When Enemies Interact

Chapter 3: Hermione's Problems.

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Hermione stared at Draco's retreating back. For the first time in her life, she was agreeing with something he had said. She was losing control of herself, though she didn't like to admit it, and she needed someone or something to stop it.

She didn't know why she had spilled some of her soul out and told him her problems with Harry, but it felt rather good to have her thoughts and feelings heard, even if it was to someone she hated. But she was going to deal with Draco a lot more often now he was Head Boy and with the stupid Potions assignment. She also didn't know why she had said she'd be fine with him being Head Boy, because she most certainly wasn't.

Slowly, she followed Draco's footprints and headed down to the Great Hall for lunch, where she found Harry and Ron sitting at the Gryffindor table. Ron looked extremely angry. Heading over, she gave Harry a very quick kiss on the cheek and sat down next to him.

"You would never guess what that filthy bastard is making us do for detention!" Ron said furiously to Hermione.

"Ron, don't call him that -" Hermione said warningly, but Ron ignored her and interrupted.

"He's making us cut up toad guts!" he said.

"Urgh!" Hermione said, losing her appetite and pushing her plate of food away from her.

"Hermione, you should really eat," Harry said. Hermione shook her head and turned back to Ron, who was still fuming.

"When do we have to do this?" she asked.

"Tomorrow night in dungeon three," Ron answered. Hermione sighed before remembering something and a small smile came to her lips. "It's nothing to smile about, Hermione."

"No, it's just I have a Head duty tomorrow night with Hagrid, and Snape can't not let me go," she said.

"Well that's just bloody brilliant, isn't it, you don't have to cut up frog guts but I do. Excellent!" Ron said sarcastically, his bad mood worsening.

"Come on, Ron, it won't be that bad," Harry said, "We have to handle frog guts in Care of Magical Creatures all the time, and occasionally in Potions." Ron just ignored him and went silent, his bad mood not ceasing.

"I guess I better tell you," Hermione said after a while, "Terry's extremely ill and is going home tomorrow, but the worst thing is, Malfoy's taking up his spot as Head Boy." If it was possible, Ron became even angrier.

"That git, Head Boy, well that's brilliant isn't it, he'll probably treat us the same way Snape does. Taking points off us for no reason," he said. "I feel so sorry for you, Hermione." They went silent again.

Hermione looked at her watch and sighed. "Look, I better go. I've got Ancient Runes," Hermione said, standing up, smiling at Ron and giving Harry a small kiss on the lips. "I'll see you two later. And cheer up, Ron."

Hermione exited the Great Hall and made her way up the staircase to her Study of Ancient Runes classroom, where her classmates were beginning to assemble. She had her Ancient Runes class with -like Arithmancy- students of her year from all the houses and her only other Gryffindor classmates were Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan. There weren't many people in the class, just a couple of Ravenclaws, four Hufflepuffs, no Slytherins -which was a definite bonus- and of course herself, Dean and Seamus.

Their teacher, Professor Kinklewick, a kind looking witch in her mid thirty's (A/N. I made her up), appeared at the door carrying a box. "We will be spending the lesson in the library to prepare for an assignment I am about to give you," she announced. "Follow me."

The professor started leading her students down the corridor. And after about ten minutes, they reached the eerie silence of the library, with its many shelves and books, headed in and took seats at tables. Hermione sat next to Dean and Seamus.

"I recently was given a few old books from the Ministry of Magic and to my great surprise, they were written in Rune," Kinklewick said. "I have the books here, and would like you to translate them as an assignment. There will be three groups -one of you Hufflepuffs will have to join the Ravenclaws please- and each group will have one of these books -" She held up a medium-sized book with a thick blue-coloured cover -"I believe you are all capable of doing this, but you may have to do a bit of research before or after you start -that's why I brought you here. Any questions?" No one moved except for Susan Bones of Hufflepuff, who joined the Ravenclaws as Kinklewick requested. "Here are your books." Kinklewick gave each group a book. "Begin."

Hermione felt rather excited about this -she loved testing her skills and knowledge- but when she looked over at Dean and Seamus, who she would be working with, she saw they didn't share her excitement. Seamus looked utterly dumbstruck as he looked through the book, while Dean wasn't looking at all confident about this as he looked over Seamus' shoulder.

"How long do we have to do this, Professor?" Dean asked Kinklewick as she passed.

"Until the end of this term, Thomas," she replied, "I think that will be long enough." As they had only started the school some five weeks before hand, they had plenty of time as long as they didn't leave it long. "I think you will do well, especially with you, Miss Granger." Hermione went pink in the cheeks and smiled widely.

"We better get to work then, shall we," said Dean, as Kinklewick headed over to help the Ravenclaws and Susan. He got a quill and a bottle of ink out of his bag and they set to work, an by the end of the lesson, they had made more progress than the other groups and translated five and half pages, revealing that the book seemed to be someone's old diary.

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Yawning, Hermione approached the portrait of the Fat Lady in her pink silk dress and the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. "Password?" the Fat Lady asked her.

"Draco volans," Hermione said dully. The portrait swung forwards on its hinges to reveal a hole in the wall, which Hermione entered the Gryffindor common room through.

"Hey, Hermione," Ron said as she walked over to where he and Harry were playing chess. "Want a game of chess?" He looked back at the board and smiled triumphantly. "Knight to H, 3." His knight moved across the board and stopped near Harry's king. "Ha, Checkmate." (A/N. I'm not very sure of the rules in chess as I haven't played it since I was little, so I'm hoping it's something like this! Sorry if I'm wrong!)

"Not a surprise," Harry muttered, leaning back in his chair.

"So, you want a game, Hermione?" Ron asked. Hermione opened her mouth to reply, but Harry cut in front of her.

"No, she's coming for a walk with me,' he said. Hermione looked over at him, surprised, and she saw him smile and lick his lips slowly.

She badly wanted to say "no" but she couldn't find the courage, so she said, "Indeed I am," instead.

Ten minutes later, she found herself standing with Harry in an empty classroom, kissing him passionately. Even though she disliked having this kind of relationship with him, she found Harry an extremely good kisser and found his kisses quite hard to resist. They were so absorbed in each other that they didn't hear the door open or someone else's presence.

"God, couldn't you two have locked the door or something?" It was Draco, who had come with Louise Hunter (A/N. I made her up as well), a pretty Slytherin girl from their year.

"Sorry, Malfoy, we didn't think we'd be interrupted," Harry said coldly, breaking the kiss and looking at him. Draco turned his gaze to Hermione, who looked uncomfortable and seemed to be fighting the urge to run out of the classroom, away from Harry.

"Well do you mind leaving? I think you've -" Draco began, but he was interrupted by someone entering the room.

"What is going on?" It was Professor McGonagall. "Out, all of you and go back to your common rooms, now and stay there. I honestly thought better of you Miss Granger, and you Malfoy, than sneaking into empty classrooms to be with someone." They all obeyed and walked passed McGonagall to exit the classroom silently.

Back in the Gryffindor common room, Hermione decided to leave Harry with Ron and go up to bed as she was immensely tired.

Climbing into bed, she grabbed her diary, a small, padlocked, purple-covered book, from inside the drawer of her bedside table. "Alohomora," she muttered, tapping the small lock with her wand. The small book opened and Hermione flipped to a blank page, grabbed some ink and a quill and began to write.

September 24^th, 1997.

Dear Diary,

I'm unfortunately still with Harry. You know it would be hard for me to just dump him. It'd ruin our friendship. I need something to happen so he gets the idea or something that I'm not happy, because I'm not. Goodness my life is a disaster at the moment and to top it all off, Terry has come down with some serious virus and is going home tomorrow, but that's not the problem. The problem is that Draco Malfoy is taking up his spot as Head Boy and I tell you about Malfoy, he seems to live to make my life miserable, but he was rather alright towards me today (for once) when I once again (I know it's a bad habit of mine lately) lost control and told him about my problems with Harry. He even suggested I talk to Ron or take some Anti-depressing Potion and maybe he's right. But still, Malfoy couldn't possibly have a good side, so with him as Head Boy, my life will probably turn to hell.

Thanks,

Hermione.

Hermione closed her diary with a sigh and relocked it secularly. Even though she had only written it down, she felt somewhat better now she had let her problems out and had no one comment on them. She didn't really have anyone to say them out loud to, so a diary was really all she had.

Placing the book back in the drawer of her bedside table, she snuggled down under the covers of her bed and reached over to turn off her lamp. As her head hit the pillow and she closed her eyes, all her thoughts and problems flew from her mind and she fell asleep instantly.

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Next morning, Hermione woke up and stretched widely, a smile on her face, but it faded quickly as she remembered the events of the previous day. Draco was Head Boy and they would have their first duty together that night, going into the forest with Hagrid to find some injured griffin. She honestly didn't see how that would be better than cutting up frog intestines with Ron.

Getting out of bed, she got dressed and headed down to the common room, where a dozen or so people were sitting around talking or doing last-minute homework. She crossed it and exited through the portrait hole. Her mind was still predicting how Draco would torture her during their duty that evening and she wasn't paying much attention to where she was going and bumped into someone.

"Watch where you're going, Granger!" It was Draco. "I was just coming to give you a message from McGonagall. We don't have to find that stupid griffin in the forest tonight with Hagrid. He's already found it."

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief, even if it did mean she'd be cutting up frog intestines that night instead. "Thank-you for passing the message on, Malfoy, now, can you please leave me alone." She made to walk passed him, but Draco stopped her.

"Did you want to say goodbye to Boot, because his parents just arrived to take him home and I expect they'll be leaving soon, so if you did ..." he said.

"No. Now please, leave me alone, I really don't need you here bothering me," Hermione said.

"Bloody hell, Granger, you're free to go!" Draco snarled, "I'm just trying to be civil. May I remind you that you're the one who thinks we have to start to get along now I'm Head Boy."

"We do have to get along, but I'm not in the mood to be 'civil' with you at the moment, Malfoy."

"Look, Granger, I don't care if you're not in the mood, we should start now, or else we'll never get along. You also owe me a thank-you for last night. I knew you two were in there kissing, and I knew that you probably weren't enjoying it, so I walked in there with Louise as we headed towards the library to do our Charms homework. I of course told Louise it would piss you two off, not to help you," Draco said.

"Fine, thank-you, but it was really McGonagall who made us leave," Hermione replied.

"So it was, but I attracted her to where we were," Draco said.

"Fine. Thank-you, Malfoy," Hermione sighed. "Now leave please."

Draco turned on his heel and headed back in the direction he came from, leaving Hermione to ponder. He had actually tried to talk to her, but she had just gave him the cold shoulder and told him to leave her alone, even though he wasn't bothering her, and it made her think one peculiar thought: Maybe he wasn't all that bad.

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Back in her dormitory at morning break, Hermione took out her diary once more and wrote in royal blue ink:

September 25^th, 1997.

Dear Diary,

Today's been a bit better -so far anyway. I haven't had to kiss Harry once yet, which is a definite change, but there's one small problem: I think I'm beginning to like Malfoy in a friendly way! Goodness knows why, but I feel -at the moment- that I need a friend I can talk to and for some very strange reason, I'm beginning to believe Malfoy may very well fill that requirement! I just have to, somehow, get him to like me and be ...pleasant to be around, which doesn't seem an easy task at all and he probably never would, anyway!

Thanks,

Hermione.

Strange, but possibly true ...