Stolen Paradise - Dramione (ON HOLD)

Ch. 7

"Everything alright?"

She looked up to see him giving her a curious look. "What do you mean?"

He gestured slightly towards her. "You made a noise that sounded like you were frustrated."

She blinked before quickly saying, "Oh, sorry."

Raising an eyebrow, he asked, "You're apologizing for being frustrated?"

"No, I'm apologizing for making it audible," She said simply, looking back down at the book.

She was somewhat surprised when he didn't respond but she could see his head shaking out of the corner of her eye momentarily before he returned to his book as well.

Even though she found a page that seemed somewhat promising, her mind refused to absorb what she was reading. She couldn't stop thinking about the fact that it was such a small thing she had done; she didn't even notice that she had made the frustrated noise until he pointed it out. And even more odd, he seemed somewhat concerned about it.

She couldn't stop herself from glancing up at him; he was calmly reading, no shifting or heavy annoyed sighing like she had grown accustomed to hearing from Ron. Harry wasn't too much better, but he was able to read for at least fifteen minutes before it started bothering him.

He shifted in his chair again and she tore her eyes away, staring down at the book in her hands to avoid being caught looking at him. After silently chastising herself for getting distracted, she tried once again to focus on the page she was on and finally found it somewhat easier now that she was yelling the words at herself in her head.

However regardless of how loudly she used the words to mentally berate herself with, they still didn't yield any information that was helpful to her and she set this book down as the first in the new stack of rejections. Neither the second nor third books were any more successful, and now she was truly starting to get frustrated.

"Does your arm itch?"

She looked up at the question, giving him a confused look. "What are you talking about?"

He nodded towards her then, not taking his eyes off her arm as he said, "You've been scratching the bandages for the past few minutes."

Looking down now at her arm she realized that she was in fact scratching at them with the tip of her finger. "Oh...I didn't even know I was doing that."

"We may need to change them," He said, closing his book slowly. "Unless you already did?"

Shaking her head, she replied quietly, "I didn't even think about it when I took a shower earlier; I just kept it out of the water."

He set the book down on the small table next to him but didn't move after that, watching her. "Did you want to do it on your own or do you think you'll need help?"

She didn't answer for a moment, debating whether or not she would actually be able to do it herself. "I may need help getting the bandage to stay at first."

At that, he nodded and stood up, waiting for her to stand up as well before leading her out of the room and back towards her bathroom. He was already pulling the kit out from under the sink when she had entered the doorway, lingering for a moment before looking down at the bandages and starting to slowly unravel them.

She winced as the bandages stuck slightly to the wound but was able to get them off without any issues. He had opened the kit and slid it across the counter towards her before leaning against the sink, watching her quietly.

After rifling through the kit, she gently tore open one of the alcohol cleansing wipes and ran it over the cuts; they didn't burn as much as they did before, but she was still unnerved and avoiding looking at the word in its entirety.