All Your Fault

It was two days after the 'kitchen incident' as Draco called it and he was being haunted by images of Hermione. As hard as he tried, his mind kept seeing her in that white T-shirt licking peanut butter off her lips. It was not letting him have any say in the matter.

She's a Mudblood, he reminded himself over and over.

But his mind was having none of it. There was that little voice in the back of his head that kept stubbornly insisting: So what? Your favorite sandwich is a Muggle creation and you wouldn't even have that if she hadn't introduced you to it.

And the voice kept getting louder and louder; it kept getting more and more demanding.

He didn't know how to act around her anymore.

For the first time in his life he was having doubts about his beliefs and his behaviors. That one night in the kitchen had turned everything upside down. And he blamed everyone he could think of for it.

He blamed Granger for being there at all. He blamed Marcus Flint for showing him how to get into the kitchens in his second year. He blamed Filch for not patrolling the corridors by the fruit painting that night. He blamed Potter for... Well, for just being, Blaming things on Potter always made him feel better.

But things still weren't right. Something had shifted inside of him. For the first time he was questioning himself. For the first time he didn't know his direction. And for the first time he felt incomplete.

It was all Granger's fault.

At first he considered ignoring her. But he tried that for one day and then scratched the idea. He had spent the whole time trying not to look at her, trying not to talk to her, trying not to think about her. What he discovered was that he had a much greater desire to do all of those things when he was trying to avoid them. That would not do.

And so, phase two, he would be as mean and nasty as he could possibly be. If there was one thing Draco was no stranger to it was cruelty. Where there's familiarity, there's comfort.

That night, he sauntered into the Great Hall for dinner with a little extra swagger to his step. He fixed the Gryffindors with his patented sneer and continued to his usual chair at the Slytherin table. As he sat down between Crabbe and Goyle he felt someone's eyes upon him. Glancing up, his gaze connected with Granger's. Her gave her his best insolent glare and returned his attention to his food.

Oh yes. He felt better already.

****************

Potions the next day proved to be an interesting experience. In Draco's opinion, 'interesting' was not necessarily a good thing.

It was with raised spirits that Draco headed to class that morning. Potions always gave him the perfect opportunity to harass the trio without getting reprimanded for doing so. There was nothing he liked better than causing Potter and Weasley to snap and lose points for their house.

The first unexpected surprise came as soon as Snape swept into the room.

"You'll be working with partners today. I will be assigning them!" he snapped as they started to move towards their friends.

The class looked at him anxiously as though expecting him to read out their death sentences.

Snape smirked evilly and began reading off names. "Brown and Crabbe, Finnigan and Bulstrode, Potter and Parkinson..."

Draco let his mind wander from Snape and began copying down the formula for the Calming Draught they were supposed to be making. He had just finished with the list of ingredients when someone sat down in the chair next to his. He turned to face the person and scowled at the pair of brown eyes watching him.

"Well, that was bloody predictable," he muttered to himself.

"What?"

"None of your business, Granger!"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Oh sorry, Malfoy, I didn't realize you were talking to yourself! I'll just leave the two of you alone, shall I?" she hissed with as much sarcasm as she could muster and stormed over to the ingredient cupboard.

Draco cringed inwardly. ...To rhyme with scum! That little voice sang delightedly. He growled.

The rest of the class didn't improve. Hermione returned to their table, her arms full of bottles. Draco made no move to help her and she didn't ask him. She placed them in front of him and silently started stripping the petals off the chamomile flowers.

Through out the rest of their ingredient preparation, Draco kept 'accidentally' bumping her elbow. Every time he caused her to spill whatever she was pouring onto the table, her face got redder and redder. He was thoroughly enjoying himself even though he knew he was being childish. He stretched and in the process knocked the bottle of phoenix tears Hermione was holding over the cauldron right out of her hands.

There was a puff of black smoke and a loud scream of frustration. When the smoke cleared, the first thing Draco noticed was the cauldron. The potion inside had turned into something remarkably tar-like and hardened immediately. The second thing Draco noticed was the very angry Hermione glaring at him. She seemed to be at a loss for words.

That didn't last long.

"You... You... You great prat! What is wrong with you?" she yelled.

Draco scowled. "What's wrong with me? You're the one who dropped the vial of phoenix tears into the potion!" he yelled back.

If possible, Hermione got even angrier. "Me? Me? Oh, that's rich, Malfoy. You're the clumsy git who knocked it out of my hand!" She screamed so loud that several students clapped their hands over their ears.

Draco was outraged. "Malfoys are never clumsy!"

"Oh, well that explains everything then!"

Draco was about to agree that 'yes, it did explain everything' and 'yes, it was all her fault' but she wasn't finished.

"You obviously did it on purpose! So you're not a clumsy git, you're just a git!"

The second unexpected thing happened right then.

Hermione upturned a beaker-full of armadillo bile right over his head and stomped out of the classroom. He stood there for several minutes with bile dripping through his hair, over his face and down the back of his neck. A wave of laughter started to break through the Gryffindors and even a few Slytherins were holding back smiles. But Draco didn't notice them. What he did notice was Professor Snape staring down at him with an amused smirk plastered on his face.

"I think, Mr. Malfoy, that you had better go get cleaned up."

Draco nodded and slowly started to make his way out of the room, still in a daze.

"Oh, and Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco stopped and turned back towards Snape.

"I believe that will have to be five points from Slytherin for destroying a perfectly good cauldron."

Unexpected thing number three.

Without a word, Draco continued out of the room. It was the worst Potions class ever. And, of course, it was all Granger's fault.

******************

'Phase 2: Being Mean' wasn't working so well in Draco's favor. Hermione was acting rather unpredictably. In fact, Draco wondered what had happened to the 'ignore it' attitude that she always had with him. Perhaps, he mused, he had pushed it too far when he compromised her Potions grade that morning. Since then, he had run into her twice more.

The first was at lunch. Draco just couldn't resist the urge to taunt her, especially after how she had embarrassed him in Potions.

He strutted up to her seat at the Gryffindor table and cleared his throat. She looked up from her conversation with Potter and Weasley and narrowed her eyes at him.

"What?" she snapped.

"Now, now. Is that anyway for a Mudblood to greet a Malfoy?" he drawled.

She glared at him.

Now typically, this would be the part where she would resume her previous conversation and ignore his existence. But it seemed that Granger's predictable side had taken the day off.

The next thing Draco knew, he had a face full of pumpkin juice and she was holding an empty goblet.

"Git!" she yelled and threw the goblet at him.

He fended it off and then watched her walk away, this time dripping pumpkin juice. Draco looked at Potter who was laughing, his eyes sparkling merrily.

"This is all your fault, Potter!" he snapped and stormed out of the hall.

Yes, blaming Potter always made him feel better.

*

Back in the great hall, Ron looked at Harry.

"I don't know what's gotten into Hermione but I like it!"

*******************

The second time Draco saw Hermione was in the library. He had wandered in to pick up a Potions book but upon seeing Hermione standing in the Potions aisle, he couldn't help himself. She had a book open and was absorbed in it. Because of this, she did not notice Draco approaching. In one swift move he brought his hand up and knocked the text out of her grasp.

Her head snapped up and her brown eyes flashed angrily at him. "Damn it, Malfoy!" she hollered.

Now you'd think that Draco would have learned by now that whatever was coming was not going to be good. For a bright, young man, Draco was a little slow on the uptake.

Hermione swung her hand back at slapped him hard across the face. The smack echoed through the empty library. Draco blinked. She had already left. As he stood there in the middle of the Potions aisle holding his hand to the quickly reddening spot on his cheek something occurred to him.

This plan of his was not working.

On to phase three: ask her what the hell her problem was. After all, this was her fault.

***************

As Draco lurked in the shadows of the Entrance Hall that evening he thought about the events of the past few days. He had tried ignoring Granger. That hadn't worked at all. He had tried being mean to her. That had backfired completely. Now he was actually going to try to talk to her. He had to be losing his mind.

He still didn't know how to act around her. When he was ignoring her she haunted his thoughts constantly. When he was being nasty to her she always got one up on him. But if he tried to talk to her, she would probably just laugh in his face. He didn't even know what he was going to say to her.

He couldn't very well walk up to her and say, 'Hi, Granger. You made me a sandwich and now I can't stop thinking about you. Wanna snog?'

Oh, no. That would not do at all.

If she hit him for knocking a book out of her hands, he couldn't even imagine what she would do to him if he tried to kiss her. He snorted.

Who ever would have thought a Malfoy would be scared of a Mudblood girl? The little voice crowed.

"Shut up!" he hissed.

He paused.

"Good, Draco. Now you're talking to yourself."

Just then he heard a familiar voice passing his hiding spot. He grabbed Hermione's arm as she was walking by and dragged her into an empty classroom. He whispered a locking spell and put a privacy charm on the door.

He turned to Hermione. She looked like she was going to hit him again. She reached her hand back and...

Draco threw his arms up to protect himself. "Not the face, not the face!" he said quickly.

When the blow didn't come, he cautioned a glance in her direction. She had dropped her hand and was watching him with mounting amusement.

"Well, I'm glad you're finding this so funny, Granger," he said annoyed.

"I assume that you dragged me in here for a reason."

It wasn't a question. But then Draco supposed that Hermione Know-It-All Granger would probably know he wanted something from her.

"Yeah, I did. What have you done to me?"

"Pardon?" she asked looking surprised.

"You know what I'm talking about, Granger. That night in the kitchen, what did you do to me?"

"I didn't do anything to you, Malfoy."

"Like hell you didn't! I haven't been able to get a moment's peace since that night! You're always in my head. I can't stop thinking about you and those blasted Peanut Butter and Jam sandwiches!" he shouted.

Hermione gawked at him. Then she burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" he demanded.

"You are!"

"Oh, this sounds familiar," Draco grumbled darkly.

Hermione finally stopped laughing. She looked at him for a moment as if deciding what to say.

"Look, Draco, I didn't do anything to you that night except for treat you like a human being. And rather surprisingly, you almost did the same for me. I had been wondering what your problem was the past couple of days and it was really starting to get on my nerves. But now I know... You like me!" she finished triumphantly.

"What?!" Draco sputtered. "I do not!"

"Oh, yes you do," she countered, "that's why you can't stop thinking about me. You like me! Draco Malfoy likes me, Hermione Granger, a Mud-- mmmph!"

Without even thinking about what he was doing, Draco was kissing her. It was the only way that he could think of to make her stop talking. He had grabbed her arms and pulled her toward him but when she didn't fight it, he let his hands move to the small of her back. Her freed arms wrapped around his neck and her hands tangled in his fine silver-blonde hair. She smelled like honey and vanilla and tasted just as good. Finally he pulled away and looked at her. She was smiling at him.

"I told you so," she whispered.

Draco found his own lips curving up into a smile to match hers.

"You know what, Hermione?"

"What, Draco?"

"This is all your fault."