A/N: This is my first real AU piece. The idea of reversed lives is from Allielovestoread! I know it's not quite what you were expecting from me, but I promise it'll be fun. I won't explain the AU aspects; they will be obvious as you read. Let me know what you think in your review! ~ Tina

Chapter 1: The Program

"And...that would be Hermione Granger," said the bottle-nosed fourth year to the wide-eyed first year. They had just jumped out of the way of the seventh year girl, primly dressed in her Slytherin uniform, walking swiftly down the hallway.

"Wait," said the first year, blinking. "Of the Granger family? As in Prime Minister Granger?"

"Yep. Her father spent years as Prime Minister and teaches here, though here he goes by his middle name Hensen. And her mum was a Quidditch legend as Matilda Cliff before she married him. Filthy rich, obsessively pure-blood, and not an entirely likable family, if you ask me."

Hermione did not hear any of this, but she wouldn't have minded even if she had. None of it was false. And she knew all of that was why she was placed in Slytherin when she began at Hogwarts, although her smarts should have placed her in Ravenclaw. Both her parents had been pure-blood and Slytherins, and her brains did not stand a chance against the Slytherin obsession with being pure-blooded. The Hat rarely budged about that, although the Weasleys and the famous Harry Potter were notable exceptions.

She turned the corner and found what she had been looking for.

"Hey," she said.

"Merlin, I love your smirks," said Blaise Zabini, emerging from the shadows. He reached for her and pulled her into a corner. She allowed herself to let out a small laugh as he pinned her up against the wall and kissed her on the lips.

Tall, dark, and handsome, Zabini was everything a girl would want in a casual relationship. She was careful however not to call him her boyfriend, although her mother would have been thrilled to hear she was dating a nice pure-blood boy. Dating didn't quite fit their relationship. And nice didn't quite fit Blaise Zabini in the sense that her mother or any other parent would have used it.

Just as Blaise's hand began to creep up the back of her bare thigh under her skirt, there came footsteps accompanied by a chorus of tiny but still very irritating shrieks. Hermione gently pushed Blaise back and fixed her uniform. She would not be caught dead frolicking with a boy by any professor; she would get an earful from her father.

"Of course it's you three," said Blaise, quite obviously annoyed. Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Draco Malfoy stopped in their tracks before them, apparently surprised to see them. The Three Musketeers of Gryffindor, they were so often called by the Muggle-borns at school. Hermione wasn't quite sure what the Three Musketeers were, but she got the general idea. To her however they were nothing but a group of hooligans, and the fact that all threes' hands were full with shrieking pixies seemed to support this view.

"What are you doing here?" asked Harry Potter, looking suspiciously at the two.

"I could ask the same of you, Potter," said Hermione curtly.

"Gentlemen, we appear to have walked into a Slytherin snogging session between Miss Granger and Mr. Zabini," said Draco Malfoy with a snicker. "We ought to give them some privacy."

She ignored him. "Excuse me." She left the hallway immediately.

"As much as I'm not a fan of you, Zabini," she heard Ron Weasley say as she walked away, "you can probably do better than her."

As if I care what a blood traitor thinks, she thought to herself, rolling her eyes. A ridiculous group, those three were. A blood traitor, a clueless pure-blood, and...that Mudblood Draco Malfoy.

He was the most ridiculous out of the three, she thought. Despite being Muggle-born he had the audacity to be one of the smartest wizards in her grade, which annoyed her to no end. He was also in fact easily the most popular of the three, and even she had to acknowledge the reasons: he had the delicate features, the lean but still clearly muscled body, and the confidence fit for boys who look like that. Oh, and that hair that so many girls were obsessed with. It was almost humorous to see the jet black, red, and silver blond heads of male hair tearing up the halls of Hogwarts together.

Draco stretched and yawned. He pushed the pile of books on his bed off onto the floor and plopped down. It had been a long day, and he didn't have the energy to do the required reading for his classes.

"You know," he said as he heard Ron enter and plop down on his own bed, "maybe it wasn't such a good idea to go along with the plan after Granger saw us with the pixies."

Their plan had been to lock pixies in the desk drawers of the famous William Hensen Granger III, the ex-Prime Minister and now the Alchemy professor. In the interest of "not intimidating the students with the familiar name" he had insisted on being called Professor Hensen at school, but it wasn't as if anyone didn't know or if he didn't make it a point to be intimidating in other ways. None of these boys of course took Alchemy, but they disliked him anyway because he had allegedly been nasty to Ron's father few years back and was notoriously discriminatory against Muggle-borns.

"Do you think she's a tattletale?" asked Ron. "I mean, I don't think we ever got in trouble with her dad because of her."

This was true. Hensen began teaching about four years ago, and since then the boys had pulled off at least ten elaborate pranks. At least four of them had been somewhat witnessed by Hermione Granger before execution, but Hensen never was able to track the pranks back to the boys. He of course never really suspected students who were not in his on-again, off-again Alchemy class.

"She better not," said Harry from his bunk by the window. "Or we can leave Hensen a little note about her getting friendly with Zabini."

"You reckon they were snogging?" asked Draco, staring up at the ceiling.

"Why, jealous?" laughed Ron. Draco threw his Potions supplement at him. "Ow!" Ron looked down at the book. "Oh, is this helpful? Can I borrow it?"

Draco rolled his eyes. "As if you'd actually read it."

"I think I'm failing Potions," whined Ron, stuffing the book into his book bag.

Draco hoisted himself up. "Speaking of which, Dumbledore wanted me to talk to me about a Potions scholarship tonight."

"Wow," said Harry. "Way to be discreet and humble, you asshole."

Draco jumped when he entered the headmaster's office and everything came into view; Dumbledore was sitting at his table directly facing the door, his fists under his chin in the most childlike and expectant manner.

"Oh, Mr. Malfoy!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Please come on in!"

"Good evening, professor," Draco said as he got to the desk and sat down.

"Ah, yes, isn't it?" the old man's eyes sparkled.

And for a while neither said anything, Dumbledore happily staring at Draco and Draco feeling increasingly uncomfortable.

"Well, thank you for considering me for the Potions scholarship," Draco said at last.

"I'm sorry, what?" asked Dumbledore.

"The Potions scholarship...? The whole reason you asked me to come here?"

Dumbledore chuckled. "Oh, there is no Potions scholarship. No such thing."

Draco stared. He expected Dumbledore to explain what then was the purpose of this meeting, but there was another uncomfortable silence consisting of the enthusiastic Dumbledore and confused Draco.

"Well...why am I here then?"

"That is an excellent question, and I am delighted that you asked it," said Dumbledore. "You are here because I have a mission for you."

"Sorry?"

"A mission," Dumbledore said excitedly. "A mission to break down the nasty barriers we still have among wizards and witches of diverse backgrounds. I'm sure you've also been a victim of stereotypes and nasty name calling because of your own background."

Draco shrugged. "Well, the white male privilege does kind of blow sometimes."

"Oh, you make me laugh, Mr. Malfoy," said Dumbledore. "You know what I mean. I mean your Muggle parents."

Draco did know that was what Dumbledore was talking about. Especially since the arrival of Hensen four years ago, some of the pure-blooded Slytherins had been more vocal about being rude to half-bloods and Muggle-born students.

"So I am instituting a program," Dumbledore said, "where I will pair up each pure-blood student with a Muggle-born or half-blood student. They'll have to do a series of programs together and complete the course as a graduation requirement. I call it the Program."

"That's awfully generic."

"With a capital P," Dumbledore added cheerfully.

"Starting when?" asked Draco, slightly scandalized. "I mean, this is my last year."

"Oh, this requirement will be in effect only starting next year," Dumbledore said with a smile. "But that brings me to you. I thought I should have a sort of test run before we began the Program, and who better than with the smartest Muggle-born wizard in the seventh year?"

Draco stared. He narrowed his eyes at his headmaster. "Uh...so you want me to pair up with a pure-blood and do your program? Like a lab rat?"

"Precisely like a lab rat!" said Dumbledore, very obviously thrilled. "Now, I did have a question: what's a lab rat?"

"Never mind," said Draco. "Well...I mean, that shouldn't be too difficult, sir. I could pair up with Ron or Harry-"

"-ah, no," said Dumbledore. "I am pairing you up with Miss Hermione Granger."

"What? Why?"

"Because neither Mr. Potter nor Mr. Weasley is really a culprit of this discriminatory phenomenon," Dumbledore explained, "and Miss Granger...well, she sort of is."

"You want me to spend time with Granger," said Draco, incredulous. "She won't like that."

"Oh, I've already spoken to her," said Dumbledore.

"And?"

"She didn't like it."

Well, of course.

"In fact, she threatened to tell her father and get me fired," Dumbledore added, but in a tone that would have been more fitting for if Hermione had offered him baked goods. "But I am the headmaster and her father isn't even tenured. I can't even."

"Can't even what?"

"Don't you worry, Mr. Malfoy. Anyway, I am instituting it as a requirement for both of you," said Dumbledore cheerfully. "I can't really keep you from graduating on time, but you will get a grade and it'll go on you transcript. An extra O on your transcript should help in your post-graduation job search. Wouldn't this be fun? You are very much my OTP."

"What?" asked Draco, confused. "OTP?"

"No worries about that," said Dumbledore with a grin. "Now, let's go over the rules. You will get the tasks and directions directly from me. The point is to do them together at the same time, and how well you perform those tasks is rather irrelevant as the point of the Program is to have the students realize they are not so different from one another. And, no romantic or sexual relations during the Program."

Draco scoffed. "You won't have to worry about that, sir."

"It distracts from the Program, as much as I ship you two."

"Ship us?"

"Never mind," said Dumbledore with a wide smile. "And you might have to be a bit more cautious, Mr. Malfoy. Miss Granger was actually really interested in this restriction and the repercussions of breaking the rule."

"What repercussions?"

"Program terminates immediately. And you don't get paid."

"Paid?" asked Draco, surprised. "We get paid?"

"Oh, I forgot to mention," Dumbledore said, "I will give you both a refund on your tuition and boarding for this year if you successfully complete the Program."

Now that was more like it. He was taking out loans from Gringotts to fund his tuition, as it was taking a toll on his Muggle parents to support him.

"Just complete the tasks, and don't get involved inappropriately with Miss Granger. Easy, right?"

"Yes, sir," said Draco. "Sounds easy."

Dumbledore's eyes sparkled.

"Are you sure?"