I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters mentioned in this story. They all belong to the Queen JK.

Thanks to the fantastic Kabg01 for the excellent job she's done of beta-ing this chapter.

Hermione Jean Granger, sole female member of the golden trio and brightest witch of her age, struggled to open her eyes. The hammering inside her head made the weak winter light shining through the curtains feel like it was stabbing her in the retinas. She endeavoured to move but a wave of nausea told her it was better to stay still. As she attempted to peel her tongue from the roof of her mouth she tried to remember how much she had had to drink the night before. At the recollection of shots from a bottle George Weasley had refused to show her the label of, the bile rose higher and she thought it was best to stop.

"Accio Pepper Up" she groaned, holding her hand up to catch the phial while her eyes remained closed.

"Make that two," a familiar voice rumbled from under the covers next to her as she swallowed it with a grimace. She sat up in horror, hangover momentarily forgotten as her eyes shot open and the steam from the potion billowed out of her ears. She couldn't even remember coming home, let alone bringing someone with her. So why were there Chudley Cannons boxer shorts hanging off her bedpost?

Quickly she racked her brains. She remembered shots, dancing to the Weird Sisters, oh – there had been unattractive crying about something, dying alone maybe? Then the countdown to midnight and kissing, but who?

"Hurry up, I'm dying here," the voice moaned. Hermione gasped, her hand going to her mouth as a lightning bolt of realisation darted through her. You don't hear the voice of someone every day of your formative years without remembering it. A silver blonde head emerged from under the quilt. Draco Malfoy. She had brought home, of all the people in Diagon Alley the night before - let alone the world - Draco Malfoy. Brown eyes met pale grey for a moment, then with surprising agility she leapt out of bed and made it to the toilet in time to vomit.

After she finally managed to get her head out the toilet she decided to shower in the hope that he would be gone by the time she got out. Mortification made her toes curl as she attempted to remember what the hell happened to her that she ended up in bed with Malfoy. As the water washed over her, she inspected her body for any evidence of what might have happened but none was immediately apparent. That was something at least. The thought of facing her colleagues, or worse, Molly with a whacking great hickey on her neck was just too much. As the jets pouring over her started to clear away the cobwebs, horrifying flashes of the night before starting to come back to her. Dancing on the table in the leaky cauldron and banging her head on a chandelier (rubbing the sore spot on her scalp confirmed that), crying loudly, spilling butter beer all over her robes, and worst of all, she now remembered it had most definitely been her who had enthusiastically and shamelessly come on to the blonde haired slytherin ferret that she hoped was right at that moment vacating her property.

Of course, she now remembered what had caused it. She had caught sight of him. He who, nobody better damn well dare speak his name while I'm around. Dancing with a woman without a care in the world. He hadn't seen her, thank Merlin for small mercies. That was what had encouraged her plonk herself in Oliver Wood's lap and challenge the entire Puddlemere United qudditch team to a drinking game.

Cringing inwardly she shut off the shower and wrapped a towel round herself. She tiptoed back to the bedroom, fingers tightly crossed that Malfoy would be gone but of course he was not. There he was, sprawled out face down on her bed. Completely butt naked.

"Stop looking at my arse Granger" he drawled, his words muffled by the pillow.

"Really, get over yourself Malfoy," she tutted, glad he couldn't see her blush. She grabbed her dressing gown from the hook on the door and wrapped it tightly around herself. When she turned to face him again he was sitting up under the duvet, grinning and looking, she was annoyed to note, much more alive than she felt.

"Finished doing walrus impressions have you now?" he asked drily, raising an eyebrow. Great, so Malfoy had heard her puking. Could today get any worse?

"Oh….just shut up,"

"Happy new year Granger. Welcome to 2003" he looked positively delighted as he leapt out of bed and started putting his pants back on. She covered her face with her hands.

"Did we….?" She trailed off, unsure how how to word the question that hung between them.

"Wow, a question that little Miss Know It All doesn't know the answer to?" he smirked, "No. sorry, you were gagging for it and frankly I don't blame you, with this" he gestured to his own body in a way that made her roll her eyes in infuriation, "but the passed out thing doesn't really do it for me"

"Oh Merlin!" she groaned, reddening again.

"That's more like it Granger, a bit more of that last night and your luck would have been in"

She folded her arms across her chest, then hurriedly unfolded them when she realised the effect that had on her cleavage and put them on her hips, nervous. Malfoy and she weren't the enemies they once were. The year that they had both returned to Hogwarts to finish their studies had left them somewhere between a truce and friendship. Without Harry and Ron around, and Draco being ignored by the majority of the handful of Slytherins that had returned, their competitiveness in class had intensified into something bordering on mutual respect for each other's intelligence. She had caught glimpses of him when he wasn't being a pampered, snivelling brat and he had learned just how far he could push her without getting another smack in the mouth. They had even exchanged pleasantries when they saw each other in Diagon Alley in the intervening years. This, however, was an unexpected shift in their relationship. What had she been thinking? Was it like McClaggen all over again?

"Stop it," he warned, holding a finger up to her.

"What?"

"Stop….thinking," he waved his arms vaguely in her direction

"I tried that last night and see where that's got us,"

"I think we already established that we didn't get anywhere far. Although if that disgusting robe slips open much further we might be getting somewhere"

Hermione gasped, clutching the hot pink towelling more tightly around herself. Malfoy's grin made her clench her teeth in fury. It was only then that she noticed his forearm. The skin was red raw, shiny and puckered, as though it had been peeled off. She couldn't stop a sharp intake of breath at the former site of the dark mark. Without thinking, she reached her hand out for his arm but he shook her off and started to throw his robes on.

"Draco," she whispered, horrorstruck. For a moment his eyes flashed silver at her, his face furious. Then it was gone, covered up just like the mark on his arm as the dark fabric of his sleeve slid over it.

"Forget you ever saw it," he smiled, although his tone suggested a finality that his easy expression did not. He clapped his hands together, "now Granger, one thing I remember with absolute certainty from last night was that you said that if I came home with you there would be brunch. A brunch, the like of which, I had never seen,"

"Did I?" she squinted, trying to recall,

"Well possibly, your speech was a bit garbled, I imagine it is hard to get the words round those gnashers of yours at the best of times, let alone when you're paralytic. Still, you can't deny that brunch would be an excellent idea can you?"

Hermione, incensed by his needling, was about to deny it but as she opened her mouth, a rumble in her stomach betrayed her. Draco smiled triumphantly, gesturing to her midriff.

"There you go. Now put on one of those ill-fitting sacks you call robes, draw a brush, or a rake, or whatever through that," he pointed distastefully to her hair, "and we'll go. I'll wait downstairs if you like," and before she had a chance to tell him to bugger off, he had strode from her bedroom, hands in pockets, thoroughly emanating the air of someone who had won an argument.

She stared at the door for a moment, open mouthed before deciding that as much as she hated the idea of doing anything he told her, she would get dressed just so she could go downstairs and give him a piece of her mind. After having thrown her clothes on and brushed her hair back into a loose ponytail (the best she could do under the circumstances) she stormed after him. Draco was waiting in the living room of her small Victorian terrace, surveying the book shelves that took up the entirety of one wall.

He held up a finger as she opened her mouth to speak "hold that thought," he smirked, grabbed her arm and apparated them both away.

oOoOoOo

Hermione gazed around at the small wizarding café that Draco had apparated them to, grudgingly impressed. It had taken her a moment on landing to make sure that Draco hadn't kidnapped her, and check herself thoroughly for splinching but she was too charmed by the thatched roof building in the middle of rolling meadows, to scold him too harshly. If she was suspicious that the owner had charmed the stream to bubble prettily below the window or the flowers to grow in quite such abundance, she didn't say. Draco had insisted that she paid to make up for the night before and they had sat and eaten an enjoyable breakfast, or as enjoyable as a meal with your long term enemy that you accidentally kissed the night before can be. Bested by the volume of food, Hermione placed her knife and fork down on the remains of her French Toast. Draco had eaten an astonishing amount for one so slender but was evidently also full, as he had started questioning her on why she was spending new year kissing the man that Witch Weekly magazine had voted fifth most eligible bachelor, rather than the second prize winner.

"I thought everything was hunky dory between you and the Weasel?" he asked, as he mopped up the last of his egg with a corner of toast, "I was certain I was going to see an announcement in the Prophet that you and him were going to be setting up house and hovel together after I saw him coming out of Twilight and Twinkles a couple of years ago but then instead I read that you'd split up and we both know what happened next - the Ron Weasley revolving woman show. Seriously, how does he go through them so quickly? What do they even see in him? He even stole a girlfriend off me. Me! And second most eligible bachelor?" Draco looked affronted for a moment before he had noticed Hermione had turned a greenish colour, "Granger, are you ok? We aren't going to see a return of the walrus are we?"

"You saw him where?" Twilight and Twinkles was a small shop in Diagon Alley with a reputation as the only shop that a respectable wizard would buy an engagement ring. Draco seemed to sit up straighter, as though he was relishing the role of gossip,

"I saw him coming out, putting a small box in his pocket, no less! I was sure that was it for you, doomed to be popping out ginger….what's a baby weasel called?"

Hermione rolled her eyes but the swot in her couldn't stop herself muttering that a baby weasel is called a kit.

"Hm, that's quite cute. Well, I thought you'd be pushing out baby Weasels forever more. But next thing I saw in Rita Skeeter's column that you had split and then after I saw him at the war survivors benefit a few months later all over Lavender Brown like a case of Dragon Pox and -"

"Don't, don't" Hermione cut him off. She knew the rest. She doubted that she would even forget the way she felt at the sight of Ron with his hands all over her former rival. Even now tears were pricking at her eyes, "Just….don't," She picked at a scuff on the wooden table top until she was sure she was under control of her emotions.

"Go on," Draco's eyes gleamed cunningly, "you tell me what happened or perhaps you would prefer me to fill you in on a few of the things that happened last night that you might have forgotten. Perhaps I should start with how you begged me to come home with you?" He rolled his eyes and let his mouth hang slack "Oh Draco, Draco, pleeeeease" he slurred in what Hermione could only imagine was supposed to be an impression of her.

She blushed horribly, embarrassment curling sharply in the pit of her stomach and weighed up exactly how much of her broken heart she was going to have to reveal to stop the torture, "there's nothing to tell. We had irreconcilable differences,"

Draco snorted, "what, that you know everything in the world and he's an idiot?"

"It wasn't like that!" she denied hotly, defensive that Draco had almost word for word quoted something that Ron had said to her, "we had different values, different ideas about our future. We're just two very different people. As friends, with Harry as a buffer, we functioned, sort of. But as a couple…." She trailed off, aware that not only had she not really answered the question, she hadn't been entirely honest. They had worked as a couple beautifully for three years. Then there had been fights that she had been too convinced she was right over, that Ron was over sensitive, and they had both been too stubborn to back down. Things had been said, or in her case, screamed over the smash of potion bottles flung at a wall. Things that were still too raw for her to allow herself to even think about. And even then, she hadn't believed it was over – not really. Not until that final showdown at the war survivors benefit that she had walked away from him knowing that they would never recover their friendship from the tattered, mangled mess they had created.

"I bet it pisses you off, doesn't it," Draco pulled her from her reverie, "that he's become this international playboy, apparating all around the world, being hugely famous and successful,"

"What and me, just mousey little Hermione, still working in the ministry in the same job since I left school? Of course not! I don't know why you would even ask!" her voice was shrill and her hair positively crackled with rage.

"Thought as much," he grinned, rising from his chair and throwing a handful of galleons down on to the table, despite his demand that she bought his meal, "well, it's been fun Granger but I promised my mother I would visit this afternoon and she does so hate to be kept waiting. Fancy dinner at Spagnolio's with me tomorrow night? Say 8 o clock?"

"Why?" the word was out of her mouth before her brain caught up. Why on earth would she want to go to dinner, with Malfoy of all people, to one of the most expensive, celebrity frequented restaurants in Wizarding London?

Draco shrugged as he buttoned up his travelling cloak, a devilish smile playing on his lips "can you think of a better way to get back at Ron?"