Author's Notes: Yes, I'm back! I was fed up with myself for not updating this story after receiving so many reviews asking me to do so! So here's chapter 6, I hope you enjoy it!

Thank you to all my reviewers, I can't thank you enough! However I'm no longer allowed to thank everyone personally so I'll just say a big thank you to my 200th reviewer, goldenlioness1102

You guys rock!

Draco stormed into the Slytherin common room. Seeing his face contorted in anger, most students took the hint and left hurriedly up to their dorms. Only one student remained behind – his best friend, Blaise Zabini.

"What the hell are you playing at with the bookworm?" Draco shouted, glaring down at his housemate, who sat casually on the leather couch.

"You mean Hermione? Why, are you jealous?" Blaise inquired, raising his eyebrow.

Merlin, why does everyone keep asking him that?

"Of course not!" Draco snapped at him, finally settling himself on the opposite couch. "But how am I supposed to seduce the bushy-haired prude Gryffindor if you're always after her!"

"Hey, she came after me remember!" he retorted.

Draco rolled his eyes in response. "Are you kidding me? You're the one being all nice and friendly with her. What's wrong with you? It's like you're going soft or something –"

Instantly, Blaise gave him a dirty look.

"We both know you're not the commitment type, so stop acting like one!" Draco continued, pointing his finger at his friend.

"I guess you're right," he answered indifferently. "But if Granger wants a shag, I'm not going to say no!"

"Yeah well, you can go ahead because she hates me now," Draco admitted, putting his feet up on the coffee table before him.

It was Blaise's turn to roll his eyes. "Why am I not the least bit surprised?"

"She's so irritating and bitchy and so – Gryffindor!" Draco barked, completely losing his usual indifferent composure.

"But she's worth it and we made a bet," he told him, smirking.

"I'm not giving up," Draco replied icily, "but she's so hard to crack."

"That's why we made the bet in the first place Draco. Listen, let me give you some advice: whatever you said to her, you'd better apologise and then - you need to be patient," Blaise explained, leaning forwards slightly. "She's the hardest challenge you'll ever get, so savour it, take your time, don't rush her or she'll slip through your fingers."

Draco sat back deep in thought. His perfect mask of indifference had reappeared.

"You have to take your time with her," Blaise continued, amused. "Remember, patience is a virtue."

"Never wanted to be virtuous," Draco sneered, a devilish grin on his lips.

Hermione avoided Malfoy all day. It was a tough job since they lived together and took the same classes, but she had somehow managed it. The idiot had tried to talk to her during dinner but as he approached the Gryffindor table, she took off, completely blanking his feeble apologies. She went all the way back to the Head dorms ready to tackle a rather difficult Potions essay, before going down to the dungeons for Snape's detention. She knew it would be a very long night, the slimy bat would probably make her clean large cauldrons with nothing but a toothbrush or toothpick, but as long as she was away from the ferret, she didn't really mind. However, she quickly realised that Malfoy had followed her from the Great Hall.

Great! Just what she needed, another encounter with him before Snape's horrible detention! God, couldn't she get any peace?

"What do you want?" she snapped at him, trying to walk past him and up to her room.

"Granger, sit down," he told her quickly. "There's something I want to say to you."

Sit down? She had no intention of sitting down, she had homework to do before her detention and she told him so.

"Please," he added in a softer tone and she did so, rolling her eyes.

"Hermione –" he began hesitantly and seeing the annoyed look she gave him, quickly corrected himself.

"Granger - I'm sorry if I was rude to you yesterday," he said slowly, his silver eyes staring straight at her. "You're right, I was bored senseless with Pansy and I couldn't help noticing that you were having a good time with Blaise -"

Yeah, whatever! Hermione wasn't buying any of it, she could see right through his lies. The day Malfoy said sorry to her and actually meant it, was the day hell froze over. He was obviously trying to get back in her good books; it was somehow all part of an act, another mind game.

She firmly avoided his gaze and instead, she stared at the fire flickering behind him, wondering when his well-prepared tirade would be over.

" – Anyway, last night I thought about it all in my sleep and I realised that I was jealous," he continued not noticing she wasn't paying the slightest attention to him. "I hope you can forgive me."

Hermione, who was in deep thought about her Potions homework, vaguely noticed that he had stopped talking.

"Er – Granger? So what will it be?" he said impatiently; obviously he had no experience with apologies. She stared up at him with malicious honey-coloured eyes and faked a yawn.

"Sorry, what was that?" she said off-handedly. "I dozed off – did you finally say something interesting?"

"Oh that's rich," Malfoy sneered, his face changing expression completely. "Here I am apologising, just like you wanted and you're not even bloody listening to me."

"What? You call that an apology!" she retorted, jumping to your feet. "It was kind of hard to tell since your face was screwed up in contempt! I'm not blind Malfoy, I know your apology is just another feeble attempt to get me in your bed!"

The bloody idiot smirked in return. "You weren't saying 'no' the past few days," he shot back, twirling a strand of her darker brown hair in his fingers.

Hermione blanched with fury but before she think of a good comeback, the common room door swung open and Ron and Harry stepped in. Oh bugger! Judging by her two best friend's facial expressions, a mixture of horror and anger, as they saw Malfoy's fingers in Hermione's hair, she knew an argument was about to start.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Ron exploded, taking a threatening step towards Malfoy.

The Slytherin cast him a disdainful look. "What are you doing here?" he retorted, his hand immediately falling by his side. Obviously, Harry and Ron had seen Malfoy go after her at dinner and their 'knight in shining armour' mode had kicked in.

"Hermione, are you alright?" Harry asked her, his green eyes staring fixedly at Malfoy. Hermione bit back a nasty retort. Did she look like a freaking 'damsel in distress'? Of course she was alright!

"Yes, Harry I'm fine,' she answered mechanically, emphasising the exasperation in her voice. "You can go back to the Gryffindor tower, I'm going to work on my Potions essay."

Ron turned to look at her confused. Hermione suddenly realised he was only wearing his white shirt and tie and her eyes unfocused a little as she glanced at his lean muscles through the thin material, approvingly. "But 'Mione, we saw him follow you back her, we thought –"

"You thought wrong Weasel!" Malfoy snarled, crossing his arms over his chest. "Now run along and go play with Potty or something."

Ron immediately turned a deeper shade of scarlet and a shouting match soon erupted between the three guys as Hermione stifled a snort at Malfoy's words, before remembering that she was still angry at him. She watched back and forth between Malfoy and Ron, marvelling at the stupidity of boys, as they continued to bark insults at each other. Noticing the time, Hermione grabbed her cloak, before turning to face them again.

"Right, well I'm off!" she announced, stepping away from them.

They both stopped short to look at her. "What?" Ron exclaimed.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Yes, I have detention with Snape now so I need to go, but please, don't stop fighting on my account, I'm sure you have still have a few more insults left to throw at each other. I believe Malfoy was at 'filthy Muggle-loving blood traitor'."

Giving Harry a small smile she left, hearing the shouting match continue behind. As she reached the dungeons on time, she was met with several large dirty cauldrons, an even more greasy-haired Snape and a tiny red toothbrush along with some soap. Oh what a fucking original idea!

Picking up the toothbrush angrily in one hand, as the overgrown bat smirked down at her, Hermione briefly wondered asking Snape whether washing his hair wouldn't have been a much more useful task for her detention, rather than cleaning the three large black cauldrons sitting on the desks. However she thought better of it, since she really couldn't afford getting into any further trouble and wouldn't dream of touching Snape's hair even with a pair of dragonskin gloves! And so, she began scrubbing away, grasping the miserable little toothbrush firmly in her right hand and cursing endlessly under her breath.

A few days later at breakfast, Hermione was sitting down with Ginny, who was nagging incessantly in her ear about the morning's Gryffindor versus Slytherin Quidditch match. Frankly, Hermione didn't give a damn about Quidditch, she didn't understand what all the excitement was about, but she listened patiently, eyeing Ron and his bimbo girlfriend with a look of disgust. Seriously, what was that whore thinking, as she sat in Ron's lap, snogging his brains out? Didn't she realise the whole school could see them, not to mention the whole of Hogwarts staff!

She turned to look at the staff table and some of the teachers actually registered Ron and his girlfriend with a sour look but to Hermione's surprise, it didn't look like any of them would go a damn thing about it! The slurping noises, which continued further along the table infuriated her, but what made her even more enraged was when she caught a silver gaze across the hall for the third time that morning.

"Malfoy's staring at you again!" Ginny sang out, grinning madly. "Hermione, come on, you've got him in the palm of your hand, the revenge plan could work perfectly now!"

"Yeah, I guess," she mumbled, eating her cereal. The pair of steel gray eyes was still watching her intently. Oh for Christ's sake, couldn't he give it a rest? Was he that desperate to shag her or something?

But then, a wicked smile spread on her lips as an idea suddenly struck her. Dropping her spoon, Hermione fanned herself with her hand, pretending that she was hot and hastily shrugged her robes off seductively. She was wearing Muggle clothes underneath, a loose knee-length multi-coloured skirt and a white button-up top.

Malfoy's eyes widened slightly. Good, she had his full attention. She then lowered her hand under the table, placing it on her thigh and slowly pulled her skirt up, as if trying to cool off her longs legs, which she spread open as she successfully tried to arouse the Slytherin Prince. She could see the pervert's dark gray eyes stare excitedly under the Gryffindor table.

She continued this game, unbuttoning her top slightly and caressing her body with her other hand until Ginny, sitting beside her, suddenly caught sight of what she was doing.

"Er – Hermione?" she asked bewildered, watching wide eyed. "Are you okay?"

Hermione froze. Oops, so maybe she had let herself get carried away a little, but it had worked, she could see Malfoy gripping his goblet tightly.

"I'm fine, Gin," she answered slyly, blowing a kiss in the Slytherin's direction. "I'm merely giving Malfoy a glimpse of what he'll never get."

Her hand pulled up her skirt seductively again, this time briefly showing him her white knickers and then both girls collapsed into fits of laughter, as they watched Malfoy jump hastily out of his seat and run out of the hall, towards the nearby toilet.

Hermione smiled triumphantly at her friend and for the first time, seriously considered resuming the revenge plan. She was immensely pleased with herself. She would show Malfoy – she would show him just how wrong he was the day he thought he could mess with her!

Hope you enjoyed it! The next chapter will be the Quidditch match and Hermione and Draco will draw closer to each other again and for a long time! Don't forget to check out my other fic 'Here Without You', chapter 9 is up!

Leave a review, thanks!

Hathor xxx