Two Weeks to Fall in Love

Draco Malfoy.

Of all of the people that I could have been paired with, I end up with Draco Malfoy. There's 209 other people that I could have been paired up with, but no. It's Draco.

Hermione tried to force the grimace off of her face, knowing that she was failing entirely. Thoughts kept racing through her mind. Damnit, she would have been so much happier with a Ravenclaw- even a Hufflepuff wouldn't be too bad, or maybe any other Slytherin- but it was Malfoy.

Of course, Dumbledore had said ahead of time that the pairings weren't random. So someone (probably McGonagall- no matter how much Snape would love to torture Hermione, he wouldn't have done that to his pet student) had decided that Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy needed to become friends.

Didn't she already have enough interaction with him at prefect meetings?

"You've got to be kidding." Draco's voice was sharp, and he was staring at Hermione with an open mouth. Names were still being called off the list, and Hermione vaguely heard Harry being paired up with a Ravenclaw Chaser, but she was still focusing all of her attention on waking up.

This had to be a nightmare. There was no other logical explination

Draco sneered back at her. "God, please tell me that you're joking." He's not making fun of me, Hermione realized- he's serious. "Dumbledore paired me up with a mudblood? God, what a muggle-lover that guy is." Okay- now he's making fun of me.

He glares at me. "Okay, Granger, this is what I figure. I've got two weeks that I have to deal with you. We go to classes together and eat together. Other than that, I stay out of your way and you stay out of mine. Sound good?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Oh, but Malfoy, I so wanted to hang out with you and all of your friends," she whined, sitting down next to him and giving him her best puppy-dog face. "Please, Malfoy?"

Some of the Slytherins laughed, but Hermione didn't even bother to grin. Her appetite had left her entirely, and she caught sight of a brown-haired Hufflepuff girl who she knew by sight, who was sitting by Pansy Parkinson, on the other side of Malfoy. "Switch me spots," she said to Malfoy, who looked up at her as if she were joking. "Now."

Rolling his eyes, Malfoy scooted over, and Hermione slipped in next to the Hufflepuff girl. "Hey," she said. "Seems that we've got alot of luck to end up in here, huh?"

The Hufflepuff girl nodded slowly. "Yeah, great luck. You're Hermione Granger, right? You're in my year. I'm Susan Bones."

Hermione grinned at her. "Nice to meet you. I think I've talked to you in Herbology a couple of times, but never really..."

"Yeah, you're usually to busy staring at Harry." Susan grinned mischeviously, and Hermione felt a blush rising up on her cheeks.

"Oh, so it's Potty and the mudblood now, eh?" Malfoy's drawling voice interrupted the conversation.

Hermione felt heat rising up to her face, only this time it was anger. "Keep your face shut, Malfoy," snapped Hermione. "And why don't you go find something worthwile to spend your time on?"

The pale-faced student grinned broadly- a false smile. "Oh, what could be more important to me than the life of my new best friend?" He draped an arm around Hermione's shoulder, who shrugged it off as quickly as she could.

"You touch me again, and I'm going to blast you back home to your Death Eater of a father before you can blink." Hermione's voice was cool, calm, collected- and threatening. She meant every single word of it.

Malfoy shrugged, scooting back down to talk to Crabbe and Goyle. "Doesn't this look like it's going to be a fun two weeks?" Hermione asked Susan sarcastically.

Potions had been a nightmare. Ron, Harry, Sally-Anne and Cho were all at the back of the room. She, Draco, Pansy and Susan were in the front. You could see this inner struggle going on in the back of Snape's mind as he watched Hermione and Draco working on the same cauldron. Oh, how he would have loved to take points off, or yell at her, but he didn't want to do it to his pet student's partner. So, he tried to get her to take the truth potion.

Thank God for Sally-Anne.

"Aw, I wanted to see the mudblood let everyone know just how much she loves precious Potter," Malfoy drawled. "I don't know why Snape didn't take points from Ravenclaw. That half-blood did that on purpose..."

Hermione side-stepped over to Susan, just as Pansy headed straight for Draco. "Interesting lesson, huh?" Hermione inquired, and Susan nodded.

The brown-haired Hufflepuff was about to reply whenever yells came from further up the corridor. Sally-Anne was glaring up at Harry, and Hermione was suddenly thankful that she hadn't been partnered with the Ravenclaw girl. "...looking for Cho. I'm sure that a little talk with her is all that you need to cheer yourself up!"

With that, the Ravenclaw stormed away, and Malfoy laughed loudly. Harry didn't even react to the laughter, just hurried off in the direction of the Great Hall. "Looks like you've got some competition there, Granger."

Hermione scowled, hurrying to catch up with Malfoy. She hated those half-day classes, especially whenever they were potions. "Wonder what they were arguing about," Susan commented as they slid down to eat at the Slytherin table, sitting across from Draco and Pansy.

"Who knows?" Hermione shrugged. "Harry's one of my best friends and all, but sometimes I think that he can be a little too hard headed. He doesn't know how to eat crow."

Susan nodded, and Hermione vaguely remembered that she was a half-blood; no wonder she knew the expression. A grin drifted across Hermione's features. "Or," she giggled. "In this case, he needs to learn how to eat raven."

Susan laughed, while Draco and Pansy- as well as most of the Slytherin table- looked on at the two girls like they were going crazy.

Harry-

I'm not trying to tell you what to do here, so don't even get that impression. All that I know is that I'm miserable over here with Malfoy, and I'm hoping that you won't be with Sally-Anne. All that I can say is that you need to eat some crow (or raven) here, and the faster that you do it, the better it'll be.

Please find a way to get me a reply. I know it's stupid to be sending letters through owls whenever we're best friends and all, but Malfoy's being insufferable, and if I talk to you it'll only get worse.

With love,

Hermione

Hermione laid the quill down and rolled up the parchment, not waiting for it to dry. So what if it got smudged a little bit? She slipped out of the dormitory, and padded down the stairs silently, hoping that the common room was empty.

As she passed the high-backed chairs, a voice echoed in the otherwise-empty room. "Hello, Granger."

"Malfoy," she growled, waiting as he stood up and turned around. "What are you doing up so late? Shouldn't you be in bed or something?"

He shrugged. "I could easily ask you the same question." Taking in the roll of parchment, he added, "But there's no need to. I suppose that you're off to give your precious Potter a letter?" He sneered. "In the middle of the night? Or are you planning to have a nice, long, snogging session?"

Hermione glared at him. "It's none of your buisiness, but no. Harry and I do not have that kind of relationship, it's strictly platonic between him and me. Of course, I am under no obligation to tell you any of this."

Malfoy grinned, and Hermione shivered slightly. She wasn't afraid of him, but... Somehow, he looked good. She shouldn't be thinking like that, she knew- for God's sake, he was a Slytherin- but the thoughts got into her brain anyways. "You want me to know," he said. "You don't want me to think that you're taken, because seriously, Granger, you wouldn't mind it if I was attracted to you." His smile broadened at the red rising in her face.

"Keep dreaming, Malfoy," she spat, sliding back towards the girl's dormitories.

What he said scared her so much that she didn't know how to put it into words. Was he right? Was she really attracted to him, but just didn't want to admit it to herself?

No, he's just trying to freak you out so that you'll make these two weeks harder on yourself than they would be, Hermione said to herself. Just be calm. Don't let him control you.

Snores from Millicent Bullstrode's bed made Hermione smile as she pulled the green-colored sheets up to her chin. The Slytherin's living quarters were just as bad as the people themselves- formal and beautiful, yet cold and unfriendly.

She shivered, despite the warmth of the room.

Outside, snow began to drift down, flake by dazzling white flake, until the grounds of Hogwarts were blanketed in white.