A/N: 200 reviews, thank you so much, you're all awesome! So yeah, part 2, here we go :)

Just a quick note, this is the 'official' end to the story. But I've had a few ideas for an epilogue kind of chapter just to wrap everything up, so it's not quite the end, even though it is in the way... meh there's 1 more chapter after this, I guess that's what I'm saying!

Enjoy!

Another Cupboard

"Why are you crying, you got your answers didn't you?" Draco asked Hermione once it became evident that she wouldn't be the first one to speak.

"I know," Hermione sniffed, "It's just too much to take, Draco; all of the lies. I just don't know how much I can believe anymore."

"Are you seriously saying that you think I just made all of that up?" Draco asked incredulously.

"I believed you. It's just that it was all meaningless once it became clear that you didn't say any of that from your own accord; you had to do it," she glared.

Draco was breathing heavily. He could feel his temper rising. "Don't start preaching all of that to me; you only know the basics. Stop acting like you bloody know it all because you don't."

"Fine then! Enlighten me," Hermione said as she leant against the back shelves, trying to create as much distance between Draco and herself as possible.

"Let me spell it out for you in black and white-."

"Don't condescend me!" Hermione snapped.

"I'll bloody well do what I like." Draco retorted, "I don't have to tell you this, you know, but I'm choosing to, so save your questions for after."

Hermione rolled her eyes and waited.

"Specifically, my penalty if I lost was to make a public declaration – that being twenty students and two professors – to you about having some degree of romantic feelings for you. And before you get all het up and shrill up again, just take into account that Greengrass got to choose the girl I'd have to ask to the Ball once I'd agreed to the bet and the binding spell was in place."

It did make Hermione feel a bit better that this hadn't originated as a personal attack on herself; Draco couldn't help that Daphne chose her.

"Do you think it was a wise move to agree before you even knew who the girl was?"

Draco sighed, "That was kind of the point; it's a long story. But basically Daphne's aim was to choose someone who would never agree to go with me; someone, whom to her knowledge, I perhaps despised-."

"Charming," Hermione muttered.

"Anyway," Draco said pointedly, "That was the specific requirement: 'romantic feelings'. And yet, I went bloody above and beyond that. All of the other shit I said wasn't necessary."

Hermione had the decency to glance shame-facedly at the floor.

"I'm not going to say it all again, Hermione," Draco said, his tone was softer now. "You're obviously still adamant that you don't want to believe a word I say, so I won't waste my breath. But everything I did say was the truth."

"You can't-!"

"-Blame you for being cautious. I. Bloody. Know!" Draco took a deep breath. "I think we established how awful I feel about that so stop going over old ground."

"Whatever," Hermione said.

Draco clenched his jaw, "Fine. I may as well just remove these spells and get the hell out of here, since you're obviously determined to act like you don't care."

"That's because I don't," Hermione said matter-of-factly, "You're too bloody complicated, Draco! One moment you're so sincere, and the next you're just so cold and defensive. A prime example of both versions happened just today!"

Draco shook his head and chuckled humourlessly, "You know, lying doesn't suit you."

Hermione bristled, "I'm not-."

"Yes, you are," Draco smirked, "Do you want to know why? All of this is still bothering you, and we both know that if this happened where no amount of caring was involved on both accounts, you would have been pissed at me, yes, and maybe punched me. But then it would have been out of your system because I wouldn't have been worth your time. What's more, if you didn't care, you would have removed the charms on the door and stormed out as soon as we were locked in."

She sighed in defeat, "I'm sorry," she chewed her lip as if in deep thought for a while. "Wait, if you were lying about the kiss at the Ball meaning nothing, then does that mean you were purposefully trying to annoy me the other day?"

"Finally getting it, are you?" Draco smiled solemnly, "Yes of course I was. It was bloody difficult too. I didn't want to hurt you more, but like I said, it was necessary. I'll say this again, Hermione, I wanted to kiss you, but only after the bet was behind me and there'd be no manipulations or lies. But of course, you kissed me. I was just trying to make you move on."

His response totally threw her, "You didn't say that before."

"Did you not hear me through your hedge-hair? Of course I said that."

Hermione shook her head and smiled softly, "Not everything. You never said that you wanted to kiss me."

"Did I not? Oh," Draco bit the inside of his cheek, "Well there you go then. Oh and if memory serves this is Snape's store room so I'm sure there's a bottle of Veritaserum stashed somewhere if you don't believe me."

"I wouldn't steal from a teacher, Draco!"

"Merlin. Only you could make a fuss about not knowing what to believe and still put your bloody morals first when the opportunity to erase the problem is right in front of you."

His tone made Hermione wince slightly. But if he was mentioning Veritaserum out of his own accord, then surely that meant he must be telling the truth. Hermione's shoulders slumped; he must be seething at how much it had taken for her to finally accept it.

"I don't think Veritaserum will be necessary," she said.

"Good," Draco responded.

"I know you meant well, now, by… what you did at the Ball. But Godric's pants Draco you really do make life difficult for yourself."

"Fair point, but at least my plan had been working and it looked like you didn't want anything more to do with me."

Hermione frowned, "Wait. If you wanted me to hate you, then why have you been trying to find me to apologise?"

Draco smirked at the floor before he met her gaze, "Because I realised that I couldn't let you go, and I'd be damned if I didn't set about it like Salazar himself would: I had to do everything possible to set my mistakes right, and be selfish. I know… hell everybody knows I don't deserve you, as a friend or otherwise, but I like you. Okay that is definitely the last time I'm repeating that."

Hermione smiled as she slowly allowed her barriers to drop, "Well I know you wouldn't be lying about that. I mean I'm not exactly the most convenient person for you to develop feelings for."

Draco chuckled, "You've bloody got that right. But yes, all of this was the stuff I said I couldn't tell you on Christmas Eve. I was going to tell you eventually, but obviously the bet was still going then."

"Okay," Hermione nodded.

There was a pause before he spoke again. "And you like me too, right?" He gave her a cocky half-smile.

Hermione rolled her eyes playfully, "Oh, and what makes you so sure?"

Draco scoffed, "Well for starters you initiated the kiss at the Ball – your first kiss - so if you didn't feel the same then why else would you do that?"

Hermione's expression dropped too quickly for her to be able to mask it.

"What?" Draco asked.

When she didn't immediately reply, he repeated the question, but in a harsher tone.

"Hermione what's going on?"

She forced herself to look him in the eye. "Okay, a while ago, Parkinson overheard Ginny and I discussing the Ball and how I've never kissed anyone before. Then she started taunting me about how nobody would ever want to kiss me, so Ginny suggested that I, well, prove her wrong."

Draco's grey eyes flared menacingly. He shook his head and expelled a noise that was a cross between a humourless laugh and a sigh. "Well then, it looks like you're really no better than I was. And you had the nerve to say all that stuff to me."

"I'll have you know that by the time she started goading me at the Ball about it, I was actually feeling really guilty about not considering your feelings sooner. And when it came down to it, despite my reservations about our history and everything that had happened with you kissing her a few days earlier, I wanted to kiss you because I had somehow started to fall for you!"

Hermione began mindlessly ranting to him, determined not to be put onto the same level as his deceitful actions.

"What?" Draco demanded.

"You heard me! Don't you dare think about putting me on your level, Draco. What I did was unacceptable but it doesn't come close to–" Hermione's words were cut off by the feeling of Draco's mouth covering her own. She initially wanted to slap him away and continue to shout at him, but instead she got lost in the feeling and settled on channelling all of the passion and confusion she was intending to convey through her rant, through the kiss instead.

It was different than the one they shared at the Ball. This one was hot, clumsy and raw, and in hindsight, more real than the previous one. Hermione met his lips with everything she had, raking her hands roughly through his soft hair whilst he proceeded to graze her bottom lip with his teeth and effectively caging her in against the shelf by putting his arms on either side of her and putting his body weight onto them.

They were both breathing raggedly as they broke apart, but it seemed to work wonders with releasing all of the remaining angst in their systems. Draco rested his forehead against Hermione's, causing his hair to fall in front of both pairs of eyes.

"Better?" he asked.

Hermione nodded, still feeling a bit light-headed, "Much."

"I know what I did was worse than your thing, but really we could go around in circles if we go back down that road," he linked his fingers with Hermione's, "but what matters is that we both regret our actions, and both of our intentions were genuine in some form."

Hermione smiled, "We're really as bad as each other."

Draco laughed, "If you think about it, we'd never be where we are now if it wasn't for that bet."

"What was that you were saying about going around in circles if we start talking about it again?" Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"Hey, every cloud has a silver lining. That's all I'm saying."

He pulled away from her with their hands still linked and walked around to stand by her side, where he sank to the floor, which in turn, coaxed her to follow suit.

"So where do we go from here?" Hermione asked.

"How about a clean slate?"

"Sounds good," Hermione smiled. "Unless you'd want, um-."

"What?"

"Doesn't matter," Hermione said.

"Were you about to suggest that we… I don't know, put a label on this?" Draco asked, gesturing back and forth between them.

Hermione blushed, "Well it was just a thought. You know considering we've kissed twice now."

Draco clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, "I'm going to be honest. I don't know if that's a good idea."

"Why not?"

"I know we like each other, but I've never been in a proper relationship before, and knowing my track record I'll only end up hurting you again or messing up-."

"What and you think I'm the relationship Queen?" She rolled her eyes, "We're both new at this, so hey, we can mess up together."

"And it's so fast. I wouldn't want to do anything until the dust has settled. We both know Potter and Weasley will do everything they can to talk you out of it."

"And do you really think I'd let them tell me what to do?" Hermione laughed. "Once they know everything they'll start to come around…eventually."

Draco pulled a face. "Hermione don't take this the wrong way, but I wouldn't want to jump right into a commitment. Maybe we can start out small, like just meet up on weekends, just the two of us, and see how it goes from there."

"So start seeing each other in secret?"

"See it sounds bad when you say it like that. I didn't mean it like that. It's nothing against you but it's going to take me some time to get used to the idea; we aren't exactly a conventional pairing after all. If we go all gung-ho in the public eye straight away it's going to create a lot of drama, so-"

Hermione put a finger to his lips, cutting him off. "I understand. I like that idea; we'll just see how it goes. No labels or commitment yet. Deal?"

"Hmm," Draco said, sounding unsure.

"What?"

"This is going to sound like a random question, but do you still have the barrette I bought for you?"

"Er, sort of."

"What do you mean 'sort of'?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I kind of smashed it after the Ball."

Draco rolled his eyes, "So bloody violent… what the hell am I letting myself in for?"

"Hey!" Hermione smacked his arm.

"Thank you for proving my point," he smirked, "But anyway, did it still have the central crystal attached to it?"

Hermione nodded whilst frowning in confusion.

"Tell me, over the last few days, what colour has it been?"

There was a pause before she responded, "That's a tough one. Some days it's been really bright, other times the colour has been really pale and occasionally it kind of pulsed," she narrowed her eyes, "Why?"

"Was there ever a time where it was completely clear?" Draco asked.

"Not that I recall. Except the day I first saw it in the shop…wait. Draco what did you do to it?"

"Thank Merlin," he breathed. "Oh I er, may have put a charm on it."

Hermione's eyebrows shot up. "What kind of charm?"

Draco ran his free hand through his hair, "Okay given everything that we've been arguing about, this isn't going to make me look especially good, but it is linked to your emotions of sorts. If it shows up as indigo, it means you feel something for me, you know, romantically, so obviously I assume that it would turn completely clear if you moved on and felt nothing."

Hermione pulled her hand out of his grip and folded her arms. "I've never heard of a spell that can do that," she said.

Draco smirked, "Come on, Hermione. Don't underestimate me. I did charm all of those 'Potter stinks' badges after all."

"Hmph," replied Hermione.

"So are you angry? Because if you are I'd rather get it out of the way."

"That depends on what your reasons were for putting the spell on it in the first place."

"Merlin is this really happening; you're going to listen to me before trying to hex my balls off?" Draco laughed. Hermione didn't seem amused by his comment.

"Kidding," he mumbled, averting his gaze from hers and thereby missing the hint of amusement tugging at Hermione's lips. "Anyway it was purely for reference at the Ball, since you were not so subtly hinting about wearing it then. Okay this is definitely the last time I'm going to say this, but as you know I was feeling very guilty about the bet, so if the crystal was clear I'd know I could ease up a little and stop stressing."

Hermione frowned, "What colour was it at the start of the Ball?"

"An incredibly bright and vivid indigo," Draco smiled, an air of arrogance creeping into his tone.

"Why did you look so happy then if you wanted it to be clear?"

"I never said I wanted it to be clear," he corrected. "But my life sure as hell would have been easier if it was. However; the colour it turned out to be gave my ego a pretty big boost," he smirked.

Hermione thumped his arm before laughing lightly and interlinking their fingers again.

"Git," she said, almost affectionately. "So why were you asking if it had been clear over the last few days?"

"I think that's pretty obvious," Draco said as he met her gaze. "I know that if this becomes anything then I'd undoubtedly screw up at some point. I consider what happened at the Ball and the bet to be the ultimate of screw-ups, and if you still cared about me through that then I wouldn't feel quite as sceptical or guilty when I piss you off next time or as paranoid about losing or hurting you because I don't deal with those feelings well."

Hermione blushed, "Yes I gathered; you're being awfully considerate and selfless right now. It's a bit scary."

Draco laughed, "I just need to ask one more thing and then I'll be the same old pretentious arse you know so well."

"Okay."

"If we start this 'see how it goes' arrangement, promise me that if there's ever a time before we bring commitment and labels into the equation and that crystal goes clear, I want you to break things off with me no matter how much you don't want to or how fond you've grown of me," he smirked. "Because that would mean that this would all effectively end in tears, as I'll just end up pushing you too far one day. But be warned, that would be your only out. Once anything's official you're not getting away from me so easily."

Hermione smiled, "You're making me promise? That's very… fair of you."

She got the reaction she was after. Draco's face fell into a scowl.

"Don't ever call me anything that can be associated with Powder-puff House. But if you'd like we can make this Slytherin and include binding spells," he joked.

Hermione wrinkled her nose, "I think they've done enough damage to be honest."

"Couldn't agree more. So do we have a deal?"

"It's nice to see that your usual spoiled ways come into practice there: 'you're not getting away from me so easily'," she commented.

"Hey you're the one who got freaked out when I tried to be nice," Draco laughed. "Now just bloody put me out of my misery and answer the damn question."

Hermione bit her lip and sighed. "I'd hate to give Draco Malfoy what he wants but… yes we have a deal."

Before she fully thought it through, she felt herself leaning forwards and pressing her lips to his again. It was gentle and sweet, not entirely dissimilar to their first one in that sense, but in another it was entirely different. This was their first kiss on an officially clean slate, and it filled both Hermione and Draco with a wonderfully fuzzy feeling. She felt him smile against her mouth, and she expelled a light giggle. It was then that the door burst open.

"Oh Salazar's Speedos, I don't want to look at that!"

Hermione and Draco jumped apart, though their hands were still linked. Draco smirked when he saw the horrified face of Blaise and the slightly amused one of Ginny.

"Has it been half an hour already?" Hermione asked. When Blaise raised his eyebrows at her she blushed slightly, knowing very well how her question would have come across considering what he just walked in on.

It was only then that she noticed Ginny was panting slightly. "Not quite, but we had to come and get you now," she puffed. "We sent Peeves to keep Snape distracted but he ended up double-crossing us and telling him he'd been told to keep him away from the cupboard. Snape saw us lurking around and he started following us. So we need to go, like now!"

Draco scrambled to his feet and pulled Hermione up by their joined hands. When they stepped out of the cupboard the corridors were empty, so they walked away with Ginny and Blaise trying to act as natural as possible… well, as natural as a pair from Gryffindor and Slytherin house could look walking side-by-side.

"As happy as I am that you sorted this out, Malfoy, did you really have to do that?" Blaise asked.

Draco chuckled. "Hey you didn't tell us not to kiss. If I recall your only rule was that we shouldn't kill each other."

"Hmph. I suppose you want me to keep quiet about this."

"Naturally," Draco smirked.

Just then, booming footsteps began to sound, and Professor Snape was gaining on them all fast.

"Stop…right there," he drawled in a low voice.

All four of them froze and turned slowly, knowing Snape well enough to understand that even if they hadn't been the culprits of invading his storeroom, he'd somehow find away to pin the blame on them anyway.

Ginny had to bite back a laugh when she saw that the Potions master was soaking wet from head-to-toe, his long black hair sticking upwards in damp clumps at odd angles. Apparently Peeves had had his fun anyway despite ratting them out.

"Sir, you're a bit wet," Draco commented.

"Detention, Mr Malfoy. My office. Now," Snape said.

Draco bristled beside Hermione. "Detention for that?"

Snape fixed his black eyes on the blond. "Whilst I found your observation irrelevant and pointless, it is not the reason I am issuing you with a detention. I have reason to believe that you and Miss Granger entered my private stores without permission."

"What, but we weren't…" Draco began to protest but his voice trailed off when he looked back down the corridor to see that the cupboard door was still wide open. He glared sideways at Hermione, as she was the last to leave. She wasn't looking at him but appeared to have realised her error, because she was biting her cheek and blushing slightly. If his favourite teacher wasn't berating him right now, Draco might have found her embarrassment quite cute.

"You weren't… what, Mr Malfoy?" Snape raised an eyebrow.

"Nothing." Draco mumbled.

"What did you take?" Snape asked.

"Nothing," he repeated. Snape didn't seem to believe him though.

"Come with me. You too, Miss Granger," he barked, turning away. "You may go, Miss Weasley and Mr Zabini, but I will dock ten points from Slytherin and fifty from Gryffindor for your little... distraction."

He started walking off. Hermione and Draco had no choice but to follow.

"Unfair!" Ginny stamped her foot and put her hands on her hips. Blaise laughed beside her.

"You're bloody lucky he didn't hear that otherwise he would have taken more away from you."

A long hour was spent in Snape's office as Hermione and Draco tried to pass off that their time in the storeroom had been against their own will –which technically wasn't a lie – and so they hadn't entered with the intention of stealing anything, a crime, which Hermione learnt, Snape was convinced Harry was behind.

Their story was at the expense of her embarrassment as the Professor found reason to question her true magical abilities due to the door being locked with what he could only imagine were basic charms that she evidently could not break.

After several thorough searches of rampant Accio-ing and threats of Veritaserum, he had no more basis for incriminating them of theft, but that didn't mean that he still couldn't punish them for being there in the first place, against their will or not. Suffice it to say, points were taken at a 5:1 ratio again in favour of the Slytherins, and they didn't get off as lightly as Ginny and Blaise had done.

Once Snape finally let them go, he called Draco back at the last second. He groaned and rolled his eyes before skulking back into the room, nodding his goodbye to a rather amused Hermione as he did so.

"Sir?" Draco asked wearily as he approached Snape's desk.

"Tell me Mr Malfoy, what was the purpose of that little show you and Miss Granger put on a little while ago?"

Draco was taken aback. "Is the reason of any importance?"

"None other than to humour a bitter old man," Snape drawled. "Minerva and I were quite astounded by it all, considering that you and Miss Granger don't exactly have a pleasant history regardless of whether you attended the Ball together, which in itself was the prominent talking point amongst the staff."

Draco scowled slightly, "Do you lot not have anything better to talk about?"

"On the contrary the whole thing is rather unconventional. In fact the headmaster wass rather an avid supporter of the pair of you being a couple at the Ball," Snape said.

Draco refused to give him the satisfaction of the truth, but he knew that if he didn't say anything then he wasn't getting away from this office easily.

"You heard what I said to her," Draco said evenly.

"Ah but it still remains a mystery as to whether you spoke the truth."

"You didn't see us hexing and insulting one another once over the past hour," Draco replied, doing whatever he could not to answer directly. He still didn't know why Snape was so interested.

Snape rolled his eyes. "Why are children so difficult?" With a sigh he dismissed a rather bemused Draco, who was once again stopped just before he could cross the threshold.

"What now?" he growled.

Snape smirked slightly, "Mr Malfoy, I will let you go once you assure me that what I'm about to say never leaves this office. If it does then I can promise you that I shan't be so lenient on Slytherin house in the future."

All Draco wanted was to get out of there so he nodded.

"I may be still unaware of your intentions behind your little speech, but as long as you aren't denying the truth behind it then I can assume you are serious about Miss Granger, however laughable that is. But if you are, then make sure you do not screw it up." The words were delivered slowly. Purposefully.

Draco frowned. "Professor-?"

"You are dismissed," Snape turned away from him and set to drying his hair with a hot-air charm and tossing his head once to manipulate it to fall back into its natural position. He was evidently too lazy to use his hands for such a task.

"What the hell?" Draco muttered to himself as he finally left the office.

Ginny practically tackled Hermione when she entered her dormitory.

"Tell me all of the juicy details!" The younger witch demanded.

"What?" Hermione flushed and averted her gaze "No."

"Why not?" Ginny pouted, "As if it isn't obvious that your two are-."

Hermione threw a hand over her mouth to stop her from saying anything else. The room was otherwise empty but still Hermione thought it was necessary.

"I know what you saw," Hermione said, "but we want to keep this on the down-low. Nothing's official… not yet."

Ginny's eyes widened and she nodded in understanding. It was only then that Hermione released her.

"So technically you are… dating," she whispered the last word, "but you aren't official boyfriend-girlfriend yet?"

"Yes," Hermione nodded.

Ginny squealed excitedly and Hermione couldn't help but start grinning madly, despite her friend's deafening pitch.

"Are you sure you can keep this quiet?" Hermione laughed.

"Totally!" Ginny waved a hand nonchalantly. She paused. "Well I'll try."

"I suppose that's as good as it's going to get," Hermione smiled.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The girls looked towards the window and saw a vaguely recognisable eagle owl sat at the window with a note in its beak.

"Ooooh I wonder who that's from," Ginny waggled her eyebrows.

Hermione rolled her eyes as she let the owl in, received her note, paid it and sent it on its way again (it's not like it could get back to its owner, considering it would have to swim through a lake to do so). She had a niggling feeling that Ginny's excitement on the matter wasn't going to die down quickly, but she was too happy to care at the moment.

She was too happy to even care when Ginny began reading over her shoulder.

'Hermione,

Finally escaped Snape's office, I swear that man is going senile. You have no idea how relieved I am that we sorted things out. It's New Years Eve tomorrow; I was thinking it'd be a good time to get things going.

Meet me at our spot at the Lake at nine pm. Try not to bring Weaslette with you –"

"Aww," Ginny pouted again.

"- And if you can use that infuriatingly good brain of yours to find a way to keep us hidden then that would be useful-"

"So in other words, he can't be bothered to do that himself," Hermione said. "I need to think of a good excuse to borrow Harry's cloak. Using that with a Disillusionment charm might work."

"-Draco.

P.S – Don't forget what you promised me."

Hermione smiled as she finished reading and headed to her dresser where the broken fragments of her barrette now lay. Ignoring Ginny's desperate pleas to hear about this promise she quickly repaired it with her wand.

Her smile grew wider as she looked down at the accessory, a bright and vibrant tone of rich indigo shining back at her from the centre of it.

Hermione didn't know how, but she just knew that the colour wouldn't be fading any time soon.

And that's exactly what she told him the next evening, right before midnight. Just afterwards, they shared a single chaste kiss as 1994 became 1995. It was well and truly a new start for them, and neither of them could be happier.

To be continued…

A/N: Thank you for reading! May the last wait for an update of this story commence :)