Charms

"Miss must wake up! Wake up Miss!"

"Uh?" Hermione sat upright, blinking fuzzily. A house elf with large tennis ball green eyes blinked back at her. "Dobby?"

"Sir told Dobby to give this to you personally Miss. Incase room-mates looked, Miss. But Miss, Dobby must go and cook now."

With a snap of his fingers, Dobby was gone and a small velvet jewelry box with a black satin ribbon around it was on her bed, beside a note.

" 'I know you know this one.' Hmm, I wonder what that means?" looking around her room and seeing her roommates' curtains still closed tightly, Hermione shrugged and slipped the ribbon off the box. "Oh!"

**********

Draco growled and rolled over, away from the evil light. **I'm a creature of the night. This early in the morning is just not on...** As he was trying to hide under the pillows, he could hear thumping footsteps walking towards his bed.

"Draco, it's time for breakfast." Trust Crabbe to know when mealtimes were. Draco sighed as he hauled himself out of bed and into some clean robes. He hated mealtimes at the Slytherin table during the term. It was always so silent, so oppressive. Once it was holiday time and the crowds thinned out, laughter and conversations could be heard there, but during the actual term it was a place of silence, where no-one talked louder than a whisper, and no-one laughed. Especially at breakfast. Suddenly, Draco remembered something that made him want to break out into a huge smile and race into the Great Hall. **The earrings...**

**********

After checking the earrings for curses, Hermione slipped them into her ears, and joined the others as they went down to breakfast (Lavender and Parvati had woken up while she had been checking for curses, and had not yet noticed her earrings, as they hadn't seen her). When seated at the usually rowdy Gryffindor table, she flashed a bright grin at Harry and Ron, who were looking decidedly sleepy. Come to think of it, so was Ginny...Hermione turned in her seat and surveyed the Ravenclaw table. Yep, so was Cho. *~Idiots. I hope they fall asleep in class.~* she was sick of the way that they were constantly out at nights. *~If I ever catch them...~*. She supposed it was weird for her, their supposed 'best friend' to be thinking such thoughts, but honestly, just because they were the Boy Who Lived and his sidekick, that didn't give them any right to be wondering around the castle late at night...unless Voldemort was around.

"Hey Harry, does your scar still hurt?" Hermione asked, doing her best Californian blonde impersonation.

"Huh?" He looked up from the stack of waffles he was drooling over. "No, why do you ask?"
"I just noticed the enormous circles under your eyes and I wondered if you had gone out last night because your scar was hurting...you know, just in Voldemort was around or something." 'Voldemort' was said softer than everything else, because inspite of her best efforts, the rest of the Gryffindors still shuddered when his name was mentioned. *~Cowards. Where's your Gryffindor courage?~*. Harry just blushed at her question, and ignored her for the rest of the meal. *~Now I'm really mad. He didn't even notice my earrings...and I put my hair back and everything.~*

**********

*~Ugh. Those two need to get a life... "Oh those are so pretty Hermione"... "I wish my boyfriend would do something romantic like that"~* Still frowning over the ridiculous behavior of Lavendar and Parvati, Hermione pushed open the door to the library and walked confidently. She smiled at Madame Pince, who gave an honest smile to her favourite student. Hermione wandered to the back of the library, checking the different tables half-heartedly. *~I bet he's at the back...~* She rounded the last table. *~Surprise, surprise. Hey, he actually has books out...will wonders never cease?~*

"Malfoy," she nodded as she sat down at the table.

"Granger," he returned, "I was looking through these, and I wondered if we could come to a compromise."

Hermione was in shock. *~Does he even know what that word means?~* Out loud, she whispered "Compromise?"

"Yes, I do know what that means. I have an excellent vocabulary. I know the original meaning of the word 'Dumbledore'. I can read, speak and write Latin. Now, about the compromise...?""Hang on. What is the original meaning of 'Dumbledore'?" she queried.

"Olde English for 'Bumblebee'"At this, Hermione dropped her books onto the table and sat down, laughing, slightly hysterically. "I can actually see that, you know," she replied, through her laughter. **I made her laugh! I made her laugh!**After a few minutes, Draco coughed quietly. "About the project..."She blinked rather rapidly, and gestured for him to continue. *~He was actually serious? Not just trying to distract me so that he could heap all the work on me?~*. This was something that unfortunately happened often in the life of Hermione Granger."Why don't we look at the different types and uses of mood potions? From the basic ingredients that all of them use, to those that effect your moods to the ones that reveal them?" Hermione looked surprised. "Not too offensive, Granger?"

"A pleasant surprise. I agree, that will be interesting. Where should we start?"

***********

*Thump*.

"My head huurts..." Hermione looked up from her book to see Malfoy with his head resting on the 3,000-page book.

"Why did I suggest this?" he mumbled. Hermione just shook her head.

"Personally, I don't see how you give up after an hour..."
"An hour? It's been 2 and a half! It's nearly curfew! The words are blurring, and I have homework for other classes! And not only that-" Draco closed his mouth with a snap. **Way to go, Romeo. Complain about your life to her.** But to his surprise, Hermione just laughed.

"Sorry, I forget that not everyone can study for 6 hours straight."

She stood up and placed her book in her bag, and started to divide the rest of the books up. *~I have a secret admirer, I have a secret admirer...~* To be honest with herself, Hermione hadn't actually done much reading. *~Well, not in as much depth as usual~* Her thoughts had been to busy on her gifts...*~First flowers, then jewelry...~* Unconsciously, she reached up to fiddle with her earrings.

Draco looked up from the books he was putting in his bag to see Hermione running the tips of her fingers over one of the earrings. **Should I, shouldn't I...**

"What are those, Granger?"

Hermione looked startled, and snatched her hand away. "Oh, just some earrings I got today...an early Christmas present."

Draco leaned in closer. "Hey, those are good."

She looked at him strangely. "How do you know?"

He just smiled *~Wow, an actual smile, not just a smirk~* "I have about 10 female cousins. The only males that are of my generation are either babies or left school before I started. Hence, I know a lot about jewelry."

Hermione smiled in return.

"I would never have guessed. You have such an...image."

"Yeah, well, don't let it get out."

As they had been talking, they had unwittingly been moving towards the door of the Library. Behind them, the lamps had extinguished, as they were the last ones out.

"Well, goodnight Malfoy."
"Same to you Granger, same to you."

**********

fin