Edit: Come now, darlings. This next bit is pure information. Nobody's been hostile. :)

All right, due to popular speculation, I think I'll post a brief explanation of how I see Hermione and why she is not "smart" enough to "just know" how Draco is feeling. :) This is not really a debate or a defense, just an explanation of the character as I see her. You can take it or leave it. I do encourage that everyone has their own interpretation, but this is what I have so far based the story on in regards to her.

First off, we're dealing with a very short in-story timespan at this point. It has only been 25 days since she lost the bet. In that time Draco has disparaged her, starved her and repeatedly publicly humiliated her. Some of you might remember calling him irredeemably evil. A few days of him holding back the abuse won't make her think that he's suddenly a good guy. If she did, then she would be a doormat, and we don't want that. At least I don't.

Second off, Draco has done very little to show his feelings to HER. In fact, he's been rather defensive and has actively been pushing her away whenever she came too close to the truth. He's unwilling to allow her the power of knowing what effect she has on him. And Hermione is smart, yes, but she is not all-knowing or reads minds. All she sees is that he's acting irrationally and being moody.

And finally... even should she know that he's attracted to her... then what? You just expect her to go "zomg Draco is so HAWT and he wants lil' ol' me?" You should know this isn't the story for that. ;) She would most likely be freaked out and/or in denial because let's face it... Draco fancying her? That's weird and plain unnatural -- at least where she's coming from. And let's not forget that she's much more interested in Theo, even if he's been keeping a low profile lately.


For a few moments Hermione just stood sputtering. She was the bitch? Wasn't Zabini forgetting some really important details here? "You obviously have no clue what you're talking about!" she finally managed to get out past her ire.

"Right now I think you are the one who is clueless, little girl," he sneered, coming closer to her. "Was that really necessary?"

Hermione's eyes flickered a bit in confusion. "You didn't even see what happened!"

"I saw his face and the mark you must have dealt him – it doesn't matter what he did, you had to fucking hit him? Hit him? He didn't hurt you! He wouldn't."

"You don't even know what he did!" she yelled in frustration. Malfoy wouldn't hurt her? That was a laugh! He hadn't done anything but hurt her since she lost that damned bet.

"Then enlighten me. What did he do that was so horrible that you couldn't have resolved it more peacefully?"

Zabini was Malfoy's friend. Of course he was going to take his side. "It's none of your business," she growled.

"Then let me guess. Was it the part where he let go of his need for revenge and let you do pretty much what you please? Or the part where he protected you from his own house? Or maybe it's simply the part where he dares to want to be around you? I know it must be horrible to have someone as loyal as Draco fancy you."

Fancy? What the hell was he on about? Draco didn't fancy anything but her perceived sluttish behavior. He seemed to think that the fact that a few people had kissed her meant she would go for anything with anyone. "Yes, he's very good at protecting me," she coldly said. "He dragged me outside and nearly got me killed! Quite the champion, that one. He wouldn't even take responsibility for it!"

Zabini snarled, and for a second Hermione actually considered if she should be making a run for it. "You are supposed to be the brightest witch in our year?" he spat. "I have to say, you're remarkably stupid. You never wondered why you didn't feel a thing? Why your bleeding was so easily controlled?"

"I-I was lucky," she weakly said. "I was in shock and the wound wasn't that—"

"I was the one who had to almost carry Draco back to his bed! He was in great pain, bleeding all over the place, and could barely keep conscious long enough to get there! He had taken your pain and your bloody wound, and now he has to live with a scar that should have been on your body. He then ruined all his own Quidditch aspirations by having the culprit reported. Don't tell me he didn't take responsibility! If it hadn't been for Theo, he would even still be running around with that bloody injury!"

Hermione had been about to scoff at everything Blaise had said until he brought up Theo's name. "Theo knows about this supposed feat?" she asked in confusion.

"It's hard to keep anything from Theo," he growled. "He is actually clever. He figured it out right away."

She shook her head. "I don't believe you. You're lying. Malfoy would never do a thing like that, and if he did, he would make sure everyone knew about it."

"Why?" Zabini asked, contempt evident in his voice and face. "So people could mock him for taking the hit for a damn Mudblood, while you still slapped his face when he tried to kiss you – even knowing that he would do something like that for you?"

Her head snapped up and her cheeks heated. "I didn't tell you he tried to kiss me."

Blaise snorted. "Please. Don't assume I'm as clueless as you. Of course he did."

"So I'm not allowed to reject him? Is that it? Should I be grateful that he's willing to torture me and treat me like a whore?"

Blaise shook his head in disbelief. "There's no talking to you, is there? Personally, I'm looking forward to the day he gets over you, and I'm sure that this vastly helped that end. But next time? Try maybe not being so cruel to someone who's not doing anything but showing a bit of interest in you. Has it never occurred to you that just maybe he didn't have any ulterior motives? That maybe if you had let him down gently, he would have respected that? That maybe he's broken enough without you screwing him up further?"

Hermione gaped. She wasn't the unreasonable one, he was! Even disregarding how cruel Draco had been to her these past weeks, he quite often taunted her with how she was kissing the entire school, and if he didn't directly name what he perceived her to be, he certainly made enough hints at it. He had just thought she'd be easy. She hadn't hurt his feelings; she had only bruised his ego at the most.

The only place where Zabini had a point was that she shouldn't have slapped Draco. It really had been overreacting. She had just been so shocked and had reacted instinctively – and wrongly – to the threat. For that, she supposed she had better apologize the next day. As for Zabini… well, it didn't seem like they would ever agree, so she just turned her back on him and walked back up to the Gryffindor Tower.


Being done with Hermione was easier said than done when he had to be around her all the time. The humiliation still burned brightly inside of him, but Draco did his best to hide it. It was better if she thought he didn't care. It was much better if she thought it had just been spur of the moment and not something he'd wanted to do for more than a week. Wouldn't that be height of humiliation, to let her know how much he had wanted it? No, it was better this way.

Still, he couldn't quite seem to act normally. He couldn't focus on doing homework, so he didn't. After classes the next day, he had just brought her to his room, and was now actively ignoring that she was lounging on his bed, while he was doing nothing but playing with an old toy of his.

He couldn't look at her without reliving yesterday. His mind taunted him with all the reasons he should have known she would turn him down, all the things she had said and done that very day that should have been a clue. And then it taunted him with the memory of her soft lips followed by a stinging slap.

The thing that made him really pathetic in his own opinion was that he allowed that memory to replay because he had liked the first bit. Even if it had only lasted for the briefest of seconds.

"Malfoy?" she hesitantly said.

Great. Now she wanted to talk. He would have to respond or she'd really find it odd. "Mm," he grunted.

"I, uh, I'm sorry."

About what? He'd be damned if he knew what she was talking about. "Good for you."

"No, I mean… I-I shouldn't have slapped you yesterday. It was too much. Sorry."

He stiffened. He did not want to go there. He would prefer that it hadn't happened at all as far as she was concerned. "Yeah. Whatever," he muttered.

"Is that all?" she asked, sounding distressed.

He frowned, still not turning around. What did she expect? She'd bloody hurt him, ruined his fantasy, and now she expected 'sorry' to be enough? "I'd already forgotten about it," he lied. "You do the same."

Hermione narrowed her eyes at Draco's back. He was obviously lying. For one thing, she didn't think he was prone to having sudden inexplicable memory losses, and for another, he wasn't acting himself today. He was being a whole other flavor of moody. "It was the surprise," she tried explaining. "I reacted instinctively."

"I told you to bloody forget it!" he snapped. "It's not something that I care to remember in detail."

Her cheeks colored slightly. Of course he didn't want to be reminded. She had just wanted him to understand that she knew she had been overreacting. "Sorry," she mumbled again.

He didn't respond but simply continued watching his… what?

"What are those things?" she asked, sitting up straight and trying to get a better look at them over his shoulder. They looked like two animated miniature wizards.

"Toys," was all he said.

"What do they do?"

"Duel."

He was certainly talkative today. She stood up and moved closer to him to get a better look. The small wizards did indeed seem to be taking turns in casting spells at each other. Some were deflected and some hit home with rather humorous results. Malfoy wasn't smiling.

"So… you just sit and watch them?" she prodded. "That won't generally keep children's interest for long."

He glowered at her. "You can instruct them."

"Oh." He was obviously still very sore at her. "What spells do they know?"

He looked rather irritated with her. "Common spells, no Unforgivables, and nothing advanced."

"Dare I ask why you're still bringing toys to Hogwarts?" she poked, knowing she was asking for it.

"Apparently you do," he coolly replied. "It was one of the few things my mother thought to take from my room before she fled. I didn't even have a chance to go home. You know this."

Hermione swallowed. 'Maybe he's broken enough without you screwing him up further!' Most of the time she really did forget how much he'd had to go through. "I'm sorry," she quietly said.

"I think we established that," he coldly answered.

"No, I mean for what you had to go through."

"That, Granger, had nothing to do with you, so I don't see why you bother being sorry."

"It's called compassion," she retorted, "maybe you should try it sometime."

Now he laughed. It wasn't a pleasant sound. "You don't know real compassion, Granger. You're just paying lip service, saying what you think is required of you. Don't worry, I neither need nor want your pity. My family has been reaping enough benefits to warrant ten times these… temporary setbacks."

She ground her teeth together and stayed quiet. He really wasn't making it easy to try and be civil.

"Aren't you supposed to be up in the office smooching Theo today?" he suddenly asked. "Or is this some scheme to make it seem like I'm keeping you from him again? Really, do feel free to go."

"He canceled," she bit off, extremely annoyed that he was accusing her of scheming. "He said he had a lot of studying and we could catch up when I stopped wearing the bracelet in a few days' time."

"Canceled, huh?" Draco snidely said. "Suppose he might be losing interest yet? After all, you are fast becoming used goods."

"Find a new song to sing, Malfoy."

"But I like this tune."

She narrowed her eyes again. He obviously didn't want to be pleasant, so maybe it was time to change her tactics. "So I talked to Theo today…" she began.

"I gathered that, what with Theo deciding you aren't all that important and all."

Hermione ignored him. "And he told me some very interesting things, backing up Zabini's story."

"You talked to Blaise?" Draco looked genuinely confused.

"He didn't tell you? He told me a very interesting story yesterday – about how you took my wound and all."

There was a brief silence. "Zabini talks too much," Draco finally muttered.

"Imagine my surprise," she archly said. "Especially when Theo had something similar to say."

He didn't respond but just kept staring at his toys.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she prodded.

He shrugged. "You didn't need to know. It had nothing to do with you, no matter what Blaise or anybody else thinks."

That was vague. "So instead you lie to me? That's strange, even for you."

"I didn't lie, I never said, 'Oh, by the way, I haven't taken any excruciating pain from you today.'"

"No, but you said you didn't report the boy who sent the Bludger at me."

"I didn't."

"You sent Zabini to do it!"

"Right, so he did it."

He seemed to be deliberately playing obtuse. She rolled her eyes. "Is it true you have a scar?" she asked.

"What's it to you?"

"Can I see it?"

"No."

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked again.

"I told you already."

"I didn't buy it."

"What good would it have done? Would you have been less of a bitch to me?"

She flushed a little. "Maybe."

He glanced at her and snorted. "Maybe you would have felt more obligated yesterday, is that it? You would have tolerated a caress that you clearly found offensive out of some sense of gratitude? No, thank you. I think I preferred the slap. At least that was honest."

Draco honestly didn't know what was worst – that she had slapped him yesterday, or that she had found out about him taking the wound and then apologized for doing it. This was a very good reason why she should never have found out. It made her feel obligated to him in a way he didn't want. Yesterday he'd been insane enough to try and kiss her even though he hadn't thought she particularly wanted it, but at least there had been hope that she would have liked it. Now she probably felt she owed it to him to tolerate it if he tried again. The thought made him sick and it made that pain in his chest grow again until he wasn't sure he could bear being in the same room with her anymore.

"I told you, I didn't mean to slap you!" she insisted.

"And now I know why you told me that."

She crossed her arms, looking as if she would like to thump him hard on the head. "Did you lie about the note too?"

"What note?"

She sighed impatiently. "The one that found its way to my friends after Crabbe put me in the hospital wing."

He gave her an odd, weary look. "I'm surprised you didn't figure that one out yet."

"So it was you?"

"No."

"Then who?"

"Who knows everything that's going on and apparently can't keep his mouth shut when questioned by annoying Muggleborn witches?"

"What, Theo? You think it was Theo? I'm not sure…"

"Why don't you go ask him? His room is just two doors down." Yes, why didn't he just send her directly into the arms of Theo? Perfect, just perfect.

Her eyes widened. "I can't do that!"

"Ask him? Why not? You don't seem to have problems asking questions. Especially ones people don't want to answer."

"I can't go to his room."

"Why not?" He was genuinely curious.

"Going to his room is so personal!"

"You're in my room almost every day!"

"That's different, you make me come here and… it's just different."

He rolled his eyes. "Fine, don't ask him." His expression belied the feeling of relief inside of him. It was a stupid feeling, seeing as it didn't make one whit of difference, but he had a lot of stupid feelings lately, so he supposed it fit.

"I can ask him tomorrow."

"Yeah, whatever. I don't actually care."

He decided that talking to her was very taxing and he was done for today, so he dismissed her. After she was gone, he sat, unmoving, staring at his toy wizards for hours, wishing that he really didn't care.


Draco and Hermione get along so beautifully, don't you think?

"I could promise to not have any fun?" she tried.

"Seems to me that you can't help having 'fun' all the time."

"I'm not having any fun now."

His lip quirked slightly. "That's the point."

She narrowed her eyes. "I could, you know. Why would I care if you were around?"

"Good luck getting someone to snog you between here and my room."

He shouldn't have said that. He knew it as soon as the words had left his mouth. He really shouldn't have said that. Hermione's eyes narrowed and she purposefully began scanning for prospects.