"Hermione, will you just listen to me?  Hermione!"

            "Let go of me."

            "Hermione!"

            "Get off!"

            "H-"

            "Shut your gob for one blasted second.  Listen to me.  I don't care about the red paint.  I don't care about being made a fool of.  I don't care about anything. I don't care about you.  Would you just leave me alone?  I have catch up work to do."

            "Wait, Hermione, wait!"

            "Go fuck yourself."  Hermione waved her hand dismissively and stormed off through the next hall, leaving a distraught Draco behind her.  Draco hand put himself out there for her, finally.  He finally told her he was sorry about everything.  He didn't know what to think anymore.  All he knew is that he couldn't stop thinking about her.

            But she told him to sod off.

            Draco leaned against the wall, beads of sweat invisible on his forehead, fists clenched.  "Trouble in paradise?"  Draco's eyes darted to the shadowy end of the corridor, one of the many dark passages in the back of Hogwarts.  His eyes closed in resigned acknowledgment.  Pansy slowly strolled up to him so he was now panting air out at her.  "A Mudblood too."

            "How the hell are you here?"

            "I followed you.  I was very worried about you…but now?"  Draco said nothing and decided not to look at her face, full of veiled hatred.  "I heard everything."  Draco's eyes shut again in anger and he turned them ferociously on her.  And with a quick swipe he smacked her face almost as she had slapped him in the past.  She moved swiftly back into position, somewhat used to doing so.  "Don't you start hitting me."

            "Leave me alone."

            "I heard everything."  Draco slid down the wall so he was sitting.  "Everything."

            "SO WHAT?"

            "So what?  DRACO, WAKE UP!  WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?"

            "Fuck off," he growled under his breath, the heat rising fast in his chest and his pale face tanning red.

            "Draco!  I'm your friend!"  She kneeled down next to him and let her hand guide his head into looking up.  "There's no one in the world I'm closer to than you.  What's going on?"

            He paused for a few seconds, inhibitions and secrets building up against the walls of his chest.  "I don't know."  His voice was breaking.  "I just-"  Pansy held her breath.  He was going to tell her.  He was going to open up.  "…Nothing."

            Before the crumbling walls around Pansy tumbled down she tried her last trick.  She brought his face up to hers and smoothly as she could.  He didn't protest her wet kiss but she couldn't feel him, he wasn't there.  Her lips trembled slightly as she looked at his cold eyes, completely void of any feelings towards her.  "Alright," she whispered.  "Ok."