~Disclaimer: "Disclaimer: something said to save one's ass." –Dogma.  Anyways, why are these things necessary?  This is FANfiction, hence the implication that this is not ORGINALfiction hence the implication I don't own the characters, the setting, anything that © applies to and I think pretty soon I won't even own what I made up myself.

"England and American are two countries separated by a common language." –George Bernard Shaw.  I'm American but I try my best to sound authentic. ^-^  And for the sake of things, most of the Dark Lord coming back and everything I found out after I wrote this sometimes contradicts me, but I'm gonna ignore that.  Hope you can too. Anyways, r&r por favor.

            ~-~-~-~-~-~-~

"Er…no.  I'll catch up with you later, Harry."  Harry stared quizzically at his best friend.  "I want to go find Hermione."

"Oh.  She's doing well, isn't she?"

"'Course," Ron reassured Harry.  An uneasy feeling squirmed about in his stomach.

"You know where she is then?"

"Yeah…I think so," said Ron, beginning to walk away backwards, distractedly.

"See you later, then."

"See you," called Ron as he turned and jogged down another corridor, carrying his books under his arm.

Ron walked over to Professor Flitwick's room.  It took him a while but he finally reached it.  The torches lit the darkening corridors as night began to be cast over the castle.  Ron found he accidentally passed it, so he doubled back and reached for the door knob.  He heard something inside and hesitated, not knowing why he was a bit timid.  But he pressed on the knob anyways and turned it. 

Ron dropped his book as he looked inside.  Hermione was sitting on a desk, and before her was Malfoy.  He couldn't see their faces since they were currently in a very passionate kiss, Hermione's hand were fastened around his neck, and Malfoy's were tangled in her hair.  A small strangled noise came out of his throat, and the two in front of him pushed away.  They turned, and seeing Ron, standing there with a betrayed and disgusted look on his face, Hermione gasped.

Ron came back to life and spit at Hermione's feet before setting off in a run.

"RON!" screamed Hermione, scrambling off the desk.  Malfoy smirked.  He put his hands in the pocket of his robes and before strolling out of the classroom, he leisurely picked up the book that Ron and had left behind.  As he stood up again the smile from his face faded away.  He looked around the classroom nervously.  "So," he thought to himself.  "What's going to happen now?"

"Ron!" she yelled.  "Ron!  Ron!"

Ron didn't really know why he was running, but he couldn't think.  He knew he wanted to get to Harry, and that was it.  Ron rounded a corner and pelted up to the fat lady.  "Phoenix Feathers," he gasped.  The painting swung open and he burst into the common room.

People looked up at him as he appeared frayed and desperately out of breath, but he didn't care.  "Where's Harry?" he panted as the fat lady closed behind him.

"He might be at the library," said a third year.

"I'm right here," Harry said, coming down from the boy's stairs.  He looked very confused at everyone fixated on Ron, though understandably.  What was wrong?

Ron pelted for the stairs and dragged Harry with him.  "You won't believe it!" he was saying.  The two vanished around a corner, making everyone whisper and giggle, plotting what it might be about.

Hermione burst threw the door.  Everyone's eyes were now on her.

 "What are you looking at!" she barked shrilly.  "Where's Ron?"

A few girls giggled.  "He and Harry went up to their dormitory," informed a fifth year boy.  "Something urgent."

A first year sitting near the stairs saw that Hermione had tears in her eyes as she ran up.  "Oi!" called a boy after her.  "You can't go up there!"

Hermione reached the boys' dormitory and put her handle on the knob.  She didn't turn it.

She started jerking weirdly.  The tears started flooding out of her eyes.  Now she had come all this way and was about to face her two best friends, after everything.  It was ugly crying, coming in small and in short gasps.  She instead slid down the wall next to the door and buried her face in her hands, remembering the start of all this.  How she had been pulled into this…but by Draco, no.  Not completely.  It had been her choice…she decided to do all of this.

"When did everything go so wrong?" she whispered to herself.

A while back, Hermione had been tipped of by Professor McGonagall.  "Nothing is official yet," McGonagall had said excitedly, extremely proud of her student.  "But if everything stays how it is, I'm sure you'll be appointed Head Girl next year."

"What?" Harry gasped, sarcastically, as Hermione told them minutes later.

"Uh," Ron shook his head.  "My own friend, a Head Girl. What an embarrassment."

Hermione hit his arm playfully.  "You're just mad you're not one," she laughed.

Ron shook it off.  "I've never wanted to be Head Girl, Hermione."

"Anyways," she continued, ignoring the last comment.  "If all goes according to plan, I'll be the Head Girl.  I should write to Mum and Dad."

"You, Head Girl?" asked an annoyed voice.  The three turned to see Draco standing away from then.  "We'll see about that."

"What'd he mean by that," hissed Ron as soon as Draco walked further down, towards the Slytherin table.  Goyle and Crabbe met him like dogs welcoming their master.

"I don't know," said Hermione, a worried look on her face.  "Lucius Malfoy's not a governor anymore, is he?"

"No, he's not," assured Harry.  "Malfoy's just bluffing."

"I dunno," Ron shook his head.  "I heard my Dad talking about him.  Said he's been doing more business in the school then my Dad would like.  But really," he said more comfortingly, as Hermione looked anxious.  "There's not much he can do!  He doesn't decide anything that goes around on here."

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were on their way to history when a third year ran over to them.  They knew her by sight by not by name.

"Oi!" she called, reaching them.  "Hermione," the student was looking at the only girl in their trio.

"What?" Hermione asked, curious.

"Professor McGonagall wants to see you.  She's in her classroom."

"Why?"

"I dunno," the student shrugged.  "Come on."

Glancing at Harry and Ron, who were looking perplexed, Hermione said, "Tell Professor Binns I'll be late."

They nodded at Hermione and the student as the girls headed off for the Transfiguration room.

Harry and Ron had an excellent lesson.  Professor Binns was extra apathetic during class, allowing the boys to flick paper balls at each other and for other students to find alternative diversions.  But they were constantly distracted with the fact that Hermione didn't show up all lesson.

"Where is she?" asked Ron for the fourth time as he took the paper ball out of his hair.

"Dunno," said Harry, worried as well.  "It's almost lunch time, I bet we'll see her there."

After the lunch bell rang, Harry and Ron gathered up their stuff.  When they finally got down to the Great Hall, they heard hurried footsteps and looked behind them.  Hermione was running towards them, a look of great annoyance on her face.

"Where've you been?" asked Ron, watching her try and catch her breath.

"Professor McGonagall has just informed me."  She took another breath; she had a very angry tone to her voice.  "That there will be new rules enforced next year to decided whose Head Boy and Girl!"

"So?" asked Ron, thickly.  "You'll be decided this year."

"The rules are for next year, Ron.  For next year.  That means that I have to go through a survey and an inquiry.

"Why?" asked Harry as they started walking towards the table.

"Who knows?" she said shrilly.  "Probably something to with that evil , ol' twit, Lucius Malfoy!  Professor McGonagall warned me he was involved."

"What?" hissed Harry.

"I know!  She told me that he was going to be one of the people asking me things.  I bet Draco did this, I bet you!"

Ron glared over at the Slytherin table where Pansy Parkinson was annoying Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle.  "You know, I bet you're right."

"Of course I am!" Hermione continued in her high-pitched ranting.  "I mean, really, all these rules have been constructed.  I wouldn't be surprised if one of them was 'Only Purebloods.' the whole thing is just to keep me from succeeding."

"Why'd Professor McGonagall tell you?" Harry asked suspiciously.

"Because she's nice."  After a deep intake, Hermione calmed down considerably and started to talk with a bit more reasonably.  "I think I've become her protégé.  She seemed really upset by the new measures.  You'd think she would happy, it's stricter and assures more obedience, but no.  So, I think she must be unhappy because it's not designed to be strict, it's designed to be unfair."

"How can it," Ron sneered.  "You haven't broken a single rule."

"Oh yes I have!" she said, sounding like she was getting to what bothered her most.  "After all these years, all these adventures.  I just wasn't expelled because it turned out ok."  She put her face in her hands.  "All the years of hard work and I might not be Head Girl."

Harry and Ron tried to assure Hermione, but she seemed beyond reason.  She dashed away to talk to Professor Binns about her missed lesson, but she really didn't seem to present the whole day.  At night, when Harry and Ron said goodbye, she merely waved and gave a faint, "Nigh," as a 'goodnight.'

The next day, Hermione went over to Professor Binns' classroom and paced past the door, and over to his desk.  She shuffled papers around, talking to herself frustratedly.  "He said the notes would be here!  Where are they?  Maybe he forgot, maybe he gave them to another student.  Maybe, maybe, maybe he decided at the last minute that I need to copy my own."

"Looking for these?" said a confidently smug voice from across the room.  Hermione's head shot up and she stared at the boy in the doorway.  He was leaning against the door, waving a hand full of papers in one hand.  He had an arrogant smirk and was in his Slytherin Quidditch robes.  He must have been practicing or something, since there wasn't any game.  "Or maybe they're right here?" he asked, imitating the way she had been speaking.  She was annoyed with how he made his voice very high and idiotic.

Hermione paused, looking at the papers in his hand, to his unrelenting face.  "Suppose you'll give them to me."

He grinned.

Hermione had to admit, 'Yeah, right.  Draco, give up that quickly? Unlikely.'  She thought, tentatively going over her chances in her mind.  'The last thing I want to do is stay here and let him dominant the conversation.'  "So," she spoke up.  "What do you want?"

"I'm not sure," he said casually, now looking at the papers like food he didn't want to eat.  "Just bored."

Hermione growled inwardly at such smugness.  She had to notice, though, the sophisticated manner in which he spoke.  "Well. I don't have time for you," she said matter of factly.  "Give them here or else-"

He laughed softly.  "Or else what?" he smiled at her.

'No,' she told herself.  'You're just giving him a fight, and that's what he wants.'  She hesitated again, trying to think of way that would make him even more bored talking to her.  "Fine."  She said, walking over to a desk.  "I'll just sit here until Professor Binns gives me new notes, or you give me those."

Again he smiled, now while watching her march over to a desk and sit herself down.  "On a hunger strike?  Going to sit there until your knight in shining armor comes.  Who, by the way, is dead.  But, at least he's a real wizard."

"Uh, what do you want, Malfoy!" she snapped, her frustration rising.

"I told you I'm not sure," he repeated.  "Dead bored.  Dead, dead, dead bored.  So," he looked down at her and flashed his classic grin. "I thought that I should come here and bug you."

Hermione ran her hand threw her hair.  She had had enough.  "Alright, Malfoy!" she said, standing up very quickly and pulling out her wand.  Malfoy didn't falter, he looked at it with a stoic expression.  "Give them here!"

"Make me," Draco sneered, a plan already in his mind.

Sparks flew out of Hermione's wand, but they didn't hit Draco.  He had put her notes in front of his face at the last second, and the sparks, powerful enough, began to char them and one side of the paper caught fire.  Draco let them go, watching the burning papers soar to the ground, quiet impressed by the entertainment.

There was a moment where Hermione was speechless then started waving her arms a bit before shouting, "That' just fine!"

"Look," said Draco, like he was showing a baby something.  "There go the papers."

Hermione paused for a second before glaring up at him, tears in her eyes.  They were not like the tears she would cry outside the boy's dormitory.  A far cry away, if you will.  These were innocent tears.  "Fine!  You got your kicks.  And I broke a rule.  Are you done now?  Happy?"

"Quite," he smiled, and turned to walk away.

Hermione shot up, pointed her wand at his retreating back, and shouted the first thing that popped up into her head.  "Everbero!"

A large, blue, gust of wind soared out of her wand and smashed into Draco.  His legs gave way, and he slid to the ground, his head slamming into the floor.  He sat up quickly and his hand went immediately to his back where the force had hit him.

Grasping reality again, she squealed, running over to him and kneeling down.  She put her hand on his back and he pushed her away.

"Get off, Mudblood," he barked.  She withdrew, taken aback.  Then she lowered her hands and saw him painfully stand up.   He looked down at her.  "You'll regret that," he informed her indignantly.

"Will I?  So is your father going to do something now?  You better tell him!" she said, her defiance back at once.  She stood up and they glared at each other.

In response, he took another step towards her so that they shared the same breath.  This close, it was harder to hold her ground but Hermione stared boldly back at his intimidating, grey eyes.

Hermione astonished herself with a thought she would have never believed to have.  As they were so close, she saw in her mind Malfoy lean towards her for the perfect kiss, like they always do muggle movies.  She looked jarred, but Draco hardly noticed.  She looked back at him, as she had been staring at the ground behind him to think, and was surprised again.  He was scanning her over trying to figure out what was going on in her mind.  He mustn't!  But then…he stopped.  He took a step backwards and began to leave the classroom.

"You owe me notes!" Hermione spat as he tried to leave.  He stopped at the door.  She couldn't believe she had said that.  'That will just make him stay!' she growled.

"Notes?" Draco asked, looking like he couldn't believe such a proposal.  "Oh, yes, let me write them for you."  At least he turned back away from her.

'Good he's…going.  That's good.  Good, good, good.'

"Well, Granger?" Malfoy said, wanting a response.

"Huh?" she said, distractedly.  "Oh…Yesss."

He grinned, knowing she wasn't thinking clearly and he had an advantage.  "What's that?" he asked her.

"What?"

"I said 'Believe that.'"

"Believe what?"

"'That'."

"I know that."

"Good."

Hermione paused.  Was she being outsmarted?  Her brain was working oddly slow.  "I…have to go."  She tried to push past Malfoy, but he wouldn't move.  One of his arms was blocking her passage way since he was leaning on it.  She struggled to move him.

"Trying to snuggle, muggle?"

"Don't flatter yourself."

He laughed.  It had been sarcastic comment, but did she know that?

"W-What are you laughing at," Hermione growled.

"Nothing," he said innocently.

"No, tell me."

"I don't take orders from you," he sneered.

"Fine then."  She ducked under his arm and left the classroom.  Malfoy hissed jokingly after her.  'He really is a Slytherin, isn't he?'