Hermione pressed her quill down against the paper, fingers clawing into the stem. He was about to give another assignment, she could tell by the buildup. There was already a project and a paper, she hadn't calculated any more time for this class! But, heedless of Hermione's building death glare, the professor continued with the inevitability of an avalanche. As the professor cast a spell for the assignment to be visible on the front wall, Hermione gripped her quill a little tighter and it snapped, splashing something against her face. Slowly, she looked down. Black ink was speckled across her parchment, hands, and desk. She glared at her soiled hands and looked around for something to wipe them off. Someone snorted and she snapped a glance towards her right where John was sitting.
"What?" she asked sharply.
John covered his mouth but he was still laughing. With his free hand he pointed at her face. "You look like a Dalmatian" –he snorted again- "and your face!" He gestured at his own and made an exaggerated shocked expression.
Hermione raised an eyebrow, too annoyed to try to grace his statement with a response. She raised her hand to wipe it on her sleeve when a voice from her other side stopped her.
"Granger, just put your hand out."
Hermione turned to him, her face turning into a suspicious frown out of habit.
Malfoy merely looked down his nose at her, eyes lazily half shut.
Hermione put her hand out, like a lady would for a gentleman to kiss.
He glanced down at it, smirked, and then slid his fingers along the outside of her wrist to the spot where no ink had gotten. Hermione's fingers twitched involuntarily at his touch.
"Tergeo." Her hand clean, he removed his fingers and beckoned for her other hand.
She held it out as well and he pressed his fingertips to the underside of her forearm, presumably to steady her arm.
"Tergeo." Her other hand was clean. "Honestly, Granger. Did you used to be such a klutz? Hold still, I'm going to spell your face."
Caught up in the insult and his lingering touch on her arm, Hermione didn't follow his words until his wand was out and pointed at her face. She froze as she stared down the wand tip. She could already feel her breathing picking up, her mouth drying out. She attempted to swallow and then had to attempt it again.
Malfoy saw her expression and lowered his wand. "Still?" He was almost sneering. "Just ask Joh-"
Hermione reached out and grabbed Malfoy's left hand with both of hers. "You just caught me off guard, Malfoy. I'm not a klutz. It was all the quill's fau-"
His hand squeezed hers back, his blocky rough fingers ghosting along the back of her hand. She looked down at their hands in surprise. She hadn't held a guy's hand in... Well, it had been awhile. The ending flick of Malfoy's wand caught her eye and she glanced up. Her hands went up to her face. Clean.
"Tergeo? You said 'Tergeo,' right, Malfoy?"
Malfoy rolled his eyes. "No, I Avada-ed you."
Hermione frowned and smacked his shoulder. "That's not funny."
"Just get your back-up or the back-up-quill to your back-up and copy down the assignment. Knowing you, if you don't, you're going to run me down and blame me in your shrill little voice."
Not quite shaking the memory of his hands on hers, she gave a little dignified sniff and turned away to follow his advice.
...
Hermione woke up with her face plastered against a book, drool sticking the page to her mouth. She grunted and pushed her upper body back into a sitting position. She gently pressed out her book page and whispered a gentle apology for mishandling it. Where was everyone? How long had she been asleep? It was dark in the single window in her study room, but that just meant it was sometime after 6pm, which she already knew. The school library didn't close until midnight, a feature she had been using the whole week, but usually there were a few people who stayed as late as she did. She didn't hear any noise except the distant sound of one set of steps along the tiled floor somewhere down the hall.
Her heart was starting to pound and work its way up her chest towards her mouth, making it hard to breathe. She started packing her things, quickly and quietly, but her shaking hands shoved one of her books off of the table and it hit the rug with a muffled bump. She froze, listening for a change in the footsteps. Were they quicker now? She tried to levitate the book instead. It felt incredibly heavy, like trying to move a house. She abandoned the book and poured the rest of them into her bag. She prayed that the shuffling of papers would be muffled by the bookshelves.
That done, she dragged her sweaty and still shaking hands along her robes. She couldn't hear the steps anymore but there was a faint roaring in her ears. Like someone was holding abandoned beach shells to them. Trying to keep her panting as quiet as possible, Hermione grabbed her book bag and inched towards the bookshelves. There was a small opening that she could slip through and hide behind the rows of books. She had scouted it out the first time she used this room. As she slipped through it, her bag bumped the shelf. She immediately dropped to the floor, spinning towards the opening. Everything spun, a little unfocused, and she frantically tried to discern if there was anyone in the room, any wands pointed towards her. Putting her left fist into her mouth she bit down, forcing her breathing to be as slow as she could manage through her nose. Calm. She needed to stay calm. When she could see clearly again, she started to set up wards, but her hands shook too much. She instead pressed herself into a corner, pointed her wand towards the entrance, and waited.
The odd swishing noise in her head had cleared but now she could hear the footsteps again. They were drawing nearer. Maybe they would just pass by. It was a small room, barely noticeable. Except the light. Hermione's breath hitched. She had left a candle burning. They were close enough to notice a snuffed candle. It was too late. The door creaked. She couldn't hear footsteps now. The carpet muffled them. There was a long shadow cast by the candle.
She watched as it loomed closer. Hermione bit her lip and clamped her teeth harder and harder until she felt sharp pain and tasted copper blood.
Something big and black slid from behind the bookshelf. Not trusting her wand technique, she threw a nonverbal. There was a grunt and then the man turned. Catching sight of her, he did a double-take.
"Miss? Are you alright?"
Hermione gulped and tried to shrink back against the shelves a little more. What did he mean, was she alright?
"Do you need to go to the hospital? Should I floo someone?" He stepped closer to her, completely blocking off the exit, and all her warning bells were screaming that she couldn't escape.
"St-stay back." Her words were hoarse, her mouth too dry. Underneath the panic, it was almost impossible to think. Still, worrying at her like an ignored itch, there was a thought. He hadn't attacked back.
He frowned and knelt down in front of her.
She scrambled onto her feet, pushing her wand out between them.
He stood slowly. "I'm the janitor," he said, starting to back up out of the bookshelf corner. "The library is closed. I saw the light."
Hermione's wand started to fall. "You're... the janitor?"
He nodded.
"The janitor." She looked him up and down. He did look familiar. In fact, he had already ousted her from the library at closing time before. He hadn't attacked. He wasn't attacking. It was okay.
Hermione's legs buckled and she slid down the back of the wall to sit on the floor again.
"The janitor!" she repeated, slightly hysteric. She let her head fall down until it was resting against her knee. She tucked her head even farther to shield the tears as they slid down and dripped from the tip of her nose. A noise escaped her: half giggle and half hitched-sob.
"Um... Miss. Hermione? Are you alright?"
She rubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. "Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine!" She giggled again. "I'll just be going." Not meeting his eyes, he gathered up her book bag.
The janitor reached out a hand to help her up, and Hermione flinched. He removed it and she stood herself.
She hiked the bag onto her shoulder and followed him towards the door. He blew out the candle as they exited. In the hallway, he held up a book. "By chance, is this yours?"
It was the book she had left on the ground in her mad dash for her hiding place.
"Oh. Thank you." She took it from him.
"I'll just walk you to the floo network. Are you sure you don't need anything?"
Hermione smiled self-consciously. "I just accidentally fell asleep and woke up a bit disorientated."
"A bit?" the man said under his breath.
Hermione shrugged, not sure what else to say.
"Don't let school get the best of you. It's just the first semester. With the amount of studying you do here, you'll do fine."
Hermione bit her lip and tasted her blood again. She would have to fix that when she got home.
"Thank you, that is very kind."
At the fireplaces, he patted her shoulder and smiled. "Take care of yourself, Hermione."
She smiled and waved before taking the floo back to her own place.
Once she had downed a potion or two to help herself calm down, the exhaustion caught up with her again. Maybe if she could just rest on the couch for a little, she would be able to get everything done before really going to bed. Hermione slumped onto the love-seat couch that had more than a few frayed thread ends sticking out, but it also made it soft. Hermione rubbed her face against them, closing her eyes. The usually unwelcome lumps felt pretty comfortable right now. Hermione curled against the sofa and just let herself relax for a moment.
Someone was shaking her, calling her name.
"Luna?" Hermione mumbled.
"Hermione, you must have been really tired last night. You're letting too many of the Wacknerchels in your ears."
"Wackernels?" Hermione repeated around a yawn.
Luna stood and put her hands on her waist. "At school you got this way when you weren't around Harry and Ron enough."
"What?" Hermione grumbled.
"So serious. Never making time for the fun things."
Hermione sat up. "I enjoy studying," she answered defensively.
Luna shook her head and meandered towards the kitchen again. "Rolf and I are going to be studying Diriclaws over in Newfoundland during the weekend and then Rolf has invited me over to his parents' house for Thanksgiving. Would you like to come? Rolf said it would be okay."
Hermione rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. "His parents' house? Luna, that is a big deal and going to be awkward even without me being there."
"But aren't you going to be lonely?" Luna asked as she collected her things together to prepare to leave.
"I'll figure out something. Go to the parade or maybe just a Chinese restaurant."
Luna didn't press and they both continued to prepare for the rest of the day.
It was less than a week until they took a brief holiday for the American Thanksgiving. As such, school was mostly last minute cramming of information without really any practical application. Hermione was okay with that. Even with a little extra sleep, she didn't feel up to practicing spells all day.
Before going to the Young Wizard and Witch Club for basketball, their group had agreed to meet and plan out their Charm project. As everyone started to gather, Daryn gently pulled at her shoulder until they were facing away from the group.
He gave her a once over, his eyes stern. The skin under his own eyes looked bruised and heavily bagged and little vessels were starting to stand out in the whites of his eyes. "Hermione, are you doing alright?"
"You're one to talk!" she grumbled. "You've looked half-dead ever since the Halloween concert. Did you sell your soul for the music gig?"
Daryn shrugged and smiled sheepishly. "I just have had a hard time juggling everything. I think I'm getting better at it. You don't have that excuse, though." He gestured towards his eyes. "You're starting to look like how you did right before you had to go to the hospital."
Hermione's shoulders tightened. "It's just really stressful right before finals, it would be a wonder if I didn't look bad."
Daryn sighed and rubbed his temples. "I didn't mean it as an insult."
Hermione sniffed.
"Just, I'm worried. How are you managing your triggers?"
Hermione's hands tightened around her bag and then she tried to relax them. "I'm fine, Daryn. I'd rather just get this meeting over with so I can get started on this project."
Once everyone had gathered, Hermione quickly started the meeting off by polling the group for their project's topic. Shandra, Malfoy, and Daryn all agreed on Dragon Pox. John initially sided with her on magical burns but, when pressed, couldn't form a solid opinion.
Hermione grunted and tried to shake the annoyance of having to research Dragon Pox (again) away. "Fine, now we need to divvy up the workload. There are three research points, but the third one can be split up into two and-"
"-John and I will take the third. Shandra and Daryn can discuss who takes the first two."
Hermione paused and glared at Malfoy.
"You're just going to try to rewrite everything once we're finished anyway. You can look it over when we are done." Malfoy folded his arms and glanced around the group.
"You're right, man," John clapped the back of Malfoy's shoulder. "She does do that!"
The other two shrugged.
"You take the etiology section, Daryn," Shandra said, circling her own section. "It will probably be the shorter one." She looked up towards Malfoy and Hermione. "Will it be okay if I ditch tonight? I want to go see Daryn's concert."
Hermione and Malfoy looked at each other and Malfoy shrugged.
"Go ahead, we'll be fine." Hermione smiled encouragingly.
As Hermione and Malfoy headed towards the same floo, Malfoy said, "We both know I do all of the teaching anyway, just go home today."
Hermione's lip twitched. "Excuse you?"
Malfoy reached up and grabbed floo powder before looking back at her. "I said, 'go home.'" He stepped into the fireplace, smirked, and threw down the powder.
Hermione stepped in as he called out the destination. The green flames rushed around them and Hermione was pressed even closer against Malfoy as they arrived in the new, but smaller, destination.
"Granger-" Malfoy started as the fire died down.
Hermione flipped her hair out of her face and glared up at him, pushing her pointer finger against his chest. "-oh, don't 'Granger' me. Why am I suddenly the incompetent one? Do you know what I managed to do in my third year? What I did throughout all of seventh year?"
Malfoy knocked her hand aside. "No, I don't." He reached up to push his hair from his forehead. "I was just trying to be helpful," he said the last bit with a curled lip. "You look awful."
Hermione's eyes got bigger and she hissed as she leaned forward so her face was even closer to his. "Malfoy-"
Before Hermione said anything else, the receptionist called from her desk, "Do you two plan on fighting in there all day? You know we can still see you if you start making out."
~~~
Hey! Thank you guys for your patience! Also, I have good news :) I have the next chapter written and will post it Monday evening (for people in US).
As well, I plan on posting my Valentines dramione oneshot on Friday and Saturday so keep an eye out for that. ;)
Hope you are all doing well and I'd love to hear what you think of this chapter!
*heart* Rushstarfire