There are two kinds of humiliation. There's the public, open kind that is mildly mortifying, but you quickly learn to laugh at yourself. People think it's funny and eventually you see the hilarity in it. Then there's the other kind. The kind where it's personal; something intimate, truly and thoroughly crushing. Simply looking at the other person makes you want to shoot yourself ear to ear. This was marginally how Draco was feeling. He felt a vicious, burning desire to one-up her; to make her acknowledge his genius.

After all, he thought smugly. I already have it planned and everything. Now all that's left to do is wait.

Hermione spent the next few weeks living cautiously. Things seemed to be as normal as they would ever be with the Head Boy, but sometimes he was eerily smiley, which made her even more wary. The two went back to their usual exchange of scalding, witty banter during classes, which seemed to greatly relieve their classmates. They regularly got in verbal arguments in public, but in private they were strangely comfortable around each other. Well, they did keep at least four feet in between them at all times, but apart from that things seemed fine in the universe dwelled in by the Heads.

That is, as far as Hermione Granger knew. What she didn't know was that Draco Malfoy happened to be simply biding his time so he could catch her off guard with his first prank.

Thursday was the day he decided on. It was two days before Halloween, and when he woke up he was struck with a truly evil idea.

Today is the day. Everything will be perfect. I can feel it, he thought to himself as he got ready slowly, planning his attack. A bloodthirsty smile spread on his face, and when he saw Hermione in the common room he couldn't help but chuckle a little.

"What're you so happy about, Malfoy?" she asked bluntly.

He did nothing but smile and say, "It's just a good day, why not be happy?" She scowled suspiciously at him for a minute but then shrugged it off and trudged out of the portrait hole. Draco quietly trailed her, making sure that she couldn't hear him. He aimed his wand at her and thought very hard, Expelliarmus! She dropped her books, and he thought, Perfect. As she bent over to reclaim her seven books, he aimed his wand yet again at her bent over figure and thought, Transparious, with all that he had. A small pop let him know that it had worked, and he dashed back to his room to gather his things.

He waited ten minutes in the common room, glancing around nervously as if he expected Hermione to be standing there with a cross look on her face. He grabbed his things and hurried down to breakfast, trying to tell himself that he didn't feel guilty about this prank.

Why would I feel bad? She started it, he attempted to reason with himself. It didn't work. He still felt terribly guilty. The guilt intensified tenfold when he walked into the Great Hall. There was stifled laughter and Hermione was the center of it, although she didn't know it. She did appear to be catching on, seeing as all the Gryffindors kept shooting her sideways glances and giggling behind their hands. Slytherins were laughing openly, whereas the other two houses didn't know what to think. Hermione was unaware what they were laughing at, and looked innocently confused. When people started pointing at her, she looked down at herself and gasped. She bolted out of the hall faster than Draco believed imaginable. A foreign emotion welled in his chest and then expanded so that he felt as if he couldn't breathe. It took him a minute to realize that it was guilt he was feeling. Guilt; horrible, raw guilt. He suddenly got up and followed her out of the Great Hall where people were still laughing and puzzling over Hermione's comical appearance. He knew that the library wouldn't offer protection for this kind of humiliation, so instead he rushed to their common room. Sure enough, he heard her sobs coming from her bedroom door that stood ajar. He tentatively walked over and stood in the doorway, feeling worse than ever in his life.

Hermione was buried in her blankets, howling with anguish. She writhed and kicked, struggling with her demons.

"Hermione?" he asked timidly. He registered that he'd never used that tone before and immediately switched to a colder one. "Are you going to pull yourself together any time soon? It was just a joke."

Her sobs immediately stopped. She threw the covers off of her and stepped out of bed and towards him with a ferocious look in his eyes. Seeing his handiwork, he almost smirked. His charm had made her clothes see-through, so it looked as if she were walking around in her bra and underwear. She was slim and lean but in the effortless way, not as if she had to work at it. Her skin was milky and of an even tone, she wasn't bad looking at all.

"This," she started dangerously. "Was just a joke?" Draco knew right away that he had said the worst possible thing he could have said. He decided that silence would help him survive in this situation and said nothing. She took that as a direct hit, and instead of trying to choke him, she crumpled up on the floor. Her knees folded into her chest and she wrapped her arms around them.

"Leave," she choked out in a muffled voice. Two choices flashed through Draco's mind; leave and act as if this had never happened or apologize and console her. As terrified of human contact as he was, he felt the strong impulse to stay with her. So he did. He sat on the floor next to her and wrapped his arms around her. Some girls would've twitched and jerked out of his grasp, but Hermione relaxed and cried until she was calm. She slowly loosened her tense muscles and leaned into him, letting him support her and stroke her hair. They stayed like that long after her tears had subsided, and it was comforting to them both.

Feeling quite random, Draco said, "Let's play a game." Surprisingly enough, Hermione agreed and did not tell him that that was a horrible idea.

"Okay," she agreed. "Truth or truth." He didn't know the game but since there's only two options, how can one go wrong?

"Truth."

"How do you feel about me?" she asked simply.

Giving up the internal battle, Draco sighed and said, "Like if I let go of you right now then my world will fall apart. Truth or truth?"

Hermione pretended to contemplate her answer for a little while before replying, "I'll try truth."

"How do you feel about me?"

"If you let me go then I'll fall apart, but your hanging on terrifies me."

"I feel the same," he admitted. "What do we do?"

"I don't think we can do anything," Hermione answered, sounding exhausted. "Nothing we can do but let this work itself out."

Draco thought about it for a minute and said, "I agree. I don't ever want to move."

"Me either," Hermione replied, burrowing further into his embrace.

A/N: Sorry I've taken so long. I am a terrible person, yada yada, I know! Please forgive me. School and volleyball and all this extra stuff is killing me.