Hermione felt the pounding in her ears again. She would see him for the first time since the Great Hall, gaunt and stricken at the Slytherin table with his mother clutching his arm. She hadn't meant to look for him. Not in the corridors, not beneath the white sheets of the fallen, not on the way to the Chamber of Secrets with Ron, but she was a stupid girl.

"You see, Draco Malfoy, without your sarcastic replies to endure each morning and that arrogance only you could carry, I find myself somewhat missing you." Draco thought the biggest problem living for a year under the same roof as Hermione Granger was the probability of them killing each other. He never thought it would be falling in love with her.