The next morning Hermione, Ron and Harry were sitting eating breakfast in the great hall, waiting for McGonagall to hand out their new timetables, with Hermione staring sullenly into her bowl of porridge.
"You're awfully quiet Hermione." Harry looked at her thoughtfully whilst Ron kept shovelling eggs into his mouth. "Did something happen this morning? Did Malfoy try something?" He finished with a growl.
"No, no, I am fine." Hermione quickly went to reassure him. "Just worried about our schedules is all."
Harry narrowed his eyes at her, obviously unconvinced. "Well, the common room just isn't the same without you. You better still hang out with us this year!"
"Yeah!" Ron paused to look at her. "And when will we be seeing your common room? We could have some killer parties there if we got the ferret out of the way." He wiggled his eyes at her.
Hermione laughed. "We certainly will not be having parties, honestly as if we would even have the time this year."
"Well, we better be able to hang out with you there! Besides this is our last year, I know we will have to study hard, but we have to have some fun too." Harry grinned mischievously at Ron. "What is your common room like anyway?"
Hermione shrugged. "Pretty similar to Gryffindor really. Although having my own room is pretty great. No more listening to silly gossip and rumours when I want to sleep."
The three were interrupted with McGonagall clearing her throat right next to them.
"Here are your class schedules." She passed them all three pieces of paper whilst staring at them over her glasses. "I expect all Gryffindors to be on time on their first day." With that she abruptly walked off to the next group of Gryffindors.
"We better go." Harry looked at the other two meaningfully. "No use getting on McGonagalls bad side on our first day." He looked down at his schedule. "I have double Potions first class, how about you guys?"
When the other two nodded back at him, the three got up and headed towards Slughorn's classroom, comparing their schedules on the way down.
The classes were every bit as full on as Hermione had imagined. Between her Ancient Runes homework to decipher old documents, the essay Slughorn had assigned them (10 pages of parchment!) and the mountain of homework Snape assigned the class every lesson, Hermione was surprised she even found the time to eat. She spent so much time in the library finishing her school work she was pleasantly surprised to find that she didn't see Malfoy nearly as much as she expected. Other than hurling the odd insults at each other in passing and the few patrols they were rostered on together for they seemed to stay out of each other's way. That is, until one particular evening where Hermione walked into their common room to find Draco tearing out his hair at one of Slughorn's latest essays.
"Ha!" She exclaimed cheerfully. "You're still working on that? I was finished 3 days ago, and I know it's due tomorrow. You're screwed!"
"Oh bite me Granger!" Draco shot back. "Oh wait actually don't, I might catch something."
Hermione scoffed and walked across the room to pick up her ancient runes text book and plonked herself on the couch. To her dismay she couldn't concentrate due to the sounds of Draco rapidly flipping through page after page in his textbook. She sighed and looked up at him grumpily. "Seriously, just take the one fail for this essay. It will barely drop your grade at all."
"Failing for me is never an option." Draco muttered, barely loud enough for her to hear.
Surprised at this admission, Hermione looked at him a bit closer, and to surprise her even more, she realised that he looked exhausted. He had massive bags under his silver eyes, which were as bloodshot as she had ever seen them. She couldn't help herself from feeling a sudden amount of sympathy for the exhausted boy she saw in front of her. To be honest, she thought to herself, he hadn't really done anything to hurt her in their first two weeks. She let out a huge sigh when she realised what she was about to do.
"Malfoy…" she trailed off as she saw him shoot her a glare before powering on. "You won't find what you are looking for in that text book."
"Excuse me?" He stared back at her in disbelief.
"You won't find what you are looking for there." She repeated slowly, as if she was talking to a dense person. She walked over to her book bag and picked out a book. "Try this one, I'd start with the Syrup of Hellebore, I think that's what you would probably be missing if you are stuck on what ingredient could be substituted for both potions." She hand the book to him, but he didn't take it, he just stared at her in complete disbelief. "Well Malfoy, are you going to take it or not?"
Draco slowly reached and took the book out of her hand. "Why are you helping me?"
"I don't really know, actually," Hermione told him truthfully. "But to be honest you look as though you need the help, maybe just consider this a peace offering? This year will be difficult enough without us biting each other's heads off at every turn."
When he continued to stare at her like she was a mad person, she continued. "The words you are looking for are thank you, by the way. Well, 'night then."
She smiled at him tentatively and then turned and picked up her ancient runes textbook and started walking to her room. When she was halfway up the stairs she swore that she could have heard a boy speak the words 'thank you'.
"Alright everyone, hand in your parchment." Professor Slughorn addressed the class the next day. Hermione reached into her bag to pull out her essay and as she reached to pass it to the front of the class, she made eye contact with Draco across the room, who looked away as quickly as it happened. Frowning to herself, she turned to Ron and Harry.
"How do you think you to did?" She quizzed them.
"Are you kidding Hermione? You were nowhere to be found last night!" Harry looked grumpy. "I'll be lucky to scrape a P with that pile of Hippogriff droppings."
"Yeah Hermione!" Ron chimed in. "We never see you anymore! What's up with that?"
"You are as busy as I am surely! I barely have time to eat in between my homework and Head girl duties." She sighed. "Surely you two are the same being a prefect and Gryffindor Quidditch captain?"
"Yeah of course we're busy Hermione. But we still make an effort with our friends." He looked at her scathingly. "We haven't even seen your dorm yet!"
Hermione couldn't help herself letting out a giggle. "Let's not pretend you want to see me other than for the reason you want help with your homework, but fine! Come over tonight and I'll show you around. We can work out that homework Snape gave us this morning if you'd like."
"Thank you Hermione." Harry sighed in relief. "What would we do without you?"
"Alright class, today will be a theoretical day unfortunately…" Slughorn interrupted their conversation then to begin his lesson, with both of the two boys looking subdued.
Hermione allowed her eyes to drift across the room at that point, only to find a certain blonde Slytherin boy staring at her intently. Her eye's widened in surprise, but when he did not look away, she forced herself to look back at Slughorn and focus on his lecture, rather than the silver eyes staring at her from across the room.