A New Kind of Jealousy

There she was again, walking down the halls with Potter and Weasley on either side of her. Draco felt a muscle in his jaw twitch, when a sudden jealousy hit him. He had never before been jealous of neither Potter nor Weasley, but during the last month, these jealousy fits had been happening more increasingly. There was only one way, he could make himself feel a little better. But he very well knew that the better feeling would only last for a minute, and then the despair would return, with even more force than it had before. He sighed, but eventually gave into the urge. Besides, it had been far too long, since he had last offended Granger's friends, and if he didn't do anything soon, people would start to whisper about him, and he really hated that.

"Has anyone ever told you Weasley," he started to say loudly "that with a little, red dress, you could make a good Ginger Spice?"

Instantly the trio walking in front of him stopped dead and turned to face him as one. Weasley's face was as red as his hair, but Draco wasn't looking at him. Instead, he was staring intently at Hermione Granger, the Mudblood he had hated for years. Her cheeks very rosy, the chocolate brown eyes very blazing with fury and her hair was as out of control as ever. With a smirk, he returned his attention to Weasley.

"I'm just saying," he continued "if you wanted to start a career in the entertainment business, since you won't be able to make any positive attributions to the Wizarding World, you could start you own Spice Band. Yeah, and Potter could join you as Posh Spice. You could be Transgender Spice!"

At that last comment, Crabbe and Goyle started laughing loudly. Normally, their laughs would have encouraged him to say something more, but now they were nothing more than irritating.

He saw Potter reaching for his wand, but noticed how Hermione placed a slender hand on Potter's, holding him back.

'Why isn't it my hand she is touching?' a treacherous voice inside his head said. He cleared his head for thoughts of hands touching and just looked Granger in her eyes.

"How is it that you know a Muggle band?" Granger asked him, her tone sweet and innocent but with an undertone of pure evil. He smirked, liking what he heard. "Perhaps because you have been fantasizing about being Baby Spice?"

With that said, she grabbed Potter by the sleeve, turned around and started walking. But oh no, he wasn't going to let her have the last word.

"What am I hearing, Potter and Weasley?" he yelled at them as they proceeded to move away. "You let a woman stand up for you instead of doing anything yourselves? It's pathetic!"

He turned on his heel and marched away. When Crabbe and Goyle moved to follow him, he waved his hand at them and said, "Leave me." And as the dogs they were, they obeyed him without asking a single question.

He walked not knowing, and more importantly not caring, where his feet were leading him. He had his head full of Hermione Granger. Thoughts of her eyes, hair, lips cheeks. He sighed and stopped, looking around him to see, where he was at. A gently breezed hit his face and ruffled his hair slightly. He was standing in front of the Black Lake with his back to the castle doors. He sighed once again and sat down with his hands in his head. And then the guilt hit him.

The pleasure of tormenting Potter and Weasley had been over more quickly than any time before. Perhaps because it wasn't any of them who had answered him but the very person, who made him so miserable all the time. And to top it all off, she also ruined the only fun he ever had, by making him feel guilty about it. Nothing in his life seemed to be simple any longer. And to think, it all started with a potions class. He smiled a slight sarcastic smile when he remembered the day, where he had finally noticed Hermione Granger for what she really were; beautiful, desirable and way out of his reach.

Slughorn had planned a lazy day for them, only note taking. Draco didn't trust in notes, they had the tendency to disappear so he just relied on his memory. But when Slughorn started teaching, he suddenly noticed something that distracted him. Hermione Granger was sitting at a desk in the row in front of him and he had a perfect view of her. Normally he wouldn't notice such a thing, but something was different this time.

Hermione was sitting alone looking dreamily into space. Potter and Weasley were sitting deep in conversation but neither Draco nor Hermione paid any attention to them. She had a little smile on her lips, just a slight one, but the way her eyes were sparkling with whatever fantasy she had, Draco couldn't help staring at her. For the first time ever, he really saw her. He didn't see Mudblood, best-friend-of-Potter-and-Weasley or bossy know-it-all. He saw Hermione, a charming and beautiful witch with gorgeous features, he had never before realized. Everything about her, from her frizzy hair to her slender fingers, to her long legs was suddenly screaming at him. There was no way of ignoring the sudden feelings stirring inside of him.

Then Potter had suddenly remembered about her, leaned over to her and tapped her on the shoulder. Draco saw her confusion when she was dragged out of her daydream. She blushed, looked down and smiled a little apologetic. The blush on her pale cheeks was suddenly very endearing, Draco caught himself thinking. And her little, hesitant giggle when Potter made a joke he couldn't hear, made him smile, not the usual smile meant to irritate or torment, but genuine smile of pleasure.

But what was happening to him? He was having boyish fantasies about the Mudblood he had made a living of annoying! He shook his head trying to free himself of this new picture of Hermione he had suddenly and against his will, gotten. It was impossible though, the picture was stuck in the back of his mind, and he caught himself looking at her several times during the rest of the class.

After class he had done everything to prove to himself that nothing had changed in the saw he saw her. No matter how cute and beautiful she had suddenly gotten, she was still and annoying, dirty Mudblood who he hated. He tried to insult her, saying something stupid and immature about her hair, but when he saw the hurt in her eyes, he instantly regretted his actions.

Well, it had been a month now. He still hadn't had any luck convincing himself that he had no more feelings for Granger than a Flobberworm had for anything that wasn't lettuce.