One point

One would think that after all the years of animosity that we would not be here standing in this place, looking in to each others eyes praying that we would make it through. Never in my life would I have thought that I would be standing in the headmasters office, your arms wrapped around me and my lips pressed to yours praying to every deity in the sky that we would make it through this battle.

It was a cold October, and the war was ragging all around them, the students of Hogwarts were reeling at the daily letters that were brought during meals. What had once been a happy time had become the blackest part of everyone’s day. The owls that would normally have been so welcome were shunned and feared. Each day a new black envelope would be delivered to a different student, in some cases it was more than one. Students were stunned in to silence when the owl post came, some breaking in to shuddering tears, others were thankful that they did not receive the ministry letter. It was more or less a condolence letter about a death in the family. These letters brought about a lot of change that the school had undergone; the doors were sealed, as were the windows. The students were urged to travel in packs and never be alone, with the war raging on outside the walls of the school, the students began to get antsy some wanting to avenge the death of there family’s, some wanting to prevent it. But through all of this Dumbledore stood strong refusing to let these way-word kids out in to a world that they were not prepared for. Each student was forced to take two different defense classes. A magical defense and a practical defense, these classes alone took up half of the day.

It was hard for Hermione when she had gotten her letters, it was even hard when she had learned that not only were her parents killed, but also her beloved cat was left as a message to her, that she would be next. This had been the last straw for the Gryffindor and she began to excel at her defense classes, throwing her self in to her studies in the only way she knew how. She was the best at their magical defense classes, but she had been lacking at the practical. She had been thin at the beginning of the term her body was not used to the ducking, rolling and hand-to-hand that the students studied in. A months after she had received the letter of her parents death she could, duck and dodge like the pro’s the teacher an older Auror had advised her that once she got out of school, the ministry could really use an Auror with her skills. She had politely declined, with some excuse about not thinking that far in advance, when in all reality she had no desire to work for the corrupted ministry that couldn’t pull there heads out of there asses long enough to see that this war could have been prevented.

She had a bit of a sore spot for the ministry ever since the death of her parents. That had been the really big turning point for Hermione. Ron liked to say that was when she became the women that they all feared, they joked around in the privacy of her head girl suite that if she ever desired to be the “dork lord” she could kick “moldy-voldy” out of his spot with out even lifting more than her left pinky, this made her laugh. She had no idea why but it was comforting to know that even though he was a threat, he was really just a psychopath on a power trip that would soon end with not only his death, but also the death of his followers.

It was the day before Halloween, when the owls had been stop by Dumbledore, he had finally told the ministry to send him a list with the deaths and he would pass it out in a less public place. After the scene that had been caused yesterday, he knew it was time to rally the forces and push the dark lord back.

When a small owl had carried a letter over to the ginger haired
Weasley clan the hall went silent, well all had been quite, except for the Slytherin’s a blond pug faced girl stood up to move over towards the Weasley’s only to end up at the wand point of the head girl.

“You think you can take me stupid mudblood?” Pansy Parkinson hissed, she had of course underestimated the head girl who had put her in a full body bind and let her fall to the floor not minding the fact that the Slytherin cracked her noggin on one of the benches at the table. She had been floated to the hospital wing behind McGonagall, somehow her head was again smacked against the door and the old Scottish women apologized in the least sincere voice she had.

The house rivalry had been bad the last few weeks but a few of the students had stepped out against it, one of them being the head boy. Draco Malfoy. He of course blamed it on being the head boy and having promoted house unity. But in his heart of hearts he was sick of the death, the despair and the depression that was floating around the halls, he was sick of the fighting and the arguing he had broken up more fights in the last three weeks than Snape had broken up in his last twelve years. Fifteen students had been hospitalized for long term spell damage, or broken limbs. It was asinine to fight between each other, they were supposed to stay strong and train in this war. I didn’t matter who was fighting who, because soon they would all see the death that those letters portrayed, they would not only witness to it they would cause it. A shudder ran down his back at that thought and for not the first time in the last few weeks he wondered what his father saw in the dark lord, the power wasn’t that great, and his soul would have been lost a long time ago, if he had no soul to enjoy the power than why work so hard to gain it?

Draco had tried to stay as neutral as he could, by not choosing a side other than his own, at this point there was no winning side, and he planned to make his decision, when it would benefit him the most, which was not at this time. He sighed throwing his napkin on his plate and moved to leave the great hall, glancing over at the Gryffindor table he bowed his head to the youngest weasley, he’d had a thing for her back in second year when she had been seduced by the dork lord, she’d had this dark aura about her and it had turned him on, but now she was just another Weasley, just another person who had lost someone who meant a lot to her. Finally the letter was passed on and he was caught in the storm that was the Weasel.
Ron stood up, glaring at him. The furry in his eyes was beyond what the blond had ever seen.

“You! Your father did this! He killed my brothers! He… he… YOU!”

Ron attacked with out thinking plowing through lavender and Neville in there attempt to keep him at the table. Draco really needed better sense, he had yet to turn tail and run, or to even attempt to defend himself, the only thing that stood in weasel’s way was a quick moving head girl, who had stood between the redhead and the blond.

“Ron think about this, we did not blame you for what Percy did.”

At this tears sprang to her eyes, it had been Ron’s third oldest brother who had killed her parents, in a desperate attempt for attention Percy had turned to the dark side, and his mission had been to kill the Grangers; However it had all be too much for him and he took his life shortly after. Although the Weasley family was not pleased with the actions that Percy had taken since he graduated they still missed their son.

It had been in that moment that Draco had found out a lot of things about him self, the first being that granger must have thought him a decent person if she was defending him against her best friend, the second being that she smelled really good, and the third being that he must have gone insane being cooped up here in this castle for almost three months. Had he just seriously thought granger smelled good? Thank the lord he had not spoke that out loud. Granger had the desired effect and Ron had backed down, only warning him that if he like his father had the dark mark on his arm Ron would more than willing take his life for him, in a not so pleasant way. Draco had declined and left the room heading for his head boy dorms, wondering if he should take a detour to Poppy and see if he was indeed insane.


The days slowly passed no better or worse than the ones before, with out the constant flow of letters the students began to focus on the homework, fights began to lessen and Neville even got an outstanding on a potion! although Professor. Dockins was nothing like Snape he still expected a lot from his students. Hermione liked his method of teaching for it helped the other students, however he spent too much time making sure they got it. So she was forced to sit through boring lectures about things that she had known back in first year. Professor Dockins, would not let her skip ahead, thinking that she thought better of her self, and that she really did need to review these basic healing potions, and cures. Professor Dockins, had never before taught in his life, and so he assumed that all these students were children and this would need to be treated that way, they need to be coddled and showed that they did do right and that were good people. It was all good and well except for the fact that his two star pupils didn’t want to be coddled or treated like children they wanted to learn, to excel, they wanted to be the best, and he was hampering that. Good thing he was only subbing in until the real professor got here in January that is if he ever made it here.

Draco hated this class it left him time to think, time to ponder the universe, or the bushy haired Gryffindor. He couldn’t get his mind off of her, and he was surprised to see she returned most of his looks, although her looks were much warmer than his own. Hermione wondered if she had something on her face, because Malfoy kept looking at her as if she had grown something unsightly on her face, if she tried really hard she could almost think the pained look on his face was from spending too much time in this class. However she would not know the reason for the pained look was because he was to busy thinking to know that his mask had fallen, and that his “I’m thinking face” looked the same as all the other ones other than the “ewe mud blood face” Hermione shrugged off his looks and went back to reading ahead in the texts books as she had began to do to review for the next potion, the next potion was a very simple calming drought that she could make in her sleep and it bugged her that they were doing such a basic review, yes it was helping the students in the class such as Neville, and Crab and Goyle, but students of her caliber such as herself, Malfoy and Harry, were getting bored and restless. This class also gave Hermione a lot of time to think, and thinking she was, her brain never stopped, it was annoying but comforting at the same time. As she sat there reading over the properties of the next potion she was hit in the back of the head by a note. Scoffing at the culprit for she did not know who it was. she picked up the letter and read it over, an odd look coming to her face

‘Knock knock’, it read.

Rolling her eyes and looking back at Harry who gave her a grin Hermione mouthed, “Who’s There” the paper grew warm under her hands glancing back over her shoulder she noticed that Draco had his wand out and was pointing it at her under the desk. She looked back at the note noticing the increasing heat under her hands.

‘Really must you flirt with saint potter during a class, really I thought as head girl you would have thought better that fraternizing with the lowers.’ Hermione growled low in her throat and ripped the paper to pieces Harry saw this and threw a quill at the back of Malfoy’s head. The Slytherin scoffed and ignored them the rest of the period, they had physical defense next and Harry thankfully was not in that class, the golden trio had been split up so they could use there ‘skill’ to help the others. Draco and Hermione and physical defense while Harry had magical with Ron.

It had been during this class that Draco had started to wear down granger, she had started to talk to him, joke with him, smile at him, the last one making him swoon. It was depressing and that the same time he knew soon that he would get what he wanted and these feelings would go away. The fates always stated that absence makes the heart grow fonder, so if he had more than enough of her to go around he would stop feeling this right? It was gaining on the end of November when Draco was proven wrong, he had been fighting with granger, when a stray spell had been flying towards her, he threw himself in front of her to keep her from being hit wit the curse. It was a nasty one that pansy had sent to get back at the witch, however it had backfired and hit mad eye moody square in the back, which had cost pansy four weeks of detention and five hundred points form Slytherin which put them at dead last, after moody awarded Draco with eleven points, for helping Miss. Granger it put Slytherin at dead last with one point. To say that the Slytherin house was upset would be an understatement. It had taken several days for Draco to stop feeling the heat of where Hermione’s body had touch his, it was harder to get the smell out of his hair. She smelled like lavender and jasmine. It was an addicting combination and he wasn’t sure he wanted to shower it off. If it hadn’t been for the last few nights full of fevered dreams he wouldn’t have, but a Malfoy can only wake up so many nights and be sticky before he must tack action and that is just what Draco did.

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a/n: This was written for my wife cause she loves random stories, but i thought i would post it, there is another chapter coming and i would post it if i weren;t about to drop down to the tornado shelter, although at this rate it will be flooded LOl! well all you lovelys be safe, oh yes, as my mother says "If you dont have anything nice to say, back it up with guns"