'Yet could I really be safe there?  Happy there?  Could the place that haunted every moment, every corner of my dreams, every second of my waking conscious really be a place of safety?  I didn’t know, but I had to hope that it would.'

'I blinked back the tears that were blurring my vision, I would not let Ron Weasley see me cry.  I would not let Ron Weasley make me cry. '

'Why do you keep looking over at Malfoy, Hermione? And why is he shooting daggers at you?' Harry asked, glancing over at Malfoy. 'I mean if looks could kill.'

'We have spent the last week planning this party and you are going to look amazing and have a brilliant time and forget all about your rubbishday. And if you even think for a minute about not going, or walk about with your face tripping you, then believe me, Hermione Granger, I will make the next year of your life a very long and very miserable one. Understood?'

'He reached out his hand and put it to the back of my aching head and touched it very gently. I was completely frozen; I wasn’t even sure that I was breathing anymore.  Malfoy had never touched me before.'

'Why wasn’t he arguing back? I wanted him to argue back.  I wanted him to fight with me.  I wanted to vent out all the frustration and anger that I had been feeling on someone without feeling guilty about it afterwards and Malfoy was the perfect person for doing that with and yet he wasn’t taking the bait.'

'So what are you saying; that we should be friends?’ I asked questioningly, not sure if being friends with Malfoy was something that I could handle.'
 

'No of course not,’ I answered quickly, although a certain person did pop into my mind, but I quickly pushed those thoughts away in annoyance, ‘I just think that we’ve both changed.  I think we just missed our chance.’

'Yet this was unlike anything I had ever felt before. This was so much more.  And he had only brushed my lips with his.  He had barely touched me and I was gone; completely hypnotised by him.'

'Hermione I don't just want to be friends with you,' he said eventually, meeting my gaze for the briefest second before it flicked away again, 'I want to be more than that.'

'Draco was looking at me expectantly, in nervous anticipation. Gently I peeled back the silver ribbon from the black box and nervously lift the lid. I was rendered utterly speechless when I looked inside.'

'Hermione, what are you talking about? How on earth can you be going out with Draco Malfoy? That is not possible unless I feel asleep in divination again and woke up in some creepy alternative universe.'

Someone had to be the first one to take the step. I thought I had already done that. Was I really going to offer my trust and acceptance to Draco only to pull it away when it really mattered?

'Becoming an auror would mean that I could at least try and help get rid of these people once and for all.  And then the reason that made my stomach twist.  Draco.  Being an auror would mean leaving him behind.'

'I was secretly hoping that she would tell me that Draco’s behaviour was perfectly normal before a quidditch match and that sporting nerves quite often turned people into narcissistic, overly sensitive, nervous idiots.'

'Open your eyes,' he whispered into my ear and as if I were under the imperious curse, I immediately obeyed.'

 For every person we thought it could be, there was an equally compelling reason why it couldn’t.