A/N: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I feel really, really, really bad. I hope you all can forgive me. D:

Okay, well. After reading all your WONDERFUL reviews (thank you all bunches, by the way) I hope I've made Malfoy more...Malfoyish. I took into careful consideration how to portray him fighting with himself constantly over the thought of Hermione, and I hope it came out well and it's not too over-saturated. There isn't a lot of dialogue in this, but I hope that's not too much of a problem. In my upcoming updates (that WILL happen on a somewhat regular basis) that will change.

I'm also probably really out of practice writing in the style I've been writing this story, it might take me a bit to get back into it. I hope it's not too bad. Let me know if you can spot where the writing style changes. ;D

Oh! And to voldyismyfather: I hope you like a certain paragraph in this chapter! Lol. ;D

Alright, well. I've bothered you enough. I hope you all enjoy this chapter and can find it in your lovely, amazing, and talented hearts to forgive me for not updating!

When she woke up she was greeted with a too bright room and an enormous headache, not to mention her body was aching all over. She thought she fell asleep while someone was putting the Cruciatus curse on her, she hurt so badly.

She stretched and reached into her nightstand drawer, extracting a bottle of aspirin as she did so. She dry swallowed a couple pills and lay there, trying to remember the night. She knew she got drunk out of anger, something she was regretfully doing more often. Other than that she couldn't remember a thing, and for that she was grateful. She didn't want to be left to the thoughts she'd been having since the train ride that night, much less deal with them sober. She smiled, feeling better about the first day that lay ahead, and remembered she had Head Girl duties.

She hurtled out of bed, dressing quickly in her school robes and doing a quick hair-cleaning spell she'd learnt from a book Ginny gave her, and ran out the door.

"Morning, Mudblood."

She froze, looking over at his already dressed figure lounging on the green couch. She eyed him warily, but was pleased to see everything was back to normal.

"Are you late for something? You look like you're in a hurry." He drawled, smirking up at her from his book.

"I slept in, that's all." He sneered at her, turning a page.

"I noticed. I already patrolled this morning." She blinked at his sneering face. "You can thank me by going back in your room and changing into that nice little skirt of yours." They both looked down at her trousers-clad lower body, different expressions on the other's face. Hermione looked smug while Draco looked annoyed, but his face quickly reverted back to its smirking self. "You could also cover the patrol tonight."

"I'll do that, thanks loads Draco." She said, heading towards the archway for breakfast.

"That's Malfoy to you, Mudblood."

"You're quite welcome. It was nothing for a pompous git like me!" She mimicked, disappearing down the spiral staircase.

He scowled at where she had been a moment ago, irritated. She didn't bring up last night, and he knew he sure wasn't going to. Did that mean she couldn't remember what happened?

Oh, he could only hope so.

Hermione walked into the Great Hall, spotting her two best friends instantly. She sat down and greeted their food-filled faces happily, starting in on her own eggs and kippers.

"Harry, you ready for Quidditch try-outs this Friday?" Ginny asked as she joined the group. Hermione looked up, surprised. Ginny had become Gryffindor captain the year they left Hogwarts.

"You have to try-out? Won't this be your first time officially trying out?" Ginny snorted, ducking her head at the sight of Harry's withering glare.

"She said it's fair to the other people who want to be Seeker." He said. "I say its rubbish; we all know I'm going to be on the team again."

"Hey mate, I have to try out again, too. We all know how great that's going to go over." Ron said before stuffing a piece of toast in his mouth. His ears turned pink, and Hermione could tell he was nervous.

"Well I'll be there, and I'm sure you'll both make the team." Hermione said, scanning her schedule. "We have double potions today with Slytherin, as well as Charms and double Transfiguration with them."

"Bloody hell, we have the whole day with those slime balls!" Ron exclaimed, looking over his own schedule. He glanced over at the Slytherin table and groaned. "And it looks like Malfoy is particularly happy today, which means he's going to be as much as a ruddy git as ever. Brilliant."

The three of them glanced momentarily over at the far table, watching Malfoy as he laughed and joked with Goyle, Blaize and a few other of his minor cronies. He looked up, feeling himself being watched, and locked eyes with Hermione. Harry and Ron looked between the two of them, confused. When the two boys had their backs turned to him he winked surreptitiously at her, grinning slyly and turning his full attention back to his friends. She blushed and looked down at the table, almost not believing what had just happened.

Malfoy had never, in the whole eight years she had known him, winked at her. She was never one to over-analyze things, but something that out of the ordinary meant something, didn't it?

God, she hoped not.

They finished their breakfast uneventfully and made their way to potions, where they were greeted warmly by none other than professor Slughorn.

"Harry, Hermione! Mr. Weasly, what are you still doing here?" He asked as they entered. Ron's ears turned pink.

"Good morning professor. We all need to take this class in order to become Aurors, you know that." Professor Slughorn laughed good-naturedly and clapped Harry on the back. Hermione found it hard to stifle the laugh that had erupted in her at the sight of Harry's terrified face. If she wasn't mistaken she saw Ron inch toward her ever so slightly; pale-faced and wide-eyed, it wasn't too hard to tell he was afraid of Slughorn's big hands that had almost snapped Harry in half mere seconds ago.

Taking their seats among their fellow Gryffindor's, Hermione could hardly keep her attention off the door. It was like she was waiting for the pale, cocky boy to come waltzing in, drawling and treating everyone as if they were inferior to him.

What was happening to her?

"You okay, 'Mione?" Ron asked warily, she glared at him.

"Yes of course Ronald, why on Earth wouldn't I be?" She snapped. Seconds later Malfoy crossed the threshold, laughing in an obnoxiously loud tone that had her bristling uncontrollably. Ron eyed her suspiciously, trying to catch Harry's eye to tell him silently that he thought something was up.

She snarled incomprehensibly and stood up, gathering her things hastily.

"Just where do you think you're going?" Harry asked, finally looking up from his cauldron.

"Nowhere. Please take notes for me Harry, we all know Ronald's notes wouldn't be able to teach a fly." She threw one last menacing glare at the ginger haired boy before storming out of the dungeon, quite unladylike if she was completely honest with herself. Her grandmother would be pulling her own hair out if she saw Hermione act that way, especially in public.

Before the heavy wooden door closed behind her she heard Ron's voice say something along the lines of "I only asked her if she was alright, I didn't think it was that time of the month already..."

She stamped her foot, did it have to be that time for her to be angry?

After rounding the corner into an abandoned corridor she suddenly felt a strained and weak sensation overtake her legs, on their own accord they gave out from underneath her and made her slide to the floor miserably.

She had thought about him more times in one day than what she had in eight years combined, she was getting herself worked up and temperamental and she couldn't stop herself. Worst of all, she was over analyzing and replaying things that had happened between them over and over again she was afraid that soon that's all she'd ever see: his face, his smirk, his body.

But she's never seen his body before...

Flashes of a bare chest, a couch, and a smirking Crookshanks licked at her memory like the dying flames in the common room fire place.

"You upset me..."

Oh Gods, what had she done?

Images of her saturated his mind, making concentrating on anything else but his lower half next to nothing. Where was a pensive when you needed one?

A pensive, he reminded himself bitterly, didn't expel the memory all-together. It just gave you a different perspective of it. He glared at nothing in particular; that was one memory he really, really didn't need a different perspective of.

He tried to remind himself that it wasn't just her that was effecting him, it was the fact that he hadn't had any real fun since before the summer. At least, none that could be qualified as good, satisfying...fun.

Pansy sessions could only pacify him for a certain amount of time, that time-span getting shorter and shorter the more familiar he became with those dismal sessions.

These were the closest quarters he's stayed with a girl since the last year he was at school, he realized, and he was also a bit off kilter as it was. That's why she was effecting him so much, he told himself. The thought made him feel slightly better, but he didn't understand why he had to fantasize about a Mudblood, more importantly Potter and Weasley's Mudblood.

It dawned on him suddenly that she was the only girl he had really bothered remembering the whole time he was at school. Sure, he didn't know what her favorite book, food, or color was, but he took the time to bother and ultimately talk to her on a regular basis. He knew her name, first and last, which is more than he could say for most of the girls he shagged. Not that he would ever dream of actually shagging that Mudblood—

Her face from last night swam in front of his eyes tauntingly; he growled.

"Mr. Malfoy, are you alright?" Professor Slughorn asked him, snapping him out of his trance once and for all. He sighed and looked up at the man gratefully, nodding. "Why don't you take a little break to clear your head before you start working on this potion? It's extremely complicated and if something goes wrong I don't want to put any of the other students at harm. Go on then, get the rest of the notes from one of your friends when you come back." The man was still looking at him uneasily, but he was being extremely kind. Maybe he found himself a new favorite teacher.

He glanced briefly over at Pansy, eagerly taking out another piece of parchment and setting to work on making another copy. He wouldn't be surprised if she made two copies for him, possibly one in an entirely different language. He shook his head and sighed, making his way quietly out of the dungeon.

Losing track of time, he let his feet take him wherever they wanted to go. He ambled around pleasantly and studied the newly-renovated castle, awestruck. Before he destroyed and then coincidentally rebuilt large parts of it in three month he had never truly noticed the full beauty of the place, but it was all around him in its magnificent glory. It made him secretly curious to learn more about the almost sacred place; he'd have to ask Granger if he could borrow Hogwarts, A History.

He stopped in his tracks. That damned girl, who he was doing so well not thinking about, was sitting right in front of him.

Coincidentally asleep, too.

"Mudblood," he called out. No response. "Mudblood." He called a little bit louder, still no response. He rolled his eyes.

"Oi, Granger!"

She jumped and held her bag to her, looking around fearfully. When she finally spotted him she paled unattractively, casting her eyes immediately down to the floor.

"What's the matter with you, why aren't you in class?"

No response. Did she fall back to sleep?

He took a step forward, annoyed and wanting her to answer his questions. If he wasn't so observant he would've missed her tensing and trying to push herself into the wall. He stopped, confused.

"What's the matter?" Again, no response. He waited a moment. "Granger, you're going to have to help me. You've got night patrol tonight and if you're going to be all zombie-like I don't know how you're going to stop—"

"I remember last night." She said suddenly, cutting him off. She buried her face in her arms, letting her bushy hair create a curtain.

He sucked in a breath. Well, this sucked.

"You wouldn't have stopped?" She asked, her voice muffled by her arms. He came to stand in front of her, crossing his arms and refusing to show any emotion. She might be okay with letting herself become a public puddle for people to come and splash in, but he certainly wasn't.

"Of course I would've stopped, I wouldn't even have started. I was just saying that to scare you so you didn't bother me when you were having one of your...nights again."

After a few moments she finally looked up at him, and he found it extremely hard not to react to her tear-stained face. He wanted to be revolted, he wanted to sneer and say something that would strike her and walk away with his head held high, but he couldn't. If truth be told he had never seen such raw, uncensored emotion in his entire life. Not from the victims Voldemort had tortured mercilessly, not from the people Bellatrix and Fenrir had locked in his cellar, not even from Potter himself. Here he was presented with something he was sure he would never see again in his life, and he couldn't get enough of it. He was staring like a buffoon, but he didn't care.

She wiped her eyes and looked away, embarrassed. Finding himself he cleared his throat and stepped back, waiting for her to stand up and join him. When she finally reached her full height he found he looked anywhere but her face, a very cowardly move coming from a Malfoy, he berated, but he couldn't help it. It was impossible to look at her and not see what he had seen moments before.

"I think I'm going to go up and take a nap before Transfiguration. I can take the before-dinner walk through if you'd like, I don't mind."

"Um, yeah. That'd be great." He stopped himself short of thanking her, because that's just something a Malfoy doesn't do. They reached the stairway that led up to Boris and stopped, he examined the paintings above them, aware that she was watching him curiously.

"I'm sorry Malfoy, I don't know what's been getting into me lately. I shouldn't have bothered you—"

"Have a good rest then," he said briefly, cutting her off. He purposely let the old, childish version of him surge through him, hoping he made his point that this new...whatever it was wasn't something she could take as friendly. It was nothing. Nothing had changed between them, they still hated and sniped at each other whenever they could, they just had a minor stumble and now they would be right back where they always were. That's all it was.

Her hazel eyes widened and after a moment anger suddenly flashed in them. His message had been received.

Without another word she walked up the stairs, not bothering to look back even once.

A/N: Review please?

Oh. The characters, setting, creatures, spells, etc., etc., belong to the wonderfully talented pensman (as in swordsman, lol. I'm so clever. ;D) J.K. Rowling. :)