Chapter 3
An Unexpected Encounter

Disclaimer: I do not own or have credit to the creation of all the characters, events, places and significant objects of Harry Potter. Harry Potter is the property of J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. Entertainment respectively. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only. Some quotes are derived from the books and film and will be stated so beforehand or after.

Author's Notes: Slight graphic sexual scenes. The confection mentioned in this story is completely fictional and does not belong to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I created it just for this story.

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"You're going too far with this, Ronald!"

"What do you mean too far?"

"You and Lavender barely know each other, and you're already dating—

"You're just jealous of Lavender, aren't you?"

"I am not jealous!"

"What is it then?"

"Lavender's using you, Ron! She's only interested in you because you won your first match in Quidditch."

"She saw my remarkable talent in Quidditch—

"You were simply under the influence of Liquid Luck!"

"I played and won that game by my talents! Don't you fucking dare say it's that potion's doing!"

Ron shot up from his chair and stormed out of the Great Hall, garnering a couple of stares from other students. Hermione dropped her head onto the table with a loud thud and let out a frustrated grunt. Harry, having witnessed the most heated argument between his two best friends as of yet, tried to think of a way to ease the situation – starting from the brunette sitting across from him.

He hesitantly called out her name, "H-Hermione?"

"What?!" Hermione snapped and lifted her head, narrowing her eyes which were brimmed with angry tears.

Harry gulped nervously and tried to explain as clearly as possible.

"Ron didn't take any Liquid Luck before the game," he said.

Hermione's brows furrowed together in confusion. She straightened her back slowly as she focused her attention on her best friend.

"What? What are you talking about?" she asked. "I saw you put the potion in his drink the other day."

Shaking his head, Harry bore a sympathetic look on his face as he took out a full vial of untouched Felix Felicis.

"I didn't put anything in Ron's pumpkin juice that day," Harry clarified.

She leaned forward, propping her elbows on the edge of the table, as the gears in her brain processed the new information from Harry, her eyes boring straight into the green ones of the raven-haired boy in front of her.

"So you're saying that Ron simply drank plain old pumpkin juice before the game?"

Harry nodded, "Yeah. I just pretended to put it in his drink so that he wouldn't be nervous for the match."

Hermione then realized that she was wrong, for once in her life. Ron had won simply by talent and no luck potion was involved.

"But that doesn't mean he can prance around with that pompous attitude!" Hermione huffed angrily.

"Yeah, I know. I didn't expect it to have this sort of effect anyway," Harry admitted, running his hand through his hair before glancing to his right a couple of times.

Finding his behaviour rather suspicious, Hermione followed his gaze and found that he was looking in the direction of a Ginny Weasley, who was giggling with a Dean Thomas. Bringing her gaze back at Harry, Hermione put two and two together when Harry fidgeted uncomfortably and his fingers kept curling into a fist.

"Well," Hermione suddenly said, standing up from the table and slamming her thick books against the table loudly, causing Harry to jump. "I guess we'll just have to see what happens then. I'm off to first period. Catch you later, Harry."

Harry blinked confusedly when Hermione gave him a cheeky wink, until a couple seconds later he realized his best friend had figured out everything right under his nose. It was no surprise – she was, after all, Hermione 'Brightest Witch of Her Age' Granger.

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Four in the afternoon, the sun was slowly making its way down towards the horizon, seemingly to take rest atop the trees of the Forbidden Forest. Its bright rays of sunlight filtered through the windows of the castle walls, bringing light into the dim medieval interior.

The orange light reflected onto the grey stone floor of the corridors as Hermione walked leisurely from the library. It was a rather splendid afternoon for the Gryffindor. She had a productive time, researching for her Potions assignment and she managed to finish two other essays as well. She was almost joyous - almost, because of the heated squabble in the morning with her so-called best friend, which she still couldn't get rid of in her mind.

As she was lugging her research tomes in her book bag, she heard a giggle – a very familiar and annoying giggle – from the other end of the corridor. She clearly knew who it belonged to – it was engraved in her mind horrifyingly, more so than the sounds of Dementors. The rational part of her mind was telling her not to go and bother about the particular fellow housemate and whatever it was she was giggling about.

Another high-pitched giggle echoed down the empty corridor in front of the brunette, even louder and gut-wrenching. Before she knew it, her feet had taken flight on its own and she was walking forward towards the source of the sound, throwing all rationales out the window.

She suddenly stopped in her tracks when her eyes laid upon one of the most mortifying sights she had ever laid eyes upon. She wished she hadn't walked down the corridor and she now understood the meaning of 'curiosity killed the cat'. She was the cat, metaphorically, and her curiosity was the death of her.

Standing in the middle of the corridor, Hermione stayed frozen as her eyes locked onto the two Gryffindors – one who was her best friend, supposedly. She watched as Ron and his new girlfriend, Lavender, pressed their bodies against each other with their mouths interlocked in a passionate French snog.

Hermione's eyes followed Ron's hand as it travelled up Lavender's thigh and under her skirt, curling his fingers around her bum cheek. Lavender had her arms around Ron's neck, running her fingers through his messy red hair as she rolled her hips and rubbed her pelvis against his.

She's humping him, in broad daylight?!

Hermione's jaw would've dropped to the floor if she weren't feeling the vortex of emotions she was experiencing right then and there. She felt angry, sad, bewildered, pain – she was in utter disbelief and ultimately hurt by what she was looking at.

Her chest felt like an inferno inside and her eyes were brimming with stinging tears. When she couldn't take it anymore, she fled from the corridor, towards the nearest archway and out onto the castle grounds.

Letting her tears fall, she ran until she was out of breath, stopping by the shore beside the Black Lake. She supported herself against a yew tree before falling onto her knees and sobbing heavily into her hands.

The solitude helped her let out all the pent up feelings of anger and fury in her chest for Merlin-knows-how-long. Her shoulders shook as she wailed softly, banging her fist against the rough bark of the tree. Eventually she stopped sobbing, but her tears continued to fall freely as she gathered her knees in her arms and looked out at the large still lake in front of her.

She heard the rustling of the grass on her right but she didn't bother looking up, until she heard a rather snarky voice.

"Well, well, look who do we have here? Finally realized how filthy your blood is, Granger?"

Draco Malfoy was standing to her right, leaning against another yew tree with his hands deep in his robe pockets and bearing the infamous Malfoy sneer. Realizing its Malfoy, she looked away and quickly wiped her tear-stained cheeks with the back of her hand.

"Sod off, Malfoy," Hermione grumbled.

"My, my, still don't know your place, Mudblood?" he continued.

"I said, sod off!" Hermione snapped at him, glaring at him.

"What got the little filthy know-it-all reduced to disgusting little tears? Did Pothead decide to ditch you? Or is it Weaselbee?" he said in a mocking tone.

Hermione was about to hex the Slytherin when suddenly they heard a giggle – an all-too-familiar giggle to the Gryffindor. Malfoy turned around and there was Lavender Brown bounding down the open corridor with Ron Weasley in tow.

Knowing that now Malfoy knew the reason why she was in that state, Hermione further buried her face in her sleeves, hiding her entire face from the world and willing herself to just magically disappear at that moment. There must be a spell of some sort that she had read before.

"Oh, so the Weasel found another girl to play with and dumped you for her," Malfoy snickered.

"Go away," Hermione's voice was muffled by her robes. "It's none of your business."

She could hear his feet moving against the grass, coming closer towards her.

"Yeah, it's none of my business, but to see the Mudblood being trampled by somebody other than me is rather unsettling," he said with an air of haughtiness.

Finally, having had enough of his nonsense, Hermione whipped her head towards him and glared up at Malfoy, angry tears still welling up in her eyes. He simply walked right up to her and bent down so they were eye to eye. Hermione continued shooting daggers with her eyes but he didn't falter a single bit.

"But honestly though, Granger," he continued, pulling the corner of his mouth into a smirk that Hermione has never seen him wear. "What's the point of shedding those filthy tears for somebody like Weaselbee?"

As Hermione tried to process what he just said to her, Malfoy stood up and idly walked away from her.

Did he just...? Hermione was flabbergasted and thrown aback at what he had just said, at how civil Malfoy had been with her, even though he picked on her initially but it didn't end up in a nasty fight like it always does.

She heard something drop onto the patch of grass beside her and she looked down to see a couple pieces of candies, picking them up with her hand. Looking at the confection, Hermione's eyes widened as she turned around to look at Malfoy, who was walking back into the castle and waving his hand in the air without turning back.

Did he just... What in the world is going on? Hermione wondered as she looked down into her palm at the Honeydukes' candies that Malfoy had left for her: Cheer-up Caramel Drops.

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Hermione had spent the last ten minutes casting spells on the confection, trying to detect for any poison or dark magic curses as she walked towards the Great Hall for dinner. So far, the sweets were perfectly normal, but Hermione wouldn't fall for it.

Why would Draco sodding Malfoy intentionally drop a couple of Cheer-up Caramel Drops by her side ten minutes ago? Maybe it wasn't intentional. Maybe he just accidentally dropped it.

But then why would he be carrying around Cheer-up Caramel Drops? It's not like he needs cheering up! Hermione thought in frustration.

Hermione knew it was no coincidence that he dropped these magical confections beside her – she knew it was intentional. As she turned around the corner towards the doors of the Great Hall, she stuffed the innocent-looking sweets into her robe pockets and joined Harry at the table.

"Where have you been, Hermione? I've been looking everywhere for you," Harry asked, looking worriedly.

The brunette gulped nervously, flashes of mental images of what she had seen earlier today in the deserted corridor prodding her feeble mind but she quickly shook those thoughts and emotions away as best as she could.

"The library," she lied, which wasn't technically a lie because she had been to the library before the disastrous incident happened.

Harry started digging into his food while intensely reading his Advanced Potions-making textbook. Hermione wondered what was so interesting about the potions textbook but decided not to question the raven-haired boy who was so immersed in his book.

As she started taking bites of her mashed potatoes, her eyes wandered around the Great Hall when she suddenly noticed a pair of striking grey eyes watching her. It was Malfoy, sitting all the way at the end at the Slytherin table.

He looked away momentarily, talking to his housemates before glancing back at her. Hermione watched the side of his mouth lift into a sneer as he popped a candy into his mouth. Her eyes widened as she realized he was eating the same caramel drop he had left for her earlier.

The Gryffindor looked away and continued eating her dinner, her hand reaching into her pocket and bringing the confection out on the table.

So he does carry sweets around, but why did he give me these ones earlier? Hermione wondered, nibbling on a piece of turkey breast.

This was so strange. Hermione couldn't think of any other theories for his weirdly civil behaviour earlier in the afternoon. If it was intentional, it almost seemed like Draco wanted her to feel better.

But that's just impossible... right?

There's no way in hell Malfoy would have wanted her to feel better. This was so ridiculous. Hermione mentally scolded herself for thinking up ludicrous reasons as she stabbed the mash with her spoon.

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*Cheer-up Caramel Drops: a sweet caramel confection that has magical properties to induce euphoria similar to chocolate