Disclaimer: Nope. Harry Potter is not mine.

A/N: This is dedicated to dremoine who advised me to write another chapter using Hermione's POV. So, here it is. I hope you all like it! I also tweaked the first chapter. Rereading it showed me how it needed a lot of fixing. Read and review, guys! Now, on with the story.

He was always early. He always came to the office 20 minutes before the exact office hours. How I knew, you wonder. Well, I was always earlier than him, or should I say I deliberately come to work in what most people will consider as unholy hour, if you call seven in the morning as that, in order to…I don't even have a slightest idea why I'm doing this.

It started as mere curiosity. After Draco Malfoy was assigned to my department, I started to see him as someone other than the bully and the spoiled git in Hogwarts. For the first time, I was given the opportunity to view him in another light – as a human being with quirks, with good and not so good sides. I observed that he prefer coffee over tea. Really, really unusual for someone like him, being pureblood, aristocratic and all. He wanted his coffee very dark with the accompaniment of something sweet, like muffins or doughnuts. I learned that he rake his platinum hair whenever he was engrossed in something. I never meant for this to happen, for me to actually want to know the real him.

Oh, there he is. Finally.

I employed every ounce of stealth that I have in my body whenever I observe him like this. I purposely turn to the other direction whenever he walk or pass by. I never talked to him if I can help it. But I listen, I always listen. I think he didn't know it but he now has a pleasing voice. Low, silky, almost sensual. One that I could easily listen to while falling asleep. I will never admit it to anyone, though. We were known in school as enemies, and many still believed that we still loathed each other. I didn't know what his stand on this notion was but I was sure of my own. I never loathed him. Well, I was annoyed with him when we were kids, he infuriated me with his insults, but the word loathe was too heavy to describe what I felt for him back then.

He never talked to me too unless it concerned our work. Much the same as me. And he almost kept only to himself. Thinking about this made me want to see the Malfoy before. I will admit that I missed the very arrogant him that always challenged me to come up with new insults and retorts. Weird, wasn't it? But it's true.

I sometimes caught him looking at me. His gazes didn't hold disgust anymore. No, instead, his eyes seemed to convey something. I tried to lengthen our stares whenever it happened but he always pulled back instantly, as if he was scalded or something. I wanted to talk to him but I guess I needed to muster enough courage to do that. Where is the Gryffindor in me, you ask. It's replaced with big butterflies, the size of hippogriffs, in my stomach whenever I consider doing it, whenever our eyes met, or even just the thought that we were in the same room.

What exactly was happening to me?

I, for once, had no idea. But I will continue observing him. He has been at our department for a year now. And in that span of time, I found myself, dare I say, drawn to him. Maybe it's because of our shared history, maybe it's due to, as I said earlier, my curiosity of further discerning the real Malfoy, or perhaps I'm actually going barmy. You might not understand or even think of it as impossible, of very un-Hermione Granger. But what can I do? I tried reasoning with myself. That, at least, is familiar territory. But then again, I only wore myself out, thinking of any logical reason behind this craziness, of my..feelings for Malfoy.

I wanted to hope. I wanted things to be different. I wanted him to see me too. But I knew too well that he still looked at me as the Mudblood Granger, nothing but dirt on his shoe, a taint on the wizarding world.