DEAD TO ME → (h. potter)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

She barely said two words throughout the entire hour and a half and kept unconsciously scratching at her left forearm as though there was a newly formed scab lying there. She'd gnaw her lip every few seconds, and he realized there were two red blotches on the inside of her lower lip where he assumed she'd drawn blood by biting it. She looked a right mess.

"Hermione," Harry hissed under his breath as the four of them began to pack up. Hermione glanced up at Harry, then to Jones, and then back to Harry. "Come on!"

"Indiana," Hermione said begrudgingly, turning to said girl with a gentle expression on. "Could I have a word?"

Jones paused for a moment, half leaned over to grab her bag, but as she brought the strap of it over her shoulders, she plastered on a light expression and nodded her head. "Yeah, alright."

Harry waited with Ron at the table while Hermione and Jones went off into a more secluded corner. He stayed watching them closely, watching as Hermione's lips form the words 'Are you okay?' and as Jones' face contorts with confusion before it switches to horror, and then back to normal again. She muttered something Harry couldn't understand, shaking her head 'No, nothing's wrong, m'fine' but when Hermione said something else, he watched Jones' face change entirely.

And then, after perhaps five minutes of them speaking, Jones grabs Hermione by the wrist and begins to drag her out of the library; past the group of Ravenclaw third years, through the aisle they had walked through, and past Harry and a very confused Ron.

"The hell are they doing?" Ron asked Harry as though he knew.

"Dunno," Harry said, wondering the exact same thing. "She'll be around. Let's just go back."

✧✧✧

WHEN HERMIONE RETURNED to the Common Room that evening, she was crying. Not a sobbing sort of cry, but the kind of cry when you'd get stressed about something and didn't want to make a big deal about it, so you just sort of let a few tears slip out for the time being until you could let it all out. There were many tears littered on Hermione's flushed face, and as she walked through the portrait entrance, she hastily wiped them away as though to hide them from him and Ron.

Ron, however, like always, noticed her tears and got to his feet, knocking over a few chess pieces as he did so and not bothering to pick them up. Harry pursed his lips and bent over to pluck them off the floor, eyes flickering up to where Ron wrapped an arm around his girlfriend and led her over to the couch, where she sat down and sort of stared blankly out in front of her for a moment.

"What happened?" Ron asked her tenderly, his hand rubbing up and down her upper arm as though to sooth her. She blinked and shook her head.

"S'nothing," She muttered, wiping at her face again. "Just talking to Indiana, s'all..."

"What'd she do?" Ron said very quickly, his face lighting up and looking almost gleeful towards the idea of Hermione and Jones' newly formed friendship being torn. Ron never liked Jones very much. "I swear to god, if she —"

"No, no, she didn't do anything," Hermione shook her head again, tucking her hair behind both her ears. She did that quite often. "Just had a... a heart to heart, I suppose."

"A heart to heart?" Ron repeated, confused. Hermione then met Harry's expectant eyes.

"Well?" Harry asked, getting up and moving to sit down in front of them, criss-crossing his legs and leaning forward like she was about to tell him the most exciting news he'd ever heard. "What's her deal?"

"I — I —" Hermione let out a squeak and slapped her hands over her face, leaning down onto her elbows as she shook her head. "I can't say! I'm sorry!"