming reviews that you have been. Your opinions drive this thing too, so as always, any ideas, comments, concerns- just tell me. And don't forget that you can find me on tumblr too.

Love you all, don't hate me!