A/N: Ok – yah, I know! It's been nearly a year since I last updated! I'm sorry and I know y'all probably don't want to hear it, but University sucks! It's my second year and things are getting harder… I just lost my grandmother this summer too. But enough of my complaining and excuses. Sincerely, thank you all for the wonderful reviews and all the alerts I received so far. I hope this will satisfy some of you!
The next morning shone bright and early. Poor Hermione had barely slept a wink all night. Her dreams had been plagued with images of Draco. Well, they were more like nightmares – after all, surely any dream about Draco Malfoy had to be considered a nightmare, shouldn't it? But the problem was, Hermione had still continued to have sexual fantasies portrayed in these dreams…nightmares of hers. Images of Draco sucking her, of her swallowing his meat, of Draco lying next to her completely naked, stroking her side, playing with her breasts, whispering quiet, soothing words and sweet nothings in her ear in the aftermath of their climax…
Hermione rushed to the bathroom. This shouldn't be happening to her! Furiously, she jumped into the shower and turned it on all the way, as cold as the shower would allow. She squealed as the ice cold water hit her burning warm flesh. While she stood there waiting for the cold shower to take its affect, Hermione started reciting potions ingredients to herself in her head.
Bloomslang skin, beetle eyes, mandrake root, flobberworms, eye of newt, pixie eggs…
Hermione stepped out of the shower and got dressed. In her haste to get down to breakfast, she didn't even wait for Ron and Harry as she usually did. By the time the other two had arrived at the table, she had already finished her breakfast – though don't ask what she ate because Hermione would have been hard pressed to say for sure. Everything tasted like saw dust today.
"Hermione? Hermione!"
Hermione jumped at the sound of her name being called. Turning to her two best friends she spoke.
"S-Sorry! I didn't sleep too well last night. What were you saying?" she asked.
"Hermione, are you ok? It's time for class. If we don't leave now, we'll be late," Ron replied.
"Yeah, sure, I'm ok, just a little tired I guess. Let's get to class then, before we're late."
As the trio got up to leave the Gryffindor table and head to class, Hermione noticed something – she, for the first time since coming to Hogwarts, had actually forgot her book bag in the common room.
"Harry, Ron, you guys go ahead to class. I'll be right there. I forgot my books back up in the tower." As Hermione turned to leave, heading up the staircase to Gryffindor tower, she didn't see the look shared between her two best friends.
Hermione paid no attention to where she was going, so lost in her thoughts as she was. When she finally took note of where she was, Hermione noticed that she was far away from her dorm and her next class too. In fact, she didn't recognize the corridor she was in at all. Hearing footsteps behind her, Hermione turned around… and saw nothing. Figuring it was just a trick of her imagination from being in a strange place, Hermione turned back around and kept walking only to stop abruptly at what she saw. There stood Draco Malfoy casually leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest, classic Malfoy smirk upon his lips and cold grey eyes upon her.
"Granger. What are you doing here?" he asked, "and without your cronies, too?"
"None of your business, Malfoy! What do you want?" Hermione retorted with out the usual conviction she would have used, had Harry and Ron been with her.
"Whoa there. Did the mudblood not take her chill pill this morning, or something?" sneered Draco.
"Don't say that!" Hermione said back, with just as much viciousness as Draco had used.
Smirk getting wider, if that was even possible, Draco smoothly replied, "Don't say what? That you're a mudblood or that you need to take a chill pill?"
Trying to keep her dignity in tact, Hermione gritted her teeth and answered, "You know very well what part I didn't want you saying."
Full out grinning now, Draco continued to egg her on. "Do I really know? After all, I'm already beginning to forget what it was that I had said in the first place. Care to remind me?"
"I'm a mudblood! That's what I don't want you saying, you vile thing!" Hermione yelled back at him. Of course, this was exactly what Draco wanted to hear!
"So good of you to finally admit it Granger. Now what in the world would make you believe that I, Draco Malfoy, are a 'vile thing' as you so kindly put it?"
"Because I love you!"
Quiet resounded throughout the corridor as a shocked Draco and Hermione stood there trying to comprehend what had just happened.
Realizing what she had just said, Hermione turned and bolted in the opposite direction, trying to put as much space as possible between herself and the object of her nightmares. Completely and totally embarrassed, Hermione somehow made it up to her room in Gryffindor tower and there she stayed for the rest of the morning.
A/N: Wow, so I finally updated. I know it's short but I don't intend to make this a very long story. Hope this floats your boats. I'm hoping to update another chapter to each of my in-progress stories. So it may be a while before this gets updated again. Thanks for reading.
PS: the part about Hermione hearing footsteps really was supposed to be a trick of her imagination. Strange things like that happen when one is lost and confused.