"Are you ready?"
"I told you yes already!"
"I'm just checking! Calm down"
"I'm sorry Draco but you're wasting time, "Hermione scolded him impatiently.
"You know I've never… you know… done this before," Draco said nervously as he looked into Hermione's widening brown eyes.
"Really? With your reputation around the school I'm surprised," Hermione replied.
Draco shot back, "Don't tell me you do this all the time on weekends, what would Harry think?"
"You're staling, get on with it!" Hermione pointed out.
"Brace yourself," Draco commanded, "this is going to hurt a bit." His hand was shaking.
"Cast the spell on me already!" Hermione said in an exasperated tone.
It was a few days later and Draco and Hermione were about to bounce hexes and curses off one another, but macho man Draco couldn't work up the nerve to hex a girl.
"I'm sorry it's just I was told never to hex, curse, or hit a girl."
"Since when do you listen to rules?"
Draco mocked looking taken aback, "my dear Ms. Granger! How can you question my integrity?"
"The fact that you're devious and in Slytherin?"
"Wise indeed you are," Draco said in the voice of a master-like figure.
"How do you know Star Wars?"
"What?" Draco looked at Hermione like she'd sprouted another head.
"Never mind Harry'd get it"
"Oh back to our favorite topic are we?"
"You're stalling and I never talk about Harry," Hermione chided.
"Yeah right, all the time, allow me to correct you, with a little truth serum?" Draco raised an eyebrow, a trick he favored to do a lot.
"No! Just cast the bloody spell!" Hermione was really getting irritated.
"Fine!" Draco yelled back, and raised his wand.
././././.
"I don't like it," Harry said turning to Ron.
"Like what?"
"Hermione being so chummy with Malfoy," Harry cast a darkened glare across the room at the pair.
"You know how I feel about Malfoy's so if you don't like it, think how I feel," Ron said with a bit of edge to his voice. He did have reason to hate Draco; his family had been looked down on, held back and verbally abused for centuries by the Malfoys.
"You're right", agreed Harry, "I don't know, I think Malfoy's turned a new leaf but still… it could be a trap of some kind."
Ron nodded his agreement, and then added, "But you better not mention that to Hermione, once she has an opinion about someone it's hard to change, she's always looking for the best in everyone, even Malfoy."
Harry really didn't know why he was getting so upset, it wasn't like Hermione was spending time with Malfoy outside of school, and it was just for this term for the project.
`I have every right to be worried and upset, the reasons I told Ron are good ones'
Harry looked over across the room to watch Hermione and Draco's interactions.
Every time Draco said something, Hermione would grin, or sometimes lightly hit him in the arm, and she'd toss her head a bit and laugh.
Draco would keep trying to hide the fact that he was staring at her when she was writing something, he was always trying to make her laugh, and he also tried to find every opportunity to touch her in someway either guiding her hand, lightly brushing his fingers across her back or tweaking on a curl of her hair.
`That's just rich,' Harry thought, "they're flirting with each other like mad."
"That I would agree with mate," Ron nodded.
Harry looked a little surprised he hadn't noticed that he'd spoken that last part out loud.
Turning away from them, he faced Ron, "You don't think it's anything serious?"
"Hard to say" Ron said thoughtfully, "on one hand Malfoy probably wouldn't settle for a muggle-born who isn't rolling in galleons and isn't appearing in a magazine anytime soon, but he's changed enough to flirt with her."
Harry nodded and then added, "Well Hermione probably realizes that she isn't Malfoy's type, but she knows he's changed and she is on the rebound." Harry gave a glare at Ron.
"What is it my fault that she rebounds with Malfoy instead of someone like …. I don't know…. you?"
"What? Me and Hermione together? Yea right it's like mental incest, she's like a sister."
"But it's not because she's not your sister, she's your attractive female friend." Ron said knowingly, "and it's Hermione and I"
"Hermione and you what?" Harry said jokingly the way he always used to when Hermione corrected his grammar.
Just then the DADA teacher came back into the classroom, "class dismissed, if you didn't get most of your work done today I suggest you take time out of your free time to do it."
Ron and Harry just looked at each other guiltily.
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