Hermione hurriedly shoved her quills and parchment in her bag, grabbing her books and tore through the Library. She stage-whispered an apology to Madam Prince while receiving a disapproving looking from the witch. "Sorry!" she said, "I'm late for my favorite class." Hermione rolled her eyes. Divination was such a waste of time, if it weren't for her carefully crafted "stick in the mud" persona, Hermione might have considered skipping just this one class.

The corridor was pretty much empty as Hermione sped through the archway into the Divination stairwell. Just a few chatting 5th years and a seemingly lost 2nd year she would have loved to help if she wasn't worried about getting assigned extra "lesson work" (if you could call drinking tea and poking the leaves a "lesson" or "work".) Up the stairs she went, stopping only to trip up the third step and catch her book as it nearly fell out in front of her. "Shit," she thought.

Hermione's week hadn't been great. This wasn't making it better. There were several things, among which she had 'completing a piece of divination homework she thought was bogus' mixed in with 'O'Conner getting into a fight and losing twenty-five house points', Hermione had plain had enough. Thankfully she only had that class, and then it was to the prefects' bathroom to soak.

She quickly walked up the stairs, eyes to the ground, picturing the warm steam and the feeling of hot water surrounding her. A bath sounded marvelous, and with her head in the bubble bath clouds, Hermione tripped again. This time she lost her balance worse than before, dropping the book again but also accidentally knocking into someone coming down the stairs. She quickly looked up, apologizing as she did, "Oh gods, I'm sorry. I've just had such a bad day..." her voice trailed off as she made eye contact with Draco Malfoy.

Of course he happened to be the one person she tripped into. "Oh fuck me." she groaned. She hung her head, exasperated. "Fuck you is right." he replied. Hermione's head shot up, eyebrows raised and ready to slap this man again. "Excuse me?" she said in her most prim proper and annoyed voice.

"You heard me." He narrowed his eyes as he spoke.

Hermione narrowed her eyes in return, staring into his. They were silvery and chilling as he maintained the eye contact. She cleared her throat and bent to grab the book. "I don't remember you being so clumsy," he poked, "The War leave you feeling shaken?" he mocked. As she righted herself she looked back at his face and caught him looking at her arse.

"What the fuck?" she thought. She blushed and he quickly moved his gaze higher, stopping at her chest on the way to her face. His eyes lingered on her lips and gods help her if that didn't make her feel a little wet.

"What the hell is going on" she wondered. The Draco she was used to wouldn't have looked her up and down and soaked her knickers. "Well it's good to know some things never change," Hermione replied, ignoring that something had obviously changed. "Once an asshole, always an asshole." He smirked and opened his mouth to reply,

"Oh no, I think you'll find that a few things have changed." He actually smiled at her and Hermione quickly tried to mask the confusion and weird desire she felt.

Granted, it had been a while since she had felt wanted. Ron had broken up with her back at the back at the end of what would have been their 7th year, citing her "vanilla tastes" and his "not wanting to spend the rest of life with someone who doesn't do anything fun."

Hermione knew it was because of the War. The fact that they gave each other anxieties and their combined PTSDs made it hard to get along. He had also wanted to get married, and Hermione insisted on going back to school.

However, Ron's words still bothered Hermione. She knew Ron had been the vanilla one of the two. Hermione had even tried to mix things up, even going to far as to charm her hair blonde. Ron never liked it. But he had fucked a number of blonde women after their breakup.

Leading to the breakup, Hermione had spent the summer after the War away from home(and Ron) and had learned some things about love and life in general. She had come to the conclusion that her and Ron really were meant to be friends, but between his mother, Rita bloody Skeeter, and being the "sidekicks of Harry Potter" they had fallen into dating and the illusion of loving each other. And the idea that she would have to see him and be with him again at the end of summer became a gross thought she had grown out of. So she had welcomed the opportunity for the break up. This was difficult to deal with at first, having seemingly lost a friend too, and Hermione fell into a bit of a spiral, thinking too hard about what Ron had said.

So about a month later Hermione hooked up with two other people. First a lovey Hufflepuff and then about a three weeks later a bloke from The Three Broomsticks who's name she did not know. She had had no intention of pursuing anything with either of them, and that had felt good.

And right now maintaining eye contact with Draco fucking Malfoy felt good. She certainly hadn't entertained the idea of pursing something with him. Surely she fantasized about him a little, watched him in the halls and glanced below his belt, but who didn't? The boy looked good, and he knew it too.

He especially looked good now, in a dark spiral stairway, one hand on the banister and one hand holding his book, strategically moving it from his hip to in-front of his waist. Hermione watched the movement and snapped her wide eyes back up to his.

No, that couldn't be. She hardly guessed Malfoy could think of her like that. But then, if she thought again, she seemed to always see him on her way to Divination. Either in the stairway or in the classroom when he stayed behind to talk to Professor Trelawney. And there was no way his bright mind found conversation with Trelawney any form of satisfying.

Draco pushed past her, hips rubbing against eachother as he did so. Hermione blushed and began walking up the steps again. She turned back, just to steal a glance in his direction. Only he was looking back up at her. Their eyes met for a moment, until Draco turned away and picked up stride down the steps. Hermione paused in her tracks, dumbfounded at what had just transpired. Then she remembered where she was and quickly proceeded up to Trelawney's classroom, choosing to file that interaction away for later, preferably when she wasn't sitting through make-believe class.

Hermione stared across the room as she sat in the tub. She replayed what had happened only two hours before. The way his eyes looked. The way his hip touched hers. The way he looked back after her. She thought of how hot she felt when he moved his book in-front of his waist. Her fingers wandered down into the water. She hoped to run into him again.