If Hermione thought that Draco was avoiding her before he certainly was now. She never saw him in their common room (she even waited up in the hope that he would appear), he did not make eye contact with her once in any of their mutual classes and disappeared soon after them into the body of students, he even went as far as to swop his one patrol with her that week with another prefect. She thought she would have him cornered when she made her way to their meeting place that week, only to find to her disappointment that Blaise Zabini was standing in his place. Needless to say, there was nothing enjoyable about that particular patrol, Blaise wouldn't let on why Draco had organised the swap and was extremely rude to her the whole time. She found herself relieved that weekend when the Hogsmeade trip came about. She had been spending so much time wondering what on earth had caused Draco to kiss her, and unsuccessfully trying to push away the thoughts that she had quite enjoyed it, that a distraction was quite welcome. She grinned as she walked down the stairs to the outside courtyard to see Ginny and Luna waiting for her.

"I've already told the boys to bugger off." Ginny announced as Hermione reached the two of them. "They've gone down there already, quite ungraciously too I might add."

Hermione laughed. "I'm not at all surprised, Where do we want to go first?"

"Well, I don't mind." Luna said dreamily. "As long as we stay away from the Hogs Head, Illegal Dabberblimp trading goes on there, and I could never support a place that takes part in such horrible trade."

Hermione and Ginny both exchanged a knowing look as they made their way down to Hogsmeade, joking and laughing the rest of the way. The streets were littered with students huddling in large groups of friends, these days it was unusual to see anyone wondering about alone and the carefree spirit that usually accompanied Hogsmaede trips was absent in comparison to previous years. Having agreed upon going to Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop, the girls sat down and ordered some drinks. Luna had just finished a rant about some article her father was writing for the next edition of the quibbler.

"So Hermione." Ginny looked at her sympathetically after taking a sip of her tea. "Are you getting a handle on everything now? You know, with all your school work and Head girl duties."

"Getting there..." Hermione sighed. "I just never dreamed that there would be this amount of work involved, and I'm normally so well prepared."

Luna nodded in agreement. "This year there has been enough work, I hate to think of our final year."

"It also doesn't help that you have snot for brains as your co Head."Ginny rolled her eyes. "At least with a half decent Head boy you would have a lot less stress."

"Actually.." Hermione trailed off trying to avoid the mental image that came to mind whenever she thought of Draco, thinking of how to word what she wanted to say. "Draco hasn't been all that bad. We don't see each other most of the time and he's been fairly... amicable when we do interact."

"Draco?" Ginny spluttered out her tea, saying his name as if it were a dirty word, which to her it probably was. "It's Draco now? Jeeze Hermione, what happened to lifelong mortal enemies, he can't have changed that much in a couple of months surely?"

Hermione flushed. "I just meant that we have a truce of sorts. I stay out of his way, he stays out of mine you know. We both want this year to be more bearable."

Ginny scoffed. "Since when has that weasel cared about making things more bearable for anyone? Watch out for him Hermione. That boy has never done a nice thing for anyone in his life without wanting something in return."

"I agree with Ginny, Hermione."Luna nodded quickly. "You shouldn't trust him."

Hermione hid her face in her cup of tea, with her hopes of ever telling her friends what had happened vanish in a puff of smoke. She took a big gulp, swallowed and stared at the two girls in reproach of what they were saying. "You girls need to ease up honestly, it's not as if we are friends, of course I don't trust him.'"

"Well it's a short step from calling him Draco to being friends Hermione." Ginny continued. "You can never trust a death eater."

"Ugh can we talk about something other then Malfoy? I thought this trip was meant to be enjoyable. Message received I promise." Hermione muttered. "And he's not a death eater."

"Not yet."Ginny looked at her sharply with Luna nodding in agreement.

Hermione rolled her eyes and let her eye's gaze around the tea shop, at all the frilly and over the top decor littering the tables which were filled with mainly couples.

Ginny followed Hermione's gaze around the tea shop at all the couples kissing and grimaced. "Ugh, this place is a lot less enjoyable without a date."

"Honestly Ginny," Hermione laughed. "You are hopeless. You saw Harry only an hour ago. Come on let's go to Honeydukes, we may bump into the boys on the way."

Hermione found herself in a really good mood and she made her way back to the common room. She had decided that she was not going to waste any more time worrying about Draco Malfoy. At least, she thought to herself, it was nice to have the common room to herself, she had completed a lot of homework in the last week, when her mind wasn't drifting. She was removing her coat as she made her way through the portrait hole, deciding that now would be a good time to get ahead on her Ancient Runes homework. She stopped in surprise when she realised that there were two bodies entwined on the coach. Hermione felt a hot wash flush through her body and what felt like a stone drop to the pit of her stomach as she witnessed the sight of Draco on the couch kissing Pansy Parkinson passionately. Draco looked up at the noise only to see the back of a brown haired girl running in the other direction, dropping her coat on the floor on the way out.