AN1: Hi again. Please review!

Dedicated to: Thanks for the 420th review, reimihara21!!

Disclaimer: OMGWTF! Stop asking if I own Harry Potter. My answer hasn't changed from the beginning of the story.

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Hermione was partners with Eloise Midgen for a Herbology project. Eloise wasn't the most intelligent or the most studious worker, but that was okay. It was better than her being with Harry and Ron whom she knew would make her do all the work. Well they wouldn't make her do it, per se, but they expected her to; and even if they didn't she wouldn't have trusted them with her grade anyway.

There were almost no Slytherin 7th years left in the school, for most of them had parents who were in the dark lord's inner circle, and they were removed from the school. The only exception to that was Draco Malfoy. Since Lucius' had been long gone, Narcissa and Draco openly declared and admitted allegiance to the light side. So because of the lack of Slytherin 7th years, all houses had N.E.W.T level Herbology together.

Outside the classroom, Hermione saw Draco talking with some of his new, non-Slytherin friends. She glanced at him and her heart fluttered wildly in her chest. Eloise stared at him in a manner that almost seemed...predatory; like she was determined to have him. Hermione internally winced. She didn't think that she herself had much of a chance with Draco, but she knew for a fact that Eloise had less of a chance than she did. During random times, whenever Eloise ran into Draco in the corridors, she'd go up to him and fawn over his hair. That was something Draco didn't like and found extremely annoying. Hermione was two-thirds of the time a bystander when this happened and she could see the look on his face. He always looked wary whenever he saw her approach and vaguely disturbed when she would play with his hair. And you could just tell that he didn't like people messing with his hair.

It was now a long standing joke between Draco and Hermione, whenever she saw Eloise play with his hair, Hermione would go on Draco's other side and do the same thing. He always gave her this look saying: 'You know I don't like this, so why must you do this to me?' And every time, Hermione would respond with a smile as if to say: 'Who, me?' She loved having nonverbal conversations with him, it always made her day.

Today seemed no different than any other day. Eloise walked up to Draco and shamelessly started flirting with him. He didn't look interested at all; instead of paying attention to the rather pathetic and one-sided flirt fest, Hermione glanced at Draco's hair. As usual it was straight, platinum and flawless, everything that Hermione's wasn't. During her brief scrutiny of Draco's hair, a small gnat flew into it. On instinct, Hermione walked up to him and gently brushed the gnat out of the fringe that hung so casually elegant in his eyes.

Hermione's cheeks reddened when she caught herself tenderly fussing with his hair. Her hand slowly made its way back to her side. Halfway there, Draco took her hand in his. She looked up at him in surprise only to find his gaze boring into hers. At that moment, it was as if the world around them disappeared, simply melted into oblivion. Hermione flushed even more and she looked down at her shoes. He took the hand that wasn't grasping hers and used it to tilt her chin up so that they were making eye contact again. Draco leaned forward and kissed Hermione sweetly on the lips. After watching that scene, Eloise stomped off, her steps echoing down the hallway. She didn't express her feelings verbally, but you could tell by the angry clomping of footsteps that she didn't find that exchange between Draco and Hermione fair at all.

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AN2: See the purple button? Ok good. Now go click it and type nice words in the box!

lovelove, Amanda