Complicated

The next day was a beautiful, sunshiney Saturday. After breakfast, Hermione grudgingly stomped down to Snape's classroom in the dingy dungeon. This was going to be a long day.

She didn't mind the cleaning. Being Muggle-born, Hermione was completely familiar with their cleaning methods. It was who she had to clean with that bothered Hermione. Bsides You-Know-Who, Draco Malfoy was at the top of her list of People to Keep as Far Away From as Possible. She entered the classroom to find him already there, along with Professor Snape.

"Finally," Draco snorted.

"All right, you two. Here are the brooms, mops, rags, and feather-dusters. Buckets are over by the sink. No magic and my office and closet are off limits," Snape informed them. "I'll be back in four hours. If it's finished, you may go to lunch and be free. If not, you'll be back right after lunch to do something even less appealing."

He strode out of the room. Hermione and Draco glared menacingly at one another. Each seemed to be daring the other to come any closer. After what seemed like forever, Hermione broke the silence.

"We'd better get to work," she said, moving forward to pick up a broom.

"I'm not doing Muggle work. It might be all right for a mudblood like you, but not me. Besides, I'd rather eat slugs than work with you," Draco retorted.

Hermione bristled, but calmly replied, "Listen Malfoy, quit acting like a little baby. If you'd rather come back here after lunch to do something even worse, go ahead, but I bet you'd rather not get your ego blistered up again by Snape yelling at you. So here's the deal: You take that side, I'll take this one. We don't have to speak, we get it done, everyone's happy. Got it?"

"Whatever," Draco snarled, wrenching the broom she held from her hands and stomping to the other side of the room.

Hermione sighed and picked up another room, then settled to work on her side. She soon became lost in her thoughts and forgot Draco was even there. As she set to scrubbing the stone floor, a song escaped her lips in the form of a hum. It was a Muggle rock tune, by one of her mother's favourite old bands. Hermione had always been partial to Muggle music and still listened to her Mum's old records during the summer holiday.

"Don't tell me you listen to Muggle music."

Draco's voice, echoing eerily in the dungeon, startled Hermione out of her reverie. She let out a small gasp and fell back.

Draco was suddenly standing above her, smirking. "Jumpy much?" he drawled cockily.

Hermione glared up at him.

"Seriously. You need to calm down. I've never seen anyone get that startled. I know I'm good looking, but ..." he trailed off and gave her that sickening grin. His eyes remined mirthless.

Draco's eyes studied the girl below him. Her hair, bushy and wild as ever, fell loosely over her shoulders. A few strands had drifted over her eyes. Her robes were spread out and around her on the stone floor, revealing a purple sweater and black pants underneath. Her eyes were big and tinted a lovely greenish brown, and framed with thick lashes. He realized, with a start, that she was kind of pretty. Definitely better than Pansy.

That thought was immediately shattered when Hermione, eyes narrowed, said, "You really have nothing to be that conceited about."

Draco angrily retorted, "At least I'm not a worthless, beaver-toothed mudblood who listens to bloody Muggle music!"

Hermione didn't look the least bit phased by his words, which consequently made Draco even more angry. She sat up and carefully rearranged her robes, then smoothed a hand over her hair before answering him.

"I'd rather be a mudblood who listens to Muggle music, which, by the way, is fantastic, than a stuck up, snobby, selfish, and unlikable future dark wizard."

Draco's eyes flashed with an emotion strange to his features and he shouted, "Shut up!"

He towered over her and looked quite menacing with his pale-as-milk skin, dangerous gray eyes glaring, and usually slicked-back hair disheveled, strands falling down over his forehead and teasingly brushing with his eyelashes.

And, Hermioned thought, he looked pretty handsome.

"Don't talk about my father or my family. Ever," he ordered in a gruff whisper.

"Okay," Hermione whispered back, softly.

They were silent for what seemed like hours, but was only a few minutes, staring at each other. Each was contempleting in their head the sudden realization of the other's beauty. Hermione broke the moment with a smile.

"My teeth," she said, smiling even wider.

Draco looked puzzled and raised an eyebrow. "What about them?"

"You sqaid I was beaver-toother. I'm not. Anymore, that is."

"No way!"

"Yes. Remember fourth year? You put that horrible hex on me. When Madame Pomfrey shrank them, I let her go a bit farther than my normal size."

"Let me see," Draco begged with the curiousity and wonder of a four year old in his voice. He reached down and helped her to her feet and then leaned in to get a good look at Hermione's front molars. Sure enough, they were normal sized. Draco wondered how he could have missed that, then remembered it was because he hated her and she hated him.

"Well, that's nice and all. Better get back to work," he announced suddenly, pushing Hermione away from him and walking back to his side of the room.

"Okay then," Hermione muttered, going back to her cleaning as well.

Two hours later, the room was almost clean. Snape was due back in a half hour, and Hermione was hurrying to finish dusting the shelves. Draco was sweeping away the last of a few stray cobwebs that hung over the closet door. Hermione began to absently hum again, but this time Draco didn't stop her.

She hummed all the way to the closet, where she leaned the feather duster against it along with the brooms and mops, then scanned the classroom for any final specks of dirt. It was spotless, and sighing with relief, Hermione sat on top of a desk. She would be able to finish her homework and get a good start on studying for exams.

Draco, having put the broom away, sat down on top of the desk beside her. Hermione glanced curiously at him, then looked away before he saw her. She began to think about their conversation earlier. A thought suddenly entered her mind.

"Did you always want to be in Slytherin?"

Hermione really hadn't meant to say it out loud, but knew she had when he turned to look at her.

"Of course. Why whouldn't I have? It's Malfoy tradition," he answered. His voice didn't sound so sure, she noticed.

"Well, it's just you were so upset when I called you an unlikable future dark wizard. Slytherin's known for turning out dark wizards, and it just made me wonder..."

"You thought that since my father's a Death Eater, I wanna be one, too."

Nervously, Hermione looked at Draco. His face was unreadable. "N-no," she stammered.

"I'm not my father, Granger."

They sat there in silence.

"So, did you want to be in Slytherin?" Hermione repeated after a while. She had turned to look at him, and they were awfully close. Again, Hermione noticed that Draco was quite handsome.

He opened his mouth, but Hermione never recieved an answer. Professor Snape flew into the room suddenly. Draco hopped off the desk as if someone had shot him.

"Very well, then. Finished. Go before I change my mind," Snape said after looking around the room.

The two left and headed down the passage side by side, silently. As they approached the Great Hall, Draco threw a withering look at Hermione. "Granger."

Hermione returned the look and nodded. "Malfoy."

Both entered and headed to their respective tables without a backward glance.

At the Gryffindor table, Ron and Harry looked up expectantly as Hermione sat down.

"So, how bad was it?" Ron asked, grinning.

'It wasn't too bad,' Hermione thought, her mind drifting to the image of Draco glaring down at her, his silvery blonde hair falling carelessly in his eyes.

Out loud, she grimaced. "It was horrible. He is such a brat."

Biting into her sandwich, she thought, 'A cute one, though.'

Across the room, Draco stared at the back of Hermione's head. For some reason, he couldn't get the image of her sprawled on the floor of the dungeon with her hair spread our all over, out of his head.

"You poor thing. Was it horrible?" Pansy asked, the sickening fake-sweetness back in her voice.

"Yeah, horrible," Draco mumbled, tearing his eyes off Hermione. She was a stupid mudblood know-it-all and he hated her.

Still, she was kind of cute when she was angry.