Here it is. Chapter One of The Touch of FIre. I hope you enjoy it! And of course I own nothing.
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Chapter 1: All Our Best Plans

784 days.

That is how long it has been since Hermione Granger had figured out that she was in over her head. She was in love, and with Ronald Weasley, one of her best friends since age eleven, no less.

It was driving her mad.

Now, one might wonder why such a beautiful thing as love would drive someone within an inch of their sanity. Isn't it supposed to be all sunshine and fairy tales, lollipops and unicorns and any other generically wonderful thing that one could think of?

All of that would be true, if the person that she was head over heels for felt the same way about her. Even remotely. However, as it stands her love seems to be quite unrequited. And that type of love sucks.

It kind of feels like some one stabbing you in the heart over and over and over. And that's not even including the way that it feels when the sufferer of this horrible thing called love is forced to watch the object of their affection suck the face off of Lavender Brown.

This face sucking seemed to be happening a lot lately. Pretty much anytime the two were in the same general vicinity.

Gross.

Ron is not diliberatly trying to break Hermione's heart. He is just, unfortunatly, none the wiser of the consequiences of his actions. He is competely ignorant of the fact that she is completely in love with him. He was alway a bit daft. Of course, she couldn't blame him too harshly...no one else seemed to notice either, and Hermione would die before telling anyone.

"Hermione, can I borrow a quill? I'm really not sure where I put mine." The voice of her best friend, the chosen one himself, barely registered until he nudged her shoulder with a light bump of his arm. "Hermione?"

"Hmm?" He finially broke her out of her thoughts and consequently the stare at the two love birds by the fire at the same time. "Sorry, Harry, what did you say?"

"A quill. Can I borrow one?"

"Yeah, sure." Hermione gave him the quill that had been digging a hole in the blank parchment of what should have been a completed essay by now. This whole Ron thing was really getting in the way of her school work lately. "Take this one, I'm about finished for the night anyway," Hermione lied.

"Thanks, Mione."

Hermione smiled lightly at her friend before her eyes were, by a force completely out of her control, pulled back to the happy couple.

Harry, seeming to know that something was bothering her, asked a few moments later, "Do you want to go get some dinner?"

Dinner sounded quite nice, especially considering that she had skipped lunch in an attempt to avoid having to sit next to Lavender and pretend that she didn't want to rip her throat out. Getting out of the room and stopping her massasistic like watch of Ron and Lavender would be nice as well. "I would love to."

"I guess we should ask Ron." Oh, right. Ron is our friend, of course he would go eat with us. "Actually Mione, lets just go. Ron seems to be busy, he can come on his own if he wants."

Draco stared into his peas as though the small green balls were trying to tell him smething. As if they held the answers to all of his problems. The truth was though, that he did not think there was an answer. And peas were certainly not crystal balls.

"Do you have patrols tonight?"

"Yeah, Draco and I are stuck together." The sound of his name shook him out of his pea induced trance.

Little miss perfect Head Girl and the boy who's scarred. I bet she would never have to deal with things such as an arranged marriage. Being a muggleborn has some advantages I suppose. "Figures" he grumbled under his breath.

Draco's problems all began last night when his father had called him into his office to talk.

The room was actually quite well lit and a fire cast a warmth through the air, but everytime Drace entered that room he felt as though everything got a little darker and a chill ran up his spine.

He had never been given good news in the room. It was the same room where his father had told him that he would be helping the Dark Lord in order to bring favor back to their family.

"Son, as you know, our future as leaders could be in jeapordy. We have to strengthen our family ties."

Draco had learned long ago that when Lucius spoke one listened until asked to speak.

"A marriage to the Parkinson girl is the best way to accomplish our goals..."

Lucius was still speaking, but Draco stopped hearing what he was saying after the words 'marriage' and 'Parkinson'. Pansy Parkinson had been a pain in his side for his entire stay at Hogwarts. From the moment the Sorting Hat uttered the word 'Slytherin' to the both of them Pansy had believed that they were destined to be together. She had been a constant pain ever since. That's not to say that there haven't been certain benefits to her obsession along the way. As annoying as she was, Draco could not deny that she held a certain physical appeal.

"...You will do this for your family. After all, it is your duty to keep our blood line strong." Draco assumed the last five minutes of Lucius' speech was not very important. He knew what his father expected of him. He had known since he was a child. Pureblood families never married for love. They marry for status and power. That's the way it always had been. His parents' marriage was the same way.

Leaving his thoughts, Draco glanced over at Pansy who was discussing hair potions with some sixth year girl across from her. Maybe it's not such a bad thing that Voldemort is trying to take over the world. Maybe he would die in the fight and not have to spend the rest of his life with Pansy. One could only hope.

He wished he could think of a way to push her away. If Pansy wouldn't agree to the marriage it wouldn't happen. Her parents were a bit more new age on that type of thing. But, of course, the one girl he wished would hate him, worshipped the ground he walked on. It isn't as though he hadn't tried to make her hate him. He had slept with every decent looking 7th year Slytherin and had even messed around with a few Hufflepuffs, but she had forgiven him everytime blaming the girls instead.

"Granger could use that one. Her hair looks like a hippogriff attacked her." Pansy and her friend both laughed cruely at her joke.

Pansy didn't get a long with most people but Draco had never seen her hate anyone with quite the same venom that she hated Granger, and she took any chance she could to make fun of her. Draco used to be the same way and outwardly he knew he still appeared that way. But the truth is, he had realized his father's views on blood were all crap awhile ago. Since his blind hatred of her had stopped he had realized that she actually had some pretty admirable traits. Not like he would ever let a soul know that he thought so. To everyone else, he still thought she was an annoying, know-it-all, mudblood. The know-it-all part was still true, but the rest was changing. 'Ha, that would piss Pansy off if she knew'

...That would piss Pansy off. Maybe even enough to make her not want to marry him anymore.

A/N: So, what did you think? Love it? Hate it? Please let me know. Reviews are the only way I know what my readers think and I could really use the feedback. Also, CONSTRUCTIVE advice is always more than welcome. In fact, please do give me some it has been awhile since I have written anything and I am far from perfect.

All my reviewers will also have a shout out in the next chapter!