From Dreams to Reality

Chapter 9_______________________________________________________________

Hermione sat down at a table in the empty Transfiguration classroom with Harry. Harry, who had been extremely silent during the journey from the library, still looked hurt and abashed as he watched Hermione's every move.

"Harry," Hermione began, looking at him in the eye, "I want you to understand that I like you an awful lot, and that the feelings I have for Draco at the moment are nowhere near as big as the ones once I held for you." She paused. "You're my best friend and I don't want something to ruin it and that's why I've been so confused lately. If I went out with you and then we broke up, it wouldn't be pleasant - much like how Ron and I were like after we broke up last year, if not worse. Then there's Draco. If I went out with him, you, Ron and probably every other Gryffindor would disown me. I can't go either way no matter how much my heart wants me to."

Harry, who had been holding onto her every word, finally felt his heart reach the pit of his stomach. "Hermione, who says we will break up?" he asked in a quiet voice. "How do you know that we're just not meant to be together? We've never even tried."

"I just have this feeling, Harry," Hermione replied, with a small, rather guilty smile. "I'm really sorry."

Harry's brilliant green eyes stared into her warm brown ones, as they pleaded for forgiveness. He stood up without another word and broke all eye contact. Silently he left the room without looking back, leaving the door wide open, as tears built up in Hermione's eyes. She gave a small sob and buried her face in her hands, wanting more than anything just to have all her problems and complications to go away and never come back.

"Crying isn't going to do you any good," said a familiar, cold, drawling voice from the doorway. Hermione raised her head and looked around to see Draco standing there, a hard expression on his face. She hated to see that expression on his face. "I gather that you were lying to me earlier," he said harshly, "when you said you didn't have feelings for Potter anymore. And that kiss - it meant nothing. It was just a spur of the moment and it should never have happened." He stopped to study her tear-streaked face, wanting to know what she was thinking.

Hermione's lower lip trembled and she tried to fight a sob that wanted to escape. She didn't know if she could believe Draco's words. She hadn't seen the kiss as "a spur of the moment". She had seen it as something more that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

"I don't have feelings for Harry anymore, Draco," she said quietly. "I was telling the truth - or at least I think I was." She let out a great sob. "I - I'm so confused!"

Draco fought to restrain himself from showing any sign of emotion as she buried her face again. He wanted to help, but he knew it best not to.

"I had another dream, Draco," Hermione said, recovering ever so slightly and lifting her face again to look him firmly in the eye. "It wasn't a bad one, though."

Draco tried to keep his expression as straight and emotionless as possible. He looked down into Hermione's eyes, oddly feeling his heartbeat begin to quicken and he tried with all his might to stop himself from feeling such feelings for her.

Bringing himself together, he sat down at a table. "Was it a good one, then?"

"Well," she replied. "It wasn't really good, either..." She looked up at him and bit her lip. "It was really quite like what just happened in the library. Very alike."

"I kissed you in it, didn't I?" Draco's voice became icy cold. He didn't like the idea of these dreams one bit. How come she was able to see things before they even happened?

"Yes," Hermione replied quietly. "You were even wearing the same thing. The only thing that changed it was the fact that Harry confronted you..." She frowned, remembering. "What did he confront you about, anyway?"

Draco sighed heavily and moved uncomfortably in his chair. "He asked me what was going on between you and me. How you've been really distant around him. Paying him hardly any attention -"

"Yeah, well, I have had other things on my mind!" Hermione burst out.

" - He also wanted to know if you still had feelings for him. So I asked you, being curious as well," Draco said. He looked at Hermione carefully. "I think I was jealous of him," he admitted.

Hermione bit down on her lower lip, becoming even more confused. Draco watched her carefully before shaking his head and standing up. He left the room just as Harry had done, without a word or a look back.

Hermione dropped her face into her hands with an agitated groan. Why was everything so confusing and complicated lately?

> * <

A whole week passed for Hermione and not once had either Harry or Draco said a word of any form to her. This depressed her greatly and she was often found in the library, reading, or in the Gryffindor common room, staring into the fire with a distant expression on her face. She hadn't had any more dreams, which she was relieved about, but her thoughts and feelings were still as confused as ever.

How could she suddenly like Draco, after all he had said and done to her in the past and she still hadn't worked out what she'd done to make Draco like her, even though she knew the summer had something to do with it. But why her? Why not Pansy Parkinson, Blaise Zabini or any other Slytherin girl? What did she have that attracted him?

That very same question had also been occupying Draco's mind lately as well. He didn't know what made her so appealing to him all of a sudden. She was a Muggle-born, a Mudblood - something that Draco had been brought up to despise. She had a head of hair that reminded him greatly of a dead bush and he could never forget those large buckteeth of hers that she had managed to shrink a couple of years back. He didn't feel anything for girls like that until now and to add even more, she was a goody-goody Gryffindor who would live in the library if she were able. All those things didn't appeal to him one bit. And then there was the phenomenon of her basically saving his life over the summer...

The very thought made him both cringe and make his heart pound within his chest. He tried not to believe that that had been the one thing to make him suddenly want to kiss her like he had done in the library. He tried not to believe that that had caused so many new feelings to surge through his body and come to a rest in his heart, that he was finding her more attractive with every minute. It was all happening too fast...

> * <

The day of double Potions came unwanted as the seventh year Gryffindors and Slytherins entered the gloomy dungeon. Snape greeted them with the news that they would have partners for their Love Potions assignment. This sounded okay for some, until Snape said they would be working with the same person they had tested a potion with in their first lesson.

Draco headed silently over to Hermione's table and hastily took the seat beside her. Hermione could see a lot of arguing and awkwardness happening during the preparation of this assignment.

"Each pair is to decide on which Love Potion they will be brewing," Snape said in a cold, lazy tone to the class once they were all seated with their partners. "I want you to write it on a piece of parchment with your names on it and hand it to me by the end of the lesson. In two weeks time, you will prepare the potion and test it." Snape paused here to allow many of the students to groan. "In the meantime, you will do research on your Potion, compile your knowledge into some form of presentation and give it to me two double lessons from now." He looked around at his silent students and let a rather cold smile curve onto his lips at their sulky expressions. "Any questions?" He looked around at them all again. "Begin... And Weasley, I suggest that you don't stare at Miss Brown too much. The effect might damage your already pitiful grade."

Both Ron and Lavender turned bright red in the cheeks.

Draco cast a look at Hermione, as she absently jotted down a few notes on the parchment in front of her.

"So, Granger, what potion are we going to do?" he asked.

Hermione brought her eyes away from the parchment and looked at him. "The Single Kiss Potion," she responded shortly. "It's the simplest and as we've already experienced the effects..." She went slightly red in the cheeks and looked away.

A small smile came to Draco's lips at that and he too looked away from her, feeling his concentration slip ever so slightly back to the kisses they'd shared. He regained the small amount of control he had lost and looked around at the other people in the cold room. Not many of them looked happy. Several were arguing over which potion they were going to do, while others were just sitting there silently, murmuring things every now and then.

His eyes narrowed as they landed on Harry, who was sitting there with Blaise Zabini, staring at Hermione with a longing expression on his face. Draco lent over to Hermione's ear. "Potter's staring at you," he whispered to her quietly.

Hermione felt tingles run through her whole body from the very spot that the warmth of his breath had touched her neck. She turned her head slightly to look at him, leaning in so close to her. The warmth seemed to be rushing from him like he were a well-lit fire. Her heartbeat steadily became quicker as she stared into his grey eyes. She felt her feelings for him raging within her very chest and her gaze moved down his smooth, chiseled face to his lips, which were formed in a tiny smile.

Hesitant thoughts engulfed Hermione's conscious brain, as she tried to decide as to whether to lean in closer and capture his kissable lips with hers. Every part of her was oblivious to the presence around them; all her focus was on Draco, the one person it shouldn't.

"Mr. Malfoy, Miss Granger," asked a rather angry and cold voice to Hermione's right. Abruptly, each of them came back to their senses and pulled away, each going pink in the face. They looked up to see Snape standing at their desk. "Might I ask you, for the fifth time, if you have managed to decide on which potion you will be studying?"

"Ur, yes, sir," Hermione said awkwardly, avoiding the professor's icy gaze. "The Single Kiss Potion, sir."

Snape shot a glance at Draco, who nodded and handed over the piece of parchment he had written it on. Snape took it without a word, looking from one to the other.

"Very well, then," he finally said and he turned and walked over to where Harry was sitting with Blaise. Hermione caught Harry's eye and let a guilty expression come to her features. Harry just scowled at her and looked away.

"Still having dreams?" Draco asked her casually, cutting into her new thoughts.

Hermione looked at him and shook her head. "I haven't had any since the one about you and I in the library," she replied. Draco looked at her carefully. "I'll have more, though. I know I will."

Draco continued to look at her closely and carefully, trying to read her distant expression. Picking up her quill, he dipped it into her bottle of ink and jotted something down on a clean piece of parchment. He ripped it off and handed it to her.

"If you have any more dreams - bad ones - come straight to me. All the needed information is on that piece of parchment.

Hermione looked down and read his tidy scrawl.

Wall between silver and green torches in dungeon hallway. Password's "schlange". Take the left staircase. Dormitory at very top (has "Seventh year" on door).

Hermione looked up at Draco and smiled. "Thank-you," she said quietly. He just shrugged and picked up the book Hermione had placed on the table in front of them: Love Potions and their Properties.

Author Notes: Slytherin password "Schlange" means "snake" in German if you were wondering!! I hope you liked it!!! Please review!!!

Huge thanks to my betas: Samantha and stephanie - your help is greatly appreciated!!! I'd also like to thank my good friend Orla-Destiny for bringing me into the world of D/Hr with her fic When Enemies Interact - brilliant fic, read it if you haven't already!!! She has also been putting up the review forums for me, 'cause I can't be stuffed!!!

> Fiery Punk Princess <