Obsession

Hermione dabbed her quill in the ink holder as she though about her ending sentence to her article. She had 10 minutes left before her had to hand it in before her deadline and had 20 minutes before she has to meet Ron and Harry at the Leady Cauldron.

She skimmed he whole article again and finally added her last 2 sentences.

"Perfect!" she said proud of herself. She rolled up her parchment, grabbed her cloak and walked briskly out of her office.

"Give this to Thomas okay Nadine? Quick! I have 4 minutes left till my deadline!" She handed her officemate the parchment and Nadne apparated to her boss' office. She looked at her watch. She had time to spare. She took her sweet itme as she exited the Daily Prophet building. She thought about her article and was quite proud of her work. It was her dream of writing for the Daily Prophet and now she was finally getting to live it at the age of 23.

Daydreaming, she didn't watch where she was going. She just suddenly collided with another person and they both fell hard on their backsides in the middle of Diagon Alley. Hermione grabbed her butt feeling pain in the tailbone area. She then was shadowed by a large figure.

The person held out its hand and Hermione was shocked as to who it was.

"Sorry," he said. Hermione took a closer look. The slicked back blonde hair, grey eyes ..... She gave a silent gasp.d

"Draco!" she said surprised as she held his hand to pull herself up.

"Didn't think you would ever bump into me now did you?" Draco said with a smile that Hermione noticed was very sweet. She studied him. He looked different. He ws more built and tougher looking. His facial features were more chizelled and defined yet he looked ... gentle. He was handsome no doubt, Hermione couldn't deny that.

"Um.. Yeah .. This is very unexpected," she said with a smile too. She averted her eyes, thinking herself stupid for staring so obviously. Little did she know that Draco was doing the same. He was admiring her too with the perfectly straight shoulder length hair, chocolate eyes, slender developed body and heart shaped lips. He looked her up and down making Hermione blush.

"You look great Hermione. A definite change since we last saw each other in Hogwarts. You are seriously beautiful," he said unshyly. Hermione was a little suprised by his nice nature. She was expecting "for a Mudblood" to trail his words but the words never came. He actually sounded sincere.

"Er ... Thank you Draco. You look good too! Very different. You are different," Hermione tried to say without sounding like an insult. She looked away, shy that might have offended him somehow.

"It's okay Hermione. I'm used to it. But yes, I am different. I have changed. I'm not the same Malfoy I was when we were in Hogwarts. I'm much kinder I think," she said with a proud grin but he blushed.

"I can see that!" Hermione laughed. Awkward silence. "I have to go. I have an appointment. It's good to see you Draco ... nice and all ..."

"Good to see you too! I hope we can see each other again ... Over dinner perhaps?" he asked with a cute expression of please on his face. Hermione couldn't resist.

"Sure! I'll get in touch!" she said with a grin.

"Good then! I'll owl you at your office in Daily Prophet!" he called out as he walked away.

"Ok!" Hermione called back as she started walking away too. "Wait! How did you know I worked for -" She turned around. Draco was gone. "For the Daily Prophet ..."