With a quiet but frustrated sigh, she shut the last book and stared at the pile on the table next to her. Absolutely none of them had anything to say on Horcruxes, and while she was extremely disappointed, she wasn't entirely surprised.
"Are you going to let me help you now?"
"Nope." She stood up from the chair, downing the rest of her tea and grabbing the pile of books to put them back.
She could feel his eyes on her as she returned the books to their place on the shelves, and as she moved to the bookshelves on the other wall she heard a sigh.
"I know you're looking for something to do with the dark arts," He said, watching her from his chair with his chin in his hand. "If you tell me, I might be able to help you find it faster."
"Frankly, I'm starting to doubt that you have anything on this subject as it's a very difficult subject," Hermione said, pulling a book off the shelf and continuing in her search. "And while I appreciate the offer, I still don't think telling you is a good idea because I don't know what you're going to do with the information."
There was another sigh from him that she tried to ignore as she pulled a second book off the shelf, and soon enough she had another stack of books that she had set on the table. She paused before sitting down, glancing at her empty mug and then reaching for it. She made her way back towards the kitchen, pausing again in the doorway and wrestling over whether or not she should make one for him as well. After all, he had made her one without her asking and he had been nothing but nice so far...
"Would you like another cup of tea?" She asked finally, turning around to look at him.
She could see the surprise in his eyes as he looked up and he glanced to look at his mug before saying quietly, "I'm okay, thank you."
She disappeared into the kitchen, heading towards the stove and searching through the cabinets. Eventually she found the tea and saw that he had collected a few different kinds, mostly blends of black tea. He didn't strike her as the type of person who would drink some of the teas that she found, but at the same time it wasn't as if she knew him very well.
After deciding on another plain black tea, she leaned against the counter and looked around as she waited for her water to boil. Her attention focused on the large window and the waves coming up onto the beach.
If things were different, she could see herself having a cottage very similar to this one eventually; somewhere on the beach away from everyone else. She had brought it up before when the group was talking about their futures to subtly see what Ron would think, but he never seemed as interested in the idea, and while she used to imagine the two of them together walking down the beach towards their cottage, she couldn't imagine it as easily anymore. Not after he left...
The kettle whistling brought her of her thoughts and she was silently grateful for it as she made her tea; she knew she would have to confront her now-conflicting feelings about Ron eventually, but they could wait until after everything was said and done.
If she ever got the chance to leave.
She scowled at the thought as she grabbed her mug and walked back into the library room, ignoring the blond sitting in the chair across from her as she sat down. She was somewhat surprised when he didn't say anything to her, but if anything she appreciated that he didn't disturb her while she was actively reading. Of course, he was reading as well, but it was nice.
Ron always interrupted...
She scowled again and groaned to herself, adjusting in her chair and pulling her legs up to curl up as she reached for the first book in the new stack and opened it up to the index.
"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.
She paused then and glanced in his direction before asking, "Could you lift the no-magic shield so that I can remove this?"
"I don't know if you could," He said quietly. "That wasn't an ordinary knife; frankly I'm surprised it's healing at all."
Her stomach twisted at this and she grimaced, looking back in the kit and searching for something that might help; after a few seconds she found some healing ointment and applied it before grabbing a couple large squares of the gauze pads and then the tape.
"Do you need help?" He asked, watching her look between the gauze and tape as if she were trying to figure something out.
She didn't answer immediately, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she thought. Then she handed him the tape and said, "Yes, could you tear off two long strips and two shorter strips, please?"
He nodded and pulled a long piece, holding it up to the length of the gauze to make sure it was the correct length and then tearing it. She was about to take it from him when he reached past her outstretched hand to apply the piece of tape himself.
She didn't object to this and he continued with the remaining three pieces, looking down at the makeshift bandage after he had finished. "Is it going to stay?"
"It should," She said, twisting her arm slightly to test out the tape. "If not, it's not like more tape can't be added."
She took the tape from him and put it back into the kit, closing it up and kneeling down to put it back under the sink. As she stood back up, she glanced to him and said quietly, "Thank you for helping with that."
"Of course," He answered simply before gesturing towards the kitchen. "Are you hungry?"
The rest of the day passed quickly and soon it was nighttime. She waited until the cottage had been quiet for at least an hour before emerging from her room to try the front door again, and she was determined this time to make it through.
She had quietly undone all of the locks she could find again, searching the door for anything she could have missed. Unfortunately she couldn't find any new ways to unlock the locks that were still keeping her inside, and she sighed unhappily.
"How am I going to get out of here?" She whispered to herself, running a hand through her hair as she stared at the doorframe.
From the small amount of light coming in through the frame, she could see that there were still three locks left between her and freedom. But there was absolutely nothing she could see that would help unlock those three locks, and she rubbed her face in frustration with a slight groan.
A door opening from the hallway startled her and she quickly ducked into the library, holding her breath as she tried to listen for any sounds. There was the quiet padding of footsteps down the hallway, and they quietly died down as they went further away from her. She still stayed up against the wall however, keeping as quiet as she could while peeking around the corner to see if the front door was clear.
"What are you doing?"
She let out a small scream and whirled around, staring at the figure in the doorway leading to the kitchen. The light flashed on and she blinked a few times, waiting for her eyes to adjust.
"You startled me," She said, trying to hide the panic in her voice. How much had he seen?
He looked at her, and then towards the hallway leading to the front door. Looking back at her, he raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything, and she shifted her weight awkwardly.
"I couldn't sleep," She muttered, looking away then and rubbing her arm. "Needed to get out of the room."
He watched her quietly for a few moments before sighing and nodding. "I get it; that's pretty much why I'm up too."
Gesturing towards the kitchen then, he asked, "Are you hungry?"
"Not really."
The eyebrow went up again skeptically as he said, "You hardly ate anything."
She sighed somewhat impatiently and said, "Again, I'm not used to eating that much."
"That much?" He scoffed slightly. "That isn't 'that much'; that's a normal amount of food."
"Again, I'm not used to it," She said frustratedly, crossing her arms against her chest. "Either way, I'm not hungry."
"Well you should at least have something before you try and leave again."
She stared at him in shock and he smirked slightly before adding, "It's not that hard to figure out what you were doing. The light wasn't on so you weren't trying to do anymore research and I'm willing to bet that you still left the inside locks unlocked."
A nervous feeling settled in to the put of her stomach as she shifted her weight again. "No, I didn't."
"Mhmm," He hummed skeptically again before shaking his head and turning towards the kitchen. "Either way, I'll be in the kitchen getting something to eat and drink. You can continue trying to find your way through the door, which I guarantee you won't, or you can come and eat and have a glass of wine. Or whiskey, or rum, whatever you're feeling."
He then walked out of the library and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving her alone staring after him in shock. Anger slowly bubbled up in her at the cocky attitude he gave, as if he was one hundred percent certain that she was not going to find her way through the front door which frustrated her to no end.
The thought of going in there to simply slap the smirk off his face seemed very enticing but she knew it wouldn't really help her; but since he knew that she was trying to leave, maybe he wouldn't try to stop her now.
Looking back towards the front door, her stomach betrayed her by growling and she glared, sighing unhappily. After a few moments she decided that it would be better to try and continue figuring out the door without a distraction of an empty stomach, and with that she unhappily stomped towards the kitchen.
A/N: Thank you all so much for your patience, I'll hopefully be able to update faster soon depending on how life goes but in the meantime please enjoy this chapter! Love you all!