AN: Sorry for the delay! Been having (still having) exams, they're such a pain. This will be a short chapter, just a bit of fluff between our dear Draco and Hermione! Next chapter will be the competition, a whole lot more substance and an interesting read, i assure you, so watch this space!

Reviews: Will reply your reviews individually next round, promise! Am really busy, and rushed to get this out. But thank you all for your lovely responses, and keep reviewing!

Chapter 16. Five Points To Gryffindor

Draco was not a romantic. He never had pegged himself down as the type of bloke who'd pen down sentimental love letters and poems and deliver them to his beloved's doorstep. Sure, he was debonair, fetching and an all round charmer, but he wasn't a sap. Definitely not. That was what Draco told himself as he padded down the hallway with a purple tulip dangling loosely from his hand and the intentions of walking Hermione to breakfast.

He was, on the whole, rather pleased with the events of the night. Though there had been moments where there was the frightening possibility that Hermione would be his first brush with unrequited affections, in the end it had all worked out to his liking. At first he was afraid she would not come and he would have to finish his cookies alone and have a solitary sleep, but Hermione, perhaps having come to her senses, turned up after all and snogged him senseless. Well, before the kissing she had been scarily ambiguous about her intentions and had gotten him seriously worried. He'd surprised himself with how gutted he felt when it occurred to him that Hermione might not reciprocate his feelings. But, he needn't have fretted. They had proceeded to snog some more, not passionately, but with the promise of more to come. They had fallen asleep together on the white settee...which was now elevated to the prestigious status of his favourite couch.

It was at this point in his musings where Draco had to firmly reassure himself he was not a sap.

After a long, dreamless night, both of them had woken up at the crack of dawn and had crept back to their beds, exchanging soft smiles and glances full of meaning. And Draco, instead of succumbing to sleep once again, had gone out to nick flowers from the garden to present to her. Hence, his current position.

Continuing in his undignified trudge down the hallway, Draco pondered. At the back of his mind, he knew that Hermione meant something. She was different. He'd always been able to sweep ladies off their feet, no problem. It wasn't arrogance, as Hermione always so nastily put it, it was an awareness of how he was dripping with brilliance and charm. But just then, he was learning that doing something because he could, and doing something because he wanted to wasn't really the same. In fact, he found that it made all the difference in the world. So that was why, even with his well bred, self assured and chivalrous demanour, dashing looks, and stolen purple tulip, he was feeling a tad bit more nervous that he was used to when it came to consorting with the ladies.

He paused in front of the portrait, feeling a bit unsure of what to do. The imposing lady in the picture stared straight back at him, before taking a dainty sip of tea. Draco decided the way to go was the only way he knew how- demanding.

"Open up," he commanded imperiously.

The lady in the portrait did nothing except take another tiny mouthful of tea ever so delicately. Draco scowled at her.

"Open up," he repeated.

"It doesn't work that way, lad," she said haughtily.

"Then how am I supposed to get in?" Draco retorted defensively, annoyed at being called a "lad", as if he were still some stripling running amuck in Hogwarts.

"What's the password?" She was looking at him disdainfully, as if he were a creature that had just crawled out of Hogs Head. (an incredibly iffy bar, in Draco's expert opinion)

"How would I know?"

"No password, no entrance."

Draco decided to give it a go.

"Bookworm."

"No."

"Gryffindor."

The lady in the portrait shook her head patronizingly.

"Uh...muggle studies? Ancient Runes? Weasleys?" he said, spouting off names at random. He then thought of the little Weasley's supposed crush on Scarboy. "The Boy Who Lived To Be My Hero...Boy Who Lived To Catch The Snitch? The Boy Who Lived To Snog My Pants Off? Lighting bolt scars are attractive?" Alright, maybe not. "Dumbledore? Never tickle a sleeping dragon? Severus Snape needs shampoo? Oh, come on! How many words are there?"

The portrait remained impassive. It said not a word, nor did it swing forward.

"Draco Malfoy," he tried lazily, not expecting his shot in the dark to produce any result, but it seemed that he hit the nail on the head. The lady in the portrait was giving him a sly, sideway look. her eyes slightly slanted in concentration.

"So you're Draco..." she said curiously.

"What, is that the password?" Draco questioned hopefully, surprised and tickled pink that the girls would choose his name as their password. He smirked inwardly,

"No," the portrait returned. "I've just heard a lot about you, that's all."

"Hermione and Little Red talk about me?" The carefully nonchalant tone.

"Don't be too flattered," she said, eyeing him and then blurted, as if she couldn't help herself. "Were you ever turned into, say, a ferret?"

Ah. Inspiration struck. His inward smirk faded and his eyes narrowed.

"Is the password Twitchy Little Ferret?"

Silence. He guessed not, but he was quite sure he was on the right track.

"Ferretboy? The Amazing," he winced at what this was doing to his pride. "Bouncing Ferret?"

"Oh all right," the lady sighed, seemingly tired of him. "Go on in... " The portrait swung wide open, giving him clearance.

Draco clambered through the portrait hole, only to come face to face with Hermione. She was clad in muggle clothes, baggy grey sweatpants and a skin tight tank top that clung to her curves. Although she smiled prettily, she seemed rather shocked to see him.

"Draco!" she exclaimed. "I was just about to leave...how did you get in here? Did our portrait let you in? Did you guess the password?"

"Yes," he drawled. "Took a wild guess, and lo and behold."

Hermione had the grace to blush and look abashed. Satisfied that he had managed to unsettle her once again, Draco unceremoniously handed her the flower. She looked pleasantly startled and accepted it.

"Thanks. It's, well, it's lovely."

"Just like your password," Draco returned sharply, not swayed by her thanks.

"Honestly Draco! It's just a password..." she trailed off, quailing at the glare he was giving her and finished her sentence hastily. "Fine, I'll change it."

He smirked triumphantly. "I think it should be Draco the Shag-able."

Hermione laughed, bringing the flower to her nose, giving it a dainty sniff. "I don't think that'll fly with Ginny. But I'm all for it, Draco, seriously."

"Or Draco the Irresistible. Or," he suggested, unperturbed by her sarcasm and giving it some good thought. "Draco the-"

"-Supercilious git." Draco saw Ginny emerge from the bathroom out of his peripheral vision, dressed in a dance leotard and track pants, her hair still slightly damp. "You're right, Hermione, somehow having to say 'Draco is an absolute babe' every time I entered the room would be a complete downer for me."

"Good morning to you too, Weaslette," he said rather charitably.

"Don't be so harsh, Ginny," Hermione admonished. "Perhaps, Draco the Rapscallion would be more fitting."

Ginny looked at both of them rather appraisingly. Her eyes flickered from his impassive face, to the purple tulip, to Hermione's tinged pink cheeks, which were a dead giveaway. Her face lit up as realisation dawned.

"O-o-ohhhh," she breathed. "Oh, oh, oh!"

"You can close your mouth now you know," Draco snipped irritably, knowing that Weasley had figured out that he and Hermione were... well, were whatever they were. He himself didn't quite know for sure yet. "Though it would be rather fortuitous for the rest of us if you didn't. Perhaps your face'll freeze right there in that unattractive position, and we'll all be able to have a good laugh and you'll never get to snog Potter."

"Come of it, Malfoy," Hermione said, looking annoyed.

Ginny, however, didn't seem to be offended. Instead she grinned knowingly at the pair of them, and promptly apparated with a loud crack.

Hermione groaned.

"She knows."

"Way to state the obvious, Granger."

"Are we back to last names now?" She grinned mischievously. Merlin help him!

"I'm not going to deign that question with a response," he returned loftily.

"Wasn't that a response in itself?"

Damn her. Draco decided to ignore her astute observation. "Let's go for breakfast," he snapped, cringing at how distastefully common he sounded.

"All right." She sounded faintly amused.

"Wasn't supposed to sound like that," Draco admitted, quite fed up with himself.

"I see," Hermione murmured, crossing the spacious room to her bedside table, her back facing him. Draco couldn't help but admire the way she moved, with a dancer's grace and poise. She brought out her wand, and muttered a quick incantation under her breath. Draco saw her place the purple tulip in a small glass vase that hadn't been there before. She must have transfigured something. "What was it supposed to be like then?" she questioned, walking back over to him.

"Well," Draco flashed her his most winning smile, relieved that once again he was able to adopt his charming persona. "I was supposed to enter your room gallantly, having guessed your password to be something rather flattering, like Draco The Amazing, not Draco the Amazing Bouncing Ferret or whatever else you put. The She Weasel would have been stuck in the bathroom or off to the dining hall already, leaving you alone in the room. Gracefully, I would greet you good morning and hand you the flower. You would be completely swept off your feet, won over by my display of affection. I would drop a quick kiss on your lips...which would definitely have escalated to something more," at this he grinned at her unashamedly. "And we would have happily moseyed down for breakfast together."

Hermione looked thoughtful and stepped closer to him until she was merely a few inches away.

"Draco," she said shyly. "You don't need a purple tulip to sweep me off my feet."

Draco was well pleased by her admission. "Now that is a delightful thing to hear," he replied softly. "I dare say you'd like your kiss now?"

"Yes, very much."

He tilted her head up to meet his with the tips of his fingers, and pressed his lips against hers. The soft, girlish scent of vanilla wafted past him, and the voice of reason telling him if this continued they'd miss breakfast entirely, led him to make the decision not to prolong the kiss. Draco pulled away gently, reluctantly.

"If we keep this up," he whispered in her ear, "We'd never make it out of here."

Hermione let out a quiet laugh. "Too right you are... shall we?" She motioned to the portrait hole.

"After you," Draco replied, ever the gentleman, gesturing for her to go first.

"I see that your mother did a good job in bringing you up," Hermione teased, climbing out of the portrait hole without much difficulty. Draco quickly hopped out after her.

"Yes, the most part of my childhood was spent learning how to behave in a manner befitting my status," he said snottily, putting on mock airs. "I always spent my afternoons being taught the different ways to properly hold your utensils to eat peas, soup and pudding and God forbid I put the fork tines facing upwards because my dear mother said they must always, always, always rest on the plate by the tips."

She laughed as she turned to walk. It was a pleasant, bubbly sound.

"That must have made for a very exciting childhood," she giggled.

"Never a dull moment," he returned in kind. "You're one to talk, anyway. I would conjure up an image of a swotty eight year old with bushy brown pigtails holed up in her room with thick tomes of muggle books, and Merlin knows how that paints a picture of an intrepid kid."

"That's a whole load of malarkey, Draco Malfoy! I'll have you know I had a childhood of the most adventurous sort!"

Draco found that extremely amusing. "Oh really? Pray tell."

"I climbed the tree in my backyard," she announced with an air of great importance.

"You climbed trees," he repeated, snickering. "What a daredevil, Hermione, you've well and truly outdone yourself."

She looked a bit miffed. "Well, if you must know, I'd always wanted to live in a treehouse after I read The Other Side of The Mountain...it's a muggle book, Draco. Fancied it'd be a good bit of fun, roughing it out in the woods, braving the elements."

"I've never even considered anything like that. Ever," he replied, fairly scandalized that someone would consider living with critters and dirt and muck fun.

Hermione looked at him with laughter in her eyes. "That's because you're spoiled," she informed him.

"Tell me something I don't know," Draco teased.

"Trust me, you'd not want that. It'd take forever, seeing as you don't know anything."

"Thanks, I adore you too," Draco replied scathingly, and she chuckled softly in response.

They lapsed into comfortable silence. Draco fell in step with her, noticing how his pace matched her's exactly. Right. Left. Right. Left. He adjusted the length of his stride so that he wouldn't go ahead of her. Right. Left. Right. Left. He saw her hand swinging unconsciously, in opposition to her gait. Left. Right. Left. Right. Reaching out, he loosely laced his fingers with hers, holding her hand in a light grip, keeping his eyes trained on their feet, still treading along in unison. Right. Left. Right. Left. He felt her squeeze his hand, ever so slightly. Draco looked up, steely gray eyes meeting warm chocolate brown. They smiled at each other. And continued walking.

"Draco..." Hermione hissed. She was half exasperated, half amused and half heartedly trying to discreetly move his hand away, which was resting on her legs.

Draco just grinned smugly to himself and placed his hand right back. They were having another one of those briefings in the Meeting Place concerning their next round of competition, the line up and all the nitty gritty details that honestly, bored him to bits. So he was content to trail his fingers gently along Hermione's thigh, tracing figures and words onto her silky smooth skin, exposed by the pair of deliciously short shorts she was wearing. His other arm was wrapped snugly around her waist. Both he and Hermione weren't prone to overt displays of affection in public, but seeing as they were seated right at the back on their settee, out of most people's line of vision, he didn't see a problem. They held hands while walking around sometimes, and a chaste goodnight kiss on the lips after he chivalrously walked her back to her rooms preceded a steamy night on their settee, their tradition of sneaking out remaining unbroken. A day into their newfound relationship, and nothing went unnoticed. They didn't flaunt it (even though Draco seriously wouldn't be fussed if they did) and yet, the dancers latched onto this fascinating detail-Draco and Hermione were actually holding hands- and spun their own versions of what had transpired between them. Draco was accustomed to being the subject of gossip, and was neither bothered nor flattered. He noticed Hermione found it rather annoying. However it happened, at the end of Day 1 of their newfound relationship, everyone somehow knew they were together.

He smiled unwittingly, mulling over the evolution of their relationship, the evolution that had undeniably taken place in a very very short span of time, but and evolution nevertheless. He ghosted a finger lazily over Hermione's skin. Mine, he wrote. And then he hastily brushed it away as if her skin was a chalkboard where mushy sentiments could be erased, and scrawled, frizz head. Then, he felt bad and promptly followed with But You're Gorgeous Anyway.

"It's ticklish!" Hermione whispered, squirming.

Draco only tightened his grip around her waist and continued to ghost his nimble fingers on her thigh to form inconsequential words and sentences.

"Not to mention distracting!" she continued to lecture in a hushed undertone. "We need to pay attention to what Elphie is saying! It's important." She inclined her head towards the front of the room, where their instructor and host, clad in maroon wizards robes, was talking animatedly.

He nipped her ear, and she uttered a soft squeal. "Draco..."

"Hush," he reprimanded mockingly. "Careful, you might actually sound like you're enjoying this."

She glared at him.

"Anyway, she's been repeating this speech ever since we've joined the damn competition. It never changes. We already know we're going first. The rest is absolutely redundant," he reasoned logically. With Hermione, logic was the way to go. "We're not the only ones fooling around. Look." He nudged her to look at the Weaselette, who was unashamedly, though rather discreetly, flipping through the latest issue of Witches Weekly. Next to her was Hermione's old partner Sean who was very clearly asleep. Iris and Blaise were blatantly ignoring the fact that everyone else was with their dancing partners, and were seated so closely together and draped all over each other such that you couldn't tell where Blaise ended and Iris began...

"Ewww," Hermione breathed, obviously looking in Blaise's and Iris's direction along with him.

"Aren't you glad we have more class?"

"Significantly," she informed him, somewhat wryly. "I wonder why Elphie doesn't call them out on it. They're acting like a couple of desperate teenagers, and what more, in an obvious defiance of authority! And plus, it's disgusting." She made a face, looking much like she had eaten a exceptionally sour lemon.

"You look like Pansy when you screw up your face like that," he said, just to provoke her, and after choking back laughter at her horrified expression, swiftly revoked his statement. "Kidding."

"You arse!"

"Language, Ms Granger."

"I've learnt from the best, Malfoy."

At this, Draco found that he couldn't, or rather, he didn't want to rebut.

"That's the perfect answer," he grinned, and couldn't resist dropping a kiss on her nose. "Five points to Gryffindor."