Ooooohhh what's this, another chapter? ;) Massive thank yous to osirisredgirl and snapplexo for your reviews - I really appreciate your feedback! This story has really gripped me, I'm really enjoying writing it - please r&r and let me know if you do to :) thanks!

Hermione was sitting in the Head Girl's office and brooding over the prefect rota. Every so often, she would glance up at the fireplace.

It was empty.

Ron had promised that he would talk to her at seven on the dot. It was now quarter to eight, and the sun was already sinking behind the treetops of the Forbidden Forest, and she had not seen one hair on his ginger head.

It wasn't his fault, she knew. He'd said in his last letter that he wasn't sure if he'd be able to get away from Auror training in time – something about a night-time exercise – so it wasn't as if she hadn't been warned.

But it had been a long time since she'd spoken to Ron, or to Harry. They'd both joined the Aurors only a few weeks after Voldemort's death, and she'd barely heard from them since. Ginny was still getting regular letters from Harry – a whole scroll of parchment at least once a week – but she'd heard very little from Ron. He'd never been a great letter writer to begin with.

There was a sharp rap on her window. Hermione jumped to her feet, dropping her quill and splattering ink all across the prefect rota. A sleek eagle owl was tapping on her window.

She ran towards it and threw the window open, eagerly. It held out its leg, she untied the scroll and it flew away. At last, a letter from Ron…

Granger, the letter read, in an elegant, tidy hand, I am willing to engage your services as a tutor. Contact me to arrange my first lesson at the earliest convenience.

Draco Malfoy

Hermione let out a snort of indignant laughter and tossed Draco's letter into the fireplace.

Hermione was sitting at the Gryffindor table, the Daily Prophet spread out in front of her. Around her, the Great Hall was babbling with talk as students filed in for their breakfast. The enchanted ceiling was a dull, cloudy grey, and a smattering of autumn leaves had collected in the hole in the roof. Professor Flitwick's Boliatus spell had created an invisible barrier around the hole in the roof, stopping the leaves – and the rain that was sure to follow – from falling onto the four house tables. It would have been an ingenious solution to the problem if the post owls could have stopped flying into it.

Hermione turned another page of the Daily Prophet, ignoring the low, ringing sound of a post owl smacking into the Charms professor's spell. Fenrir Greyback was still at large, and along with Dolohov and Yaxley, he had broken into the house of a young couple and –

Hermione pushed her bowl of porridge to one side. She was not very hungry any more.

She turned the page, quickly, as the muttering redoubled all around her. She skimmed over an article about the bass player in the Weird Sisters getting divorced, completely ignored an advertisement for a new book from Rita Skeeter – 'Harry Potter: The Boy who Loved' – and flinched as she felt someone tapping her on the shoulder.

She turned around.

Draco Malfoy was standing behind her, red to the roots of his hair. His arms were folded and his face was set into a moody scowl.

"Did you get my note, Granger?" he snapped, staring fixedly at a point some two feet over Hermione's head.

"Yes, I did."

A rush of whispering was running up and down the Great Hall. Draco Malfoy was talking to Hermione Granger, in public, and the word 'Mudblood' had not been said once.

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

He glared at her. "When is my first lesson?"

Hermione turned back to her porridge. "I'm not tutoring you, Malfoy."

"Why not? I can pay you."

"I'm sure you can, but I'm still not doing it. I'm a very busy woman."

His fists were clenched. Gryffindors up and down the table were eyeing Draco warily, and Charlie Jackson was already reaching for his wand.

"If you've got time to muck around in the greenhouses, you've got time to tutor me!"

Hermione smirked up at him. "Really, Malfoy, you won't get anywhere with that kind of attitude. You have to ask me nicely – and you haven't even said please."

And with that, she swept out of the Great Hall, leaving a table of laughing Gryffindors – and a red-faced Draco Malfoy – behind her.

Hermione was sitting in her office again. The lamps were burning low – it was already long past ten o'clock – but there was no way she could stop work, not now. There was far too much to do: she had an essay for Ancient Runes, Potions and Transfiguration, the greenhouse rota to organise, a list of complaints about one of the Hufflepuff prefects and she had to look over the new safety regulations before she handed them out.

She yawned, leaning back in her chair. Being Head Girl was far more difficult than she had thought it would be, but this office had proved invaluable. At the beginning of the year, she'd thought she wouldn't need it, but after the first week of term – and Ginny's third exploding parcel from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes – she'd practically moved in. It had taken a while to persuade Professor McGonagall to allow her to put a bed in there – strictly speaking, she was supposed to sleep in the dormitories with the rest of the seventh year girls – but after Filch had tried to give her detention three nights in a row for wandering the corridors at night, McGonagall had relented.

Hermione looked over her shoulder.

Her bed looked so inviting…

There was a sharp knock at the door and she flinched.

"Come in!"

Draco Malfoy opened the door, carrying an enormous bouquet of red lilies and wearing an incredibly grumpy expression.

Her mouth fell open.

He thrust them at her, irritably. Some of the petals fell off, fluttering down onto her half-finished Potions essay.

She just stared at them.

"Well?" he snapped, glaring at her, "aren't you going to take them?"

Hermione eyed the flowers warily. "What are you doing?"

He glared at her. "Asking you nicely," he muttered, his cheeks turning bright pink again. "Please will you tutor me, Miss Granger?"

She took the flowers from him cautiously. They didn't seem poisonous, and nor could she see anything hidden in their centre – no Bubotuber pus, no spiked vines, no vicious little Bowtruckles…

"Well…thank you, Draco," she said, blinking rapidly, "but I'm just not sure if I can tutor you. I've got so much to do, I just don't think I'd have the time."

Draco folded his arms. "Well, make time. I've got you flowers, now you have to tutor me."

Hermione laid down the flowers on her desk, forcing herself to keep a perfectly sweet smile on her face. She wanted nothing more than to leap across the desk and punch him, right in his smug mouth.

"Draco Malfoy," she said, still smiling, "do you honestly think that a bunch of flowers and an apology can change my mind, after everything you've done to me?"

For a split second he just stared at her, fists clenched, shoulders taut. He looked as if she'd slapped him right across his pale face.

He turned and left without another word.

Hermione was kneeling on the floor of Greenhouse Seven. She had an hour to spare before her next Arithmancy class – not enough time to redraft her Transfiguration essay, but more than enough time to plant a tiny, wriggling Devil's Snare. It was barely bigger than her fist, but it had already wrapped its tiny tendrils around her wrist more than once and tried to drag her into the dirt.

The door opened. Hermione sighed. Planting this wriggling monstrosity must have taken much longer than she thought it would…

"Granger!"

Hermione sighed.

Draco Malfoy was standing in the middle of the path again, glaring at her, his fists clenched. She eased herself to her feet, pulling her finger out of the Devil's Snare's grip as she did so.

"What is it now, Malfoy?"

Draco ground his feet into the dirt, steadying himself, his hands still balled into fists.

"You aren't leaving this greenhouse until you've agreed to tutor me."