Deep below the Hogwarts castle, Draco awoke. He was covered in a thin veil of sweat even though the fire had gone out a long time ago and a chill was in the air. He knew that it must be very late but Draco was wide- awake now. He couldn't remember what had awoken him or what his dreams had been about, but for that he was thankful. Draco's dreams were far darker than Hermione's, but then, he had known more violence than she had. Being Lucius' son, Draco had been present several times when Lucius was going to make an example of someone. And considering how great his knowledge of dark spells, he had quite an active imagination.
Throwing back the green satin coverlet, Draco swung out of bed and crossed the room to his dresser where he changed into a thick school robe. He exited his room and entered a long dark hall dimly lit with dripping candles. Doors led off of from either side into other dorm rooms but Draco headed straight down towards the common room.
It was empty and silent when he got there. Surveying the room he went to the portrait hole and slipped out. He wanted to pick over the letter again; maybe something would give him a clue as to what was really going on. Draco knew that this was probably an effort in futility, all of his tricks had been taught to him by Lucius, there was little doubt that he would have been extra cautious in his wording. But Draco couldn't sleep and it would help him to focus on something, anything.
The walk to the library took a long time, he'd had to hide several times behind suits of armor and even ducked into a deserted classroom a time or too. The blasted cat kept trying to sneak up on him. The mangy thing seemed to know that he was there but just couldn't find him. He was surprised that there hadn't been any teachers roaming the halls. It use to seem as if they were everywhere when he snuck out with Crabbe and Goyle. It felt like a very long time since he had snuck out with them. Or had gone out with Pansy to take in the view from the Astronomy tower. But he didn't miss it. Most of his free time was spent working with Hermione, thinking of Hermione, or fighting with her. And of course, he had messed that up again, he had hurt her again. No sooner had she forgiven him for some nasty indiscretion than he went and did another one. Honestly, if he had been in her position he probably would have hexed himself by now. Draco frowned as he thought; he just wasn't very good at being nice.
He reached their room and unlocked the door. As it opened a glimmer of light shone through the crack and he opened it all the way with a bit of surprise and found her sitting at the table, deeply involved with her book. She glanced up and for a moment her brown eyes held relief but they changed suddenly to fear and then worry as if she were remembering something. She looked back down.
His letter lay on the table where it had been left earlier. "Isn't it a little late?" He asked quietly.
"I couldn't sleep," she muttered, "I had a dream." She added when he looked at her more closely. "Why are you here?"
"I couldn't sleep either," he replied.
"Bad dream?"
"Probably, but the details seem to have slipped my mind at the moment." Draco closed the door behind him. She jumped a little at the sound that it made. "So what was your dream about?" Draco asked with interest; she wasn't usually so jumpy.
"Nothing" she muttered looking away from him, which was always a sign that it had definitely been something.
"Was I in it?" He smirked seductively.
"No!" She cried out in alarm and he just grinned more, she wasn't very skilled at lying. "And even if you were in my dream, it wasn't that type of dream."
"But you've had those types of dreams before? About me?" Draco grinned with triumphant delight.
"I...I didn't say that," Hermione's voice faltered and she blushed.
