Draco deemed that it was highly plausible he was now certifiably insane. Every time he thought he couldn't like her any more than he already did, he'd catch her lost in thought, her brows tightly-knit and lip slightly pouted, or she'd shoot an expertly crafted witty remark at him and life would cackle cruelly as he fell harder. Worse still were the long planning sessions where they sat close physically while, emotionally, they remained distant. Being on speaking terms was at least less painful than not talking to her at all, but only just barely.

On the friendship frontier, things were looking promising. They were getting along brilliantly and working well together as head boy and girl. But in terms of romance… if he was a butterfly net, she was the wind.

He had always been particularly good at controlling his feelings and not letting his mind wander. However, panic began to set in when he became suddenly aware of his steady loss of control as thoughts of her took over his mind. He was finally realizing how dangerous his guilty pastime had been. Allowing his mind to stray and letting the pleasure of raw happiness overcome him as he daydreamed about her had slowly stolen the reigns away from him. It was too late by the time he realized how thoroughly entangled his soul was. He ached with a tangible desire to simply love her. He had been scared before; now he was terrified.

He had recklessly allowed himself to fall deeply in love with a girl he could never have.

Daphne had been suspicious of him for quite some time. He still wasn't quite sure what her deal was; it was uncanny how she could smell an emotional imbalance from a mile away. Sensing that something was off, she had been persistently, albeit gently, prodding him since their return from break to open up to her about what was bothering him. Draco had been reluctant to do so, seeing no point in discussing something as useless as the feelings he had for a girl that would never reciprocate. Only when he eventually became so hopelessly frustrated and lost that he felt he would burst if he didn't get the whole thing off his chest, did he relent to telling her.

They sat in the deserted Slytherin common room, Daphne listening and looking at Draco intently as he conveyed the events that had recently taken place between Hermione and himself.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," he explained to her. "I can't stop thinking about her. It's like I want her more because she's off limits. And really its always been like that, except now it's getting out of hand because I can't have her. I'm at a complete loss as to what to do. It's that bad, that I even went so far as to look for a feelings removal spell." He huffed indignantly, hoping to communicate how embarrassing and inconvenient he found his desperation. "Even then, the closest I came up with was alcohol. Not helpful considering its one of the things that got me here in the first place." He grumbled and shifted uncomfortable in his black velvet chair.

Daphne's features were bound in deep concentration. When at last she seemed to catch upon an idea, her face became even more serious.

"Did you ever consider just telling her how you feel?"

He gaped at her in disbelief. It wasn't that simple. Daphne of all people should know that. They were talking about a girl that had despised him for the better part of eight years and, for all he knew, probably still did, at least a little.

"Have you been listening to anything I just said? Or did you miss the whole part where I bullied her for six years straight? Or even, perhaps, the convenient little tidbit where my Aunt tortured her and carved obscenities into her skin? Or maybe-"

"Oh come off it Malfoy," she cut him off, looking irritated. "You know I bloody-well heard what you said. I'm just asking if the possibility has managed to push its way into your thick skull. It would seem not, given that you think a smart girl like Granger would blame you for something your psychotically deranged aunt did. Where's the sense in that? From what you've told me about that night, you did the best you could to keep them out of harm's way."

"They barely escaped with their lives, Daphne! I should have done something. But no, I just sat there. I just sat there while she was butchered not ten feet away from me. I'm nothing but a coward," he spat sourly.

"Oh sure, like suddenly teaming up with three Gryffindor prisoners of war would have been a smart move at the time. I think if you'd tried anything more, either your aunt or You Know Who himself would have slit your throat for subversion and you all would have ended up dead. You need to stop slighting yourself, Draco. Need I remind you of all the horrors you've been through?"

"No," he hissed forcefully. "They do that well enough on their own, thanks."

"Precisely," Daphne said, adding an extra amount of stress to the end of the word. His scowl deepened. He had come to her for sage advice, not to get told off.

"Now, before you go off on me again, let's just try to think rationally for a moment. Let's look at your odds here. What might happen if you tell her how you feel?" She prodded him with an expectant look.

"I don't know Daphne," he said, the tone of exasperation evident in his voice. He looked away from her, feeling frustrated. "She probably won't ever want to talk to me again."

"Merlin, Draco, we've been over this before," she said, agitation edging her voice. "Hermione Granger takes her job way too seriously. She'll talk to you again so long as the two of you are head boy and girl of this school."

"Then she'll hex me all the way to McGonagall's office and force her to replace me," Draco countered simply.

"Or…?" Daphne countered in an acutely unimpressed tone.

"Or… she could slap me, shout at me, maim me with spells I've never heard in my life, you name it, the list could go on and on. More than likely she'll just get sick at the repulsiveness of the whole thing."

Daphne rolled her eyes dramatically at him, evidently unimpressed by his suggestions. "Or… she might appreciate that you're trying to be transparent with her." Daphne spoke matter-of-factly, as if she'd just said the most unambiguously obvious thing in the world. "And, who knows, there's always a chance she feels the same way."

Draco laughed at how miraculously inconceivable her suggestion was. "There's about as much chance of that as there is for Slytherin to win the quidditch cup this year."

"Fine then, were you going to enlighten me as to another way you were planning on dealing with your pent up frustration and anguish? Or… what?" She'd gotten him there. He had come to her for advice, whether he was in agreement with it or not.

"Just for a second, Draco, can you let yourself imagine what would happen if she did feel the same way?"

"But she-"

"Let's just pretend for a minute, okay? Whether she confesses her feelings for you tomorrow or if you have to wait years for her to come around, what if she eventually felt the same way?" He sighed heavily, closing his eyes and throwing his head back, slouching against the back of his chair. This was exactly the sort of behavior that had gotten him so deeply into this mess in the first place.

"It would be amazing," he stated plainly. He resisted the urge to add but it's never going to happen, knowing that if he did, there'd be hell to pay. "I just imagine life without her and it's so dull and colorless. But when I close my eyes and think of her, all the shadows in my mind seem to vanish and the chaos and the pain of the world don't exist. It's just her with her brown eyes, and her smile, and the little wispy hairs by her ears that never do as their told." He felt his heartrate increase as the image he was describing painted itself within his mind.

"I'd give anything for it to be real," he confessed in a near whisper.

"Why can't it be?" Daphne asked simply. He sighed again as he forcibly extricated his thoughts from his imagination.

"Because Daphne," he managed tiredly. "Whether she ever feels the same way about me or not, I don't deserve her."

He was shocked when Daphne's next words came tumbling out.

"Damn straight you don't." His expression morphed to one of equal parts hurt and indignation. He hadn't expected her to be quite so blunt.

"If you don't want her, just keep doing what you're doing: pretend like your feelings don't exist, wallow in self-pity because you'll never be good enough for her, let her continue to believe that she doesn't mean anything to you. But if you're so worried about being a coward then maybe you should stop acting like one! You want to be good enough for her?! Grow a pair and tell her how you feel! You're only making life unfair for yourself. If you're not even going to try, how can you possibly sit here and tell me that you're sure of anything?" Her eyes flashed violently and her voice dropped an octave, a foreboding eeriness invading her tone. "I can promise you this Draco, the 'what ifs' will haunt you forever."

Daphne must have noticed the look on his face for moments later her expression softened. She began again, this time much more slowly and gently.

"Look Draco. You're good enough for her for this very specific reason: because you think you're not. It's impossible to love someone fully and selflessly unless we realize how grossly- how hilariously- unworthy we are. So no, you don't deserve her… but the fact that you realize this is exactly the reason that she deserves you." Her blue eyes seemed to glow as they gazed piercingly into his.

He stared at her, allowing the power of her words to sink in through the silence hung between them. She gave him a reassuring smile that perfectly matched her set of caring eyes. They shared no more words, but simply sat watching as the candles of the Slytherin common room flickered and the telltale creaks and groans of the dungeons echoed faintly from all around them. He knew she was right, of course, as she almost always was. And as he sat next to her contemplating, an unexpected optimism seemed to burst forth- hope in the microscopic chance that Hermione would feel the same way, if not today than perhaps one day- and the realization that, if there was even the slightest chance that he could be with her, he would be a fool not to take it.

Sleep evaded him nearly the entire night, nervous thoughts and worries swimming menacingly in his mind through the inky darkness between his pupils and the emerald green curtains of his four poster. All night he fought with the small but persistent voice inside his head which kept insisting that Hermione Granger would never love someone like him. A pariah. A marked man. Damaged goods. He hoped with all his might for it to be wrong.

The next day, he walked as if on pins and needles. He couldn't remember the last time he'd ever felt so nervous and uncertain. How was it that she made him feel like an emotionally ill-equipped teenager all over again? Years of arrogance and dramatic pretentiousness crumbled and he was left to entertain the frightening concept of being completely honest with her.

They had agreed to meet that evening, a couple of hours before dinner, to make headway on scheduling for McGonagall's big parents' night. As he stepped past the moving bookshelf into the prefect's study room, his heart skipped a beat when his eyes came to rest upon her. Her mane of hair was gloriously bushy and untamed, the way it frequently got when she focused for long hours. It was one of his favorite things about her.

She glanced up and smiled kindly when he entered and began shuffling her papers around and putting aside the many books she had sprawled across the large table. Soon she'd cleared as space for them to work, and he pulled a chair up beside her.

Dinner came and went as the hours they spent working passed painfully slowly. He was more acutely aware of her presence next to him than he'd ever been before. He prayed that she couldn't hear his heart as it thumped violently and rapidly in his chest. And though he did his best to concentrate on the work at hand, he found his gaze wandering near-constantly up to the clock on the wall, over to her, then back again.

Many times he almost started to address her, but lost his confidence and, frustrated, turned back to his feeble attempts to focus on the work at hand. He couldn't understand the strange apprehension he felt nor the sudden absence of his usually-reliable over-confidence. It hadn't been like this with any other girl he'd been with. But then, he'd never tried the whole emotional honesty thing with any of them. Of the three previous relationships he'd had, all had been drastically more physical.

Hermione was a different sort of enigma entirely. She wasn't a needy fourth year, or a Ravenclaw with a kink for young blondes, and the fact that she wasn't head over heels obsessed with him was part of what made her so appealing. She was sort of complex that drove him insane and smart in the most alluring and unnatural way possible. Kind and beautiful and brave and- Merlin almighty, he didn't stand a chance with her. The small amount of optimism that had sparked confidence in him earlier fizzled again, waning on extinguishing completely.

Odds were, what he was planning was about to end terribly and he had become suddenly aware of the likeliness of his imminent rejection. Though he was no stranger to it, he was by no means a fan of rejection, yet here he was putting himself in a position to be annihilated by it. He found the aspect of making himself vulnerable so immensely discomforting and yet a strange force within was compelling him just the same.

How was it he could be commanding and bold with girls like Pansy, and skip straight to snogging, but somehow be incapable of performing even the simple task of expressing how he felt to a girl like Hermione? The feelings she caused him were as perplexing as she was.

An hour or so after dinner, they took a "study break" in order to work on school work for a while. They resumed planning shortly before Madam Pince came by to let them know that she was locking up for the evening. Prefects were allowed to use the study room as long as they liked, but once they left the library after it was closed, they would be shut out for the evening.

After a few more hours and relatively-unproductive arguments, he stretched and yawned. "I think if we don't break soon, I'll suffer permanent brain damage. What say we finish this up tomorrow?"

"As if you haven't already," Hermione quipped with a testy smile. He gave her a deadpanned look though, on the inside, he was relishing her wit. "But yes, I think that sounds like a good plan."

Nervous energy churned tumultuously in his stomach as they tiredly began to sort through the many books and papers scattered on the desk. If he was going to get it over with today, as planned, now was the time to do it. He did his best to mentally prepare himself. With a last deep breath, he looked up to speak but saw that she was already slinging her bag over her shoulder and turning to go.

His confidence cracked and collapsed at the thought of stopping her to call her back. It felt like all his momentum had been ripped straight out from under his feet. He unceremoniously stuffed his remaining things in his own bag and rushed out after her as the bookshelf began to slide closed. With a short dash he met with her stride. They exited the darkened library and walked through the deserted corridors silently. Draco steeled himself in an attempt to regain his composure. Doing his best to mute the little voice inside of him yelling at him to run, he tensed and tried again.

"So, there's something I've been meaning to tell you." He winced as his first few words croaked out. She gave him an amused sideways glance.

"Ah, you've finally come to the conclusion that I was right about the centerpieces for the first two evenings. Can't say I didn't tell you so."

"Er, not exactly, no… I-"

"Wait, no," she cut him off, dramatic excitement edging her tone. "Don't tell me. You're going to ask McGonagall to give us a raise."

He managed a genuine laugh. "I wish, considering we make approximately zero an hour for all our hard work. Sadly, I'll have to disappoint you again because that's a no as well." She gave a small giggle and his confidence waned dangerously low again.

He felt his entire body flush with heat. The stairway leading down to the Slytherin common room was coming up quickly; he was running out of time. He stole a dangerous calculating glance over at her. Had he ever been this terrified? Don't stop now. Just tell her how you feel. Don't be a coward. Why was this so difficult? It couldn't possibly be worse than telling the dark Lord that he'd failed in his mission. With deep breath he stopped in the middle of the empty corridor.

She turned to face him, eyeing him quizzically. It would take him too long to come up with something else, there was no going back. He was just going to do it…

"Alright, Granger, don't freak out." She gave him a confused look, as if wondering what he could possibly say to make her freak out.

"I sort of like you…" He felt his cheeks flush to the deepest shade of scarlet he was sure they had ever been as an unrestrainable blush tingled to life upon them.

"A lot…"

A/N: BOY THIS SETUP FEELS FAMILIAR. HRMMM, ALMOST LIKE I PULL THE SAME TYPE OF ENDING EVERY OTHER CHAPTER. Sorry for repetitiveness, not sorry for exercising my creative liberties to build suspense.

p.s. i like ur face. :3