Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Harry Potter, except those that clearly aren't from J.K. Rowling's stories. And since I expect anyone reading this by now to be a complete HP aficionado, I'm sure you'll know which ones they are.

Chapter 15 — Confrontation

The day had been going so well.

"I can't believe you're upset over an 114%!" Ginny exclaimed. "I didn't even know Professor Aspen gave extra points."

"Yes, but I missed one of the uses of black-widow hairs! I got the first fourteen but…"

"Hermione—" Ginny warned.

"All right, all right. I'll see you tomorrow!" Hermione called, waving goodbye. She didn't know why she still bothered expressing concern over academia to her friends. They just didn't seem to get it. Didn't they realize how important it all was?

Hermione sighed. She wished that her friends were a little more academically inclined. She loved them all dearly, but occasionally it would be nice to have a conversation that wasn't about food or Quiddich. A conversation that sounded remotely intelligent to anyone not a boy.

No, that wasn't fair. Draco, she had discovered, was extremely intelligent. He was top of the class after her — a fact that had never really penetrated before. She supposed she had assumed his father bought his grades just like he did everything else. Furthermore, Draco hadn't brought up Quiddich once.

He was waiting for her, she knew. They always met after she finished Arachnology, because it was the one class she didn't share with Ron. Ron had been cold and distant ever since he discovered Harry was gone, and just last week she had caught him rifling through her book bag. When she confronted him about it, he had just glared at her suspiciously and stalked off. She knew that he was just trying to find out if Harry was writing her, and part of her appreciated how much he cared for his friend, but the other part of her was distinctly annoyed. Once again, she was grateful that she had charmed her book bag to make any notes from Draco look like blank pieces of old parchment — she had more than a couple of them floating around in there and she could just imagine the scene if Ron found out. For the first time, she regretted helping Ron pull the grades to get into the advanced classes with her.

Help is a relative term, she thought uncharitably. I pretty much did his work for him. Of course, she had done the same for Harry too, but he had been so preoccupied with Voldemort that it was really the least she could do. It was like helping the Order in a way. And Harry at least had the decency to be grateful; Ron would grovel until she helped him and then he would treat her help like it was his due. How she had ever found him attractive was beyond her.

"Hermione!"

Hermione glanced over her shoulder and gave an inward groan. Ron was peeling himself away from a wall and was coming towards her. Think of the wolf and you'll see his tail….

"Yes?" she asked, a little suspicious. Ron was sporting a huge grin and his hands were spread wide in a conciliatory gesture.

"Nothing, I just thought we might talk," he said, sticking his hands in his jean pockets and standing at ease with a cocksure smile.

"We can always talk, Ron," Hermione said carefully.

"Not here. Somewhere private?"

Hermione was aware of a growing sense of unease. Everything about Ron's mannerisms and attitude was so…unRonnish. But she could not think of a good reason to refuse, and he was still her friend after all.

"All right."

She followed the youth away from the busy corridors, through a couple empty rooms, and into a small alcove that Hermione knew was usually frequented by kissing couples, but which was at the moment empty.

Hermione stood in the entrance, her arms crossed. "What do you want?" she asked, barely masking the impatience in her voice.

"Nothing. I just wanted to see you."

Hermione couldn't help it — she felt her left eyebrow rise in astonishment. "See me? You've seen me for the last seven years."

"Yes, but, well I've missed you." Both eyebrows shot up now. She stared at him in frank amazement.

"Are you feeling okay?" she asked seriously, stretching out a hand to feel his forehead. "Because you've basically been ignoring me for the last few months. If this is a new ploy to get me to tell you where Harry is—"

"This has nothing to do with Harry!" Ron snapped, the grin disappearing from his face. He brushed her hand from his forehead. "I just thought we could talk. Aren't we friends, Hermione?"

"Well, of course we're friends, but—"

"You know, I thought that after all this time you'd have seen the error of your ways. I was ready to give you another chance."

"Another chance? Ron, if you don't tell me what you're going on about in the next thirty seconds, I'm going to leave."

"I don't blame you, you know," he continued on, not really listening to her. "You were young and naïve. Doubtless you weren't ready for a real relationship. But school is almost over and I thought by now you'd have grown up a little and we could give ourselves another chance."

Hermione couldn't believe her ears. She didn't know how to respond. There were several retorts zooming through her head, none of which were utterable by bookish Hermione Granger. "What about Lavender?" she finally choked out. Ron had hooked up with the Gryffindor girl almost immediately after he and Hermione broke up.

Ron waved a hand dismissively. "She's old news. Any girl who would choose a git like Dean Thomas over me is not someone I'd waste my time on."

Somehow, Hermione resisted the urge to laugh. "Is that what this is about? Your girlfriend ditched you so now you want me back?"

Ron's face turned as red as his hair. "Don't be stupid Hermione. I'm offering you another chance."

"A chance at what? There were reasons we broke up, Ron, and all those reasons still exist. If anything, this conversation proves it. We are friends, Ron — let's not ruin what we have left."

"What if I don't want to be friends? What if I want us to be more than that?" Ron demanded.

This was going nowhere fast. "I need to go," Hermione said firmly, walking away. Ron moved to block her.

"Ron, I am going to count to three and then you had better be out of my way. One…" Before Hermione could stop him, he grabbed her by the shoulders and brought his lips crashing down onto hers. The suddenness of it took her by surprise. She couldn't breathe — he was taking all her air.

He released her and stepped away, surveying the stunned Hermione with satisfaction. "See, you've just forgotten how it was!" he smirked, confident that he had just wooed Hermione back with one fell kiss. The black dots that had been swimming before her eyes began to clear, and in their place Hermione saw red.

SMACK!

The flat of her hand connected with Ron's face with a force only hours of stirring potions could provide. Ron staggered back.

"Don't ever try to kiss me again, Ron," Hermione hissed, and walked out.

-:-+-:-+-:-+-:-

Draco tapped the desk impatiently.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

He glanced at the clock. An hour past. Hermione had never been this late before. With a sigh, he jumped off the desk and was just about to leave when Hermione burst in through the door.

"Watch it!" Draco exclaimed as Hermione angrily threw her book bag across the room, narrowly missing his head. Hermione wasn't listening.

"That…that…weasel!" she seethed, storming into the room. Draco's eyebrows shot to the top of his head.

"How dare he insinuate…how dare he — after everything he's said…after everything he's done…!"

"What did he do?" Draco asked, beginning to grow alarmed. He had never seen Hermione so angry. Her hair was positively crackling.

"Oh, nothing. To you it would be nothing. To anyone else it would be nothing. But to me…."

Draco grabbed her wrists. Hermione whirled to face him, her eyes blazing.

"Hermione!" he said sternly, holding her still. "Tell…me…what…happened."

"He kissed me," she scathed. "He told me he was giving me another chance at 'our relationship,' and then he kissed me."

"He kissed you?" Draco asked, stunned.

"Yes, if you can call it that! Honestly, who does he think he is?"

"Are you okay?" Draco asked, noticing for the first time her puffed lips and the bruises darkening on her biceps where Ron had grabbed her.

"Yes, I'm okay — it's just…oh! I don't know what to do. He's been my friend for so long but his behavior lately…and now this…. I just don't know what to do."

"Ditch the weasel," Draco said bluntly. "He doesn't deserve you."

"But he's been my best friend for seven years! He and Harry…but now Harry's a cat, and there's no one to defeat Voldemort, and I'm dating a Slytherin, and everything's just falling apart!"

Draco stiffened. "If dating me is as horrible as all that, I'll leave. You need not worry about me anymore."

Hermione's eyes widened. "I didn't mean — I'm sorry Draco. I'm just so angry right now, I'm not thinking clearly." She sounded like she was on the verge of tears. Draco's expression softened.

"Come here," he said. Hermione fell against Draco, and he gently wrapped her in his arms. As she listened to his heartbeat and thought about everything Draco was and everything that Ron was not, she felt herself grow cold.

"Kiss me," she demanded suddenly.

"What?"

"Kiss me."

Draco complied, gently at first, but Hermione was having none of that.

"What are you doing?" he asked as Hermione pushed him down into a chair.

"I am getting ready to make out with my boyfriend. My real boyfriend," Hermione said, sitting down so that she straddled his lap. Draco gazed at her in astonishment — Hermione had never been this assertive before.

"Maybe I should ask the Weasel to kiss you more often, if it gets you like this," Draco said, placing his hands on her hips.

"Maybe," Hermione agreed dangerously. In truth, she felt nowhere near as bold as she appeared, but Ron's comments had stung.

Draco wondered if he should stop Hermione. He knew that she was taking out her anger with Ron on him, and while the means were enjoyable to say the least, he didn't want revenge on Ron to be the reason she wanted him. But then she was kissing him, and kissing him hard, and he found that he could really care less.

-:-+-:-+-:-+-:-

Ron walked quickly down the corridor, ignoring the strange looks that students gave him as he brushed brusquely by. He wished that Harry hadn't taken the Marauder's Map with him when he left — it would make finding Hermione so much easier.

When Lavender had dumped Ron for Dean Thomas, he had been angry. Then he realized that she just couldn't appreciate him properly — he needed to be with someone intelligent enough to recognize his allure. Today's meeting with Hermione had not gone as smoothly as he had planned. He winced; his face still hurt from the slap. He could almost commiserate with Malfoy for when Hermione had punched him third year. Almost.

Ron opened a door to a classroom. No one. Hermione wasn't in the common room, nor in the library, nor out by the lake. Ginny said she wasn't in her room, either. He wanted to find her and apologize for being such a git today and about Harry. He really did like her, come to think of it.

He was about to give up and go see if she had gone back to the common room yet when he opened one last door. Whatever he had been expecting, it was not the sight that met his eyes. There was Hermione, straddling someone's lap and kissing him with a passion and intensity that she had never shown Ron, not once in the entire summer she had spent with him at the Burrow. Then she shifted slightly and he could see the person she was kissing — see the silvery-blond hair and the expensive, tailored robes whose cost could feed his entire family for a year. It was Malfoy.

"You," he choked out, startling them both. "You and him…he and you…."

Panic flooded Hermione and she scrambled off Malfoy's lap. Even as she stood up, she felt cold anger replace the panic and she lifted her chin toward Ron defiantly.

"Yes. Me and him."

For a moment, furious anger pervaded Ron, and he raised his wand with a trembling hand so that for one incredible second Hermione actually thought he was going to try and curse her; and then something inside him seemed to shatter. Shooting Hermione a look of such intense betrayal that it nearly broke her heart, he turned and dashed away.

Chapter 15 Summary:

Ron hits on Hermione, and later walks in on Hermione and Draco kissing.