healed (dramione)

2 : Hermione

Song for the Chapter : Bored ~ Billie Eilish

Hermione's POV

"Hermi-one! Hermi-one! Hermi-one!"

Ugh, was I tired of that chant. The Gryffindor common room was usually pretty loud, but never this loud. Like, Jesus, did you want me to burst an eardrum or something?

Just because I punched Ron, that didn't mean I was happy. Cue record scratch and flashback and buckle up. This is a long story.

As you can probably guess, Ron and I started dating not long after the war ended and we returned to Hogwarts. And that was great and all.

Well, it was.

Since Ron had taken a part-time job at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes over the summer, he'd actually been making two things for himself. One? A name. And two - a heckload of money.

Yeah, yeah. I get that Ron's never had much money of his own before. But ever since he started getting rich from George's business he'd been the most selfish person I knew.

And it was right when he was showing off all his shiny new galleons to the rest of the common room when I leaned in close to him under the pretence of a nice kiss and punched him in the jaw until his nose bled.

What can I say? I've been punching fellow students in the face since third year. I'm a natural.

That's when the chanting came in, and I guess you're pretty up to scratch now. Cue return to present day.

Tears stung my eyes as I marched out of the common room, attempting to regain at least a small shred of dignity. Sure, everybody would now tease me for the rest of my life, but I could handle it, right?

Apparently not. Come on, Hermione! I told myself fiercely as I fled the common room. You've been tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange and fought death eaters, but you can't handle a breakup and some teasing?

Well, inner monologue me was obviously better than reality me, because I chose to continue hurrying away from the common room in tears and made blindly for the dungeons just as the bell for the end of class rang.

My free period was over. What the hell did I have now? Honestly, I had no idea. All I was concentrating on was finding someplace safe where I could cry in peace without some sneaky Gryffindor chanting at me.

Sneaking into an alcove in the wall of the dungeons sounded like a good idea in practice, but in reality the hole was a lot smaller than I'd anticipated. Well, so much for that smart idea.

Nevertheless, I clambered inside and hugged my knees to my chest as my tears stained and soaked my robes. I wasn't sure why it was affecting me so badly. But I knew that Ron and Harry probably wanted nothing to do with me now, so that was a pretty bad motivator.

After a few minutes and the corridors were finally empty, I heard footsteps echoing down the steps towards me, and made a hasty effort to stifle my sobs. If a professor saw me, or --

"Granger?"

Oh. It wasn't a professor. Although, now I saw who it was, I was kind of wishing it had been. Draco Malfoy stood staring at me curiously, leaning casually against the stone pillar opposite me while I glared up at him with blotchy red eyes and face. Yeah, I looked a hot mess.

"Malfoy?" I exclaimed. What the hell was he doing here? Surprisingly enough, he didn't have that Pansy Parkinson girl hanging off his arm. He must have really annoyed her to be able to finally have gotten rid of her.

"What are you doing here?" He asked in disbelief, looking me up and down. For the sake of my back and my sanity, I decided it was best for me to ease myself slowly out of the alcove and dust myself down - easier said than done, as I soon found out.

"I could ask you the same thing."

Author's Note: Hi! Thank you so much for the early support on this book, and thanks especially to asmith394 and bluedevils3 for voting first! New chapter hopefully coming soon, I'm really enjoying this so far. Don't forget to vote and comment :)