Anger flashed through Hermione as soon as the door was shut in her face. She opened the door quickly, took two strides in, grabbed Malfoy's arm and haulled him back into the corridor. It caused a small scene, but nothing especially memorable.

"What's your issue, Malfoy?" she fumed. "Why are you being such a complete arse for no reason! I don't deserve it. I've been nothing but respectful towards you and all you've done is act like I'm a piece of scenery! Something below the courtesy of acknowledgment on a basic level. Seriously, if we're going to work together as head boy and girl you have to stop being so ruddy cold and start giving a shit about this school and your position! We aren't children anymore." Hermione paused for a minute before adding, "And if you slam the door in my face one more time I'll blast it off the hinges and leave the mess for YOU to clean up."

Malfoy looked slightly taken aback, and cocked his eyebrow slighly at the last remark. He sighed before holding out his hand and looking tired. She glanced at it for a moment and then placed the slightly wrinkled schedule. He looked over it carefully for a minute. His expression blank. He handed the schedule back to her and murmured, "Don't put Hanson and Lepski together. They despise one another and rather would rip each other's hearts out than work together. They'd get nothing done. Put Lepski with Drider and Hanson with Drider's present partner and the hassle will be avoided. The rest is fine."

With that Malfoy turned on his heel and entered the classroom. Hermione followed, slighly bemused. They sat on opposite sides of the classroom in the same row. Not looking at each other for the rest of the class. The class seemed rather short after that.

Charms seemed short too. Professor Flitwick seemed particularly egar this year, jumping right into discussing the complex spells they would be working on in the near future. One of the spells that captured Hermione's interest immediately a charm that gave objects artificial intelligence, making them able to follow directions and communicate on a basic level. She'd always wanted to experiement with such a spell, but many wizards and witches had done such and ended up being injured or killed by their objects. It took a lot of consentration and control to do such a charm. Hermione was up for the challenge. She looked over at Malfoy and it seemed that particular lesson had piqued his interest to the slightest degree. A little excitement flared through her at the thought of competition. There was no doubt in her mind that Malfoy had the potential to out shine her if she only settled for her definition of satisfactory. She began scribbling out a rough idea for a study schedule. Nothing concrete. She wanted to be prepared for the start of an intellectual battle, should it arise.

The class ended as soon as she finished the schedule out line and the last sentence in her notes. She walked briskly out the door and stepped around a figure that paused right outside the door. She kept walking but looked back at the figure. Malfoy was standing there with a small smirk on his face. Barely noticable, but still there. She turned back and kept walking, wondering vaguely what that look was about.

She dropped her things off on a chair in the common room and then left for dinner. She met up with Harry and Ron on the staircase and started talking excitedly about her day and the new schedules. Just idle chit chat. Harry and Ron had had a good first day too. Ron and Harry had both successfully preformed all the spells in the first chapter of their D.A.D.A class, and were ahead of the rest of the class by a half a chapter. "I guess Dumbledore's Army taught us more than I thought," Harry said with a grin.

They sat down in the Great Hall with the rest of Griffendor house. Everyone was eating and talking about their first day. Hermione was enjoying everyone's company and so was completely oblivious to the blond haired man glancing at her now and again with a contemplative stare.

After eating her fill and taking a last gulp of pumpkin juice, Hermione stood from her table and walked with her friends out to the hall and up the stair case. They decided to walk around the corridors for a while and eventually settled into one of the many nooks there were in the castle.

"So, how's living with the Slytherin Prince?" Ron nudged Hermione with his elbow with a smirk. "Is he still the prat that we all came to know and love?"

"Not really," she said thoughtfully. "He's changed a lot. He seems very introverted now. We haven't been arguing or anything at all. He's sort of passive. Grown up."

Harry sighed. "It wouldn't surprise me. He was under Voldemort's contol for the better part of the last year or two. That's bound to change someone."

The three sat in silence then, pondering over their former enemy. "The last thing I want to do is pity him," Hermione said, breaking the silence. "It isn't like we didn't have our share of suffering. Destroying horcruxes and fighting in the war. We've all grown up. Faster than we probably should have."

Both Harry and Ron nodded. Ron pulled his watch out to check the time and stood up. "It's about time for curfew."

"Yeah, I'd better be going anyhow. I have to deliver the prefect duty schedule to each of the houses," Hermione said standing. He hugged both her friends and they parted ways. She drifted towards the Head's common room. Thinking about the war and the scars they'd left on everyone who had participated. It changed people. Their smiles, their maturity, their laughs, their expressions, their personalities. Everyone seemed older. The change wasn't unexpected, but it was a little sad.

She made it to the common room, still pondering. She walked through the door. She saw Malfoy casually sitting in the common room, reading. He wore a pair of thin, square, gold reading glasses that she'd never seen before. He didn't acknowledge her enterence; too eveloped in what he was reading to care. Hermione walked quietly over to where she had left her school bag and moved to her desk where she began organizing her notes and making a better outline of her study plan. She hadn't been assigned any homework that she hadn't already completed so there wasn't much else for her to do besides.

After about an hour and completely satisfied with her study plans for the year, she pulled out a book from her bag and sat in the arm chair next to Malfoy. She looked at him for a little bit, pausing before opening her book. His eyebrows were furrowed, and his eyes were unfocused. Like he was thinking about something else, rather than reading. Then suddenly he seemed to snapped out of it and looked at her.

"What?" he said blankly.

"Sorry, nothing," Hermione said looking away, slightly embarrassed and hurried onto say, "I just noticed you were wearing glasses. I've never seen them before."

To that, Malfoy said nothing, and went back to reading. She started reading too. Curling her legs into the chair and losing herself in the book.

After an hour or so of comfortable silence Malfoy stood up and stretched. He removed his glasses and stuck them in his shirt pocket and strolled over to the door of his room. Hermione decided it was about time she went to bed too. She stood and walked over to her desk and picked up her bag.

"Good night," she heard, and looked up just in time to see Malfoy disappear behind the door.

"Good night!" she called after a moment. Unsure if he heard her or not. He wasn't being very cold to her anymore. Distant, but not cold. Maybe what she had said had gotten through to him.

With a satisfied nod to herself she went up to her room. She hadn't drawn her curtain yet and stopped to admire the view her tower supplied for her. She looked acrossed and saw Malfoy's tower. The curtain was only drawn part of the way. She saw him standing on the balcony, so the curtain didn't do much good. He was leaning against the wall looking out over the grounds. He was only wearing a pair of pants, no shirt. She couldn't help but notice that he was handsom, standing there in the moonlight. The wind brushed through his hair slightly, and he turned around to go back inside. He glanced over to her tower, so she closed her curtain quickly.

She shouldn't be thinking about Malfoy that way. He'd never see anything in her like that, so it wouldn't do any good to form a crush. Maybe an admiration, because he was intelligent and confident and handsome. But a crush would only result in distraction and disappointment. Neither of which Hermione was fond of.

She thought of Ron then. They had attempted to be in a relationship. But the strain of the loss of Ron's older brother had broken their relationship apart. It hadn't felt right anymore. Even after the immediate sting from the loss was gone, they clouldn't find the romance and the mutual attraction they once had. They both decided it was better off as friends. Since then Hermione hadn't really thought of anyone romantically. She knew that Seamus Finnigan had had a crush on her since sixth year. He was a very handsome man and was very kind, but she really didn't think of him that way. During one of the holidays he had kissed her on the cheek under the mistletoe, and something could have started there, if she were so inclined. But no, she really wasn't interested. There was no challenge in him. It would be effortless. A safe and boring choice. Hermione wanted more than that.

Malfoy was certainly a challenge, at best, but it wouldn't go anywhere. It wouldn't do any good to peruse someone who seemed to have no interest in the human race.

Pondering over all of this, she got undressed and put on a thin purple night gown. She braided her hair, brushed her teeth, rubbed a softening and moistening cream into her legs and arms that she had bought at a muggle store. And she crawled into her warm feather bed. She lay there for a while, counting as many stars as she could and finding certain, familiar constellations. She watched the sky until she fell into a dreamless slumber.

A/N: I know it's a short chapter, but I figured it would be better than nothing. The story continues.