?

Why the fuck am I awake?

That was the first thought that came to Draco Malfoy’s mind and it was a quite reasonable one, considering he normally didn’t wake up before lunch on weekends.
He sat up and looked around the room to find out what had ripped him so brutally out of his precious sleep. Even though sunrise was a few hours away, the lake behind his windows threw funny shadows against the walls of the dungeons but apart from that there was nothing in his room that could’ve woken him up. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, thinking about what he should do.

He couldn’t go back to sleep, he already knew that but what was there to do on a saturday morning?

He opened his eyes and they fell on his empty nightstand. He’d returned the book that had been lying there for the past three days to the library yesterday but had forgotten to take a new one with him after Pansy had ...distracted him between the stacks. Draco smirked thinking of what’d happened until he realized what that meant. It was 4am and he had nothing to read.

He took another deep breath -this one was rather annoyed- and got out of bed. He slipped on a shirt and a pair of slippers -because even though it was 4 in the morning he could not walk around Hogwarts in only his pajama pants- and quietly slipped out of the room.

He made it to the library and as expected Madam Pince was not there, so the only way to survive the hours til breakfast without dying from boredom was to read *in* the library. For fuck’s sake, why did he have to be such an insomniac?

But he supposed there wasn’t any use getting all worked up about it so he just made his way over to where he knew the next title of the book series he was currently reading was and hoped nobody had borrowed it.

But he should’ve known that with his luck he was bound to be disappointed. The book he’d returned yesterday was there, the next book in the series was there, but the book he so badly wanted to read -the last one had ended with a cliffhanger- was nowhere to be seen. He let out a frustrated sigh when a flash of curls caught his eye.

He turned towards the movement and sure enough he was looking right into Hermione Granger’s pretty eyes. Of course she was down here at this ungodly hour. Probably studying like the insufferable nerd she was or working on an assignment due in three weeks to make sure she was the first to turn it in. She looked so stupid just staring at him like he had three heads, clutching a book to her chest like she could hide behind it which wasn’t a bad idea at all, considering she was wearing only her pajama shorts and a thin shirt and was still looking incredibly stupid.

Realizing she wasn’t going to say anything, Malfoy accepted his fate of having to address the mudblood first and asked -like the gentleman he was- "The fuck are you staring at?"

Hermione let out a small huff. Even in the middle of the night, having obviously just woken up he was just as much of an obnoxious wanker as ever. Alright.

"Oh I’m sorry, I just didn’t expect to find *you* down here, considering..you know.. this is a library" She glared at him.

He rolled his eyes at her. "Since you apparently live here, do you know who took the third book of the ’Turned’ series by Maxwell Lima?", he said in a sarcastic tone.

Suddenly Hermione’s eyes lit up "I don’t know, I’ve been looking for that one as well but it’s been missing for more than two weeks!"

Not having expected a genuine answer and actually being invested, Draco raised an eyebrow. "Has it now? Well that’s odd" More to himself he mumbled "I’ll have to ask Madam Pince about it"

"What makes you think you’ll be the one to get it if she finds whoever still hasn’t returned it after the deadline?" Hermione snapped "I asked her about it a week ago so surely she will immediately inform me when she finds the culprit" She raised her chin in an act of triumph.

Malfoy sneered at her "Well then I hope you’re a fast reader because otherwise it might just vanish from your room one day"

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him "Oh now I think I might just take extra long just so you don’t get your hands on it"

Just as Malfoy was about to spit something back at her they heard a loud howl from outside. Their eyes snapped to the window. Full moon.

"What the fuck" Malfoy had never heard Hermione swear before.

He was able to make out the figure in the shadows "I was about to say exactly that. I thought there were wards on this thing, how did a damn werewolf get on the grounds?"

"I don’t know, something must’ve happened then. Dumbledore would never be careless like that." Hermione’s voice was shaking.

The sound of a window shattering made both of them freeze.

Moving on instinct, Draco pressed his back tightly against the stacks, praying to Salazar that the creature wouldn’t be able to smell them. When he realized that Granger was still standing there, panicked, he caught her wrist and pulled her back against the stacks so she wasn’t completely presenting herself on a silver platter. That seemed to be enough to snap her out of her trance and make her spring into action. She drew her wand and started running through their options in her head.

They were in the middle of the library, so getting to the door without exposing themselves was almost impossible. Sprinting also wasn’t the move to make, because again, they were too far away from the exit and the werewolf would catch up to them in a matter of seconds. So the only options were to fight or pray to god that Madame Pince came down here early today.

"We won’t be able to get out of here" she whispered to Malfoy "so prepare for a fight"

He nodded and reached for his wand and realized in horror that he’d left it in his room.

"Granger" he quietly called to Hermione, who was peeking around the corner to see how far away the werewolf was. She could hear him scratching and clawing at the furniture, slowly making his way toward them. She turned around, a little surprised by his choice of words. He’d never called her anything besides mudblood, but she supposed now was not the time to think about that.

"What is it?"

"I don’t have my wand with me."

Hermione stared at him with wide eyes. "That’s...not good" she said slowly. "Then get behind me"

"What?"

"You heard me! Get behind me!" Her whispers grew more urgent, the noise of the carpet being torn apart coming closer. When Malfoy didn’t move she glared at him "I’m the one with the wand, so as embarrassing as it might seem to you to be defended by a girl or a mudblood or whatever your problem is, you don’t really have a choice if you don’t want to get torn to pieces" That seemed to do the trick and finally Draco moved behind Hermione.

She could feel his breath on the back of her exposed neck. She’d put her hair in a bun so she didn’t wake up looking like she’d stuck her finger into a power outlet.

She tried to concentrate on the werewolf and what spells she could use to defend herself. Most jinxes would have minimal impact on him, only distracting him for a few seconds before he’d recover and attack again. She couldn’t stun him immediately, she would have to get him with several stunning spells for it to take effect but he could attack her in the meantime so she had to use more powerful spells. She would not aim to kill but if she did, she wouldn’t be sorry, after all, she’s just defending herself. She would not, under any circumstances, use an unforgivable -she doubted she’d even be able to cast one- but she would not hold back on other hexes.

While she was frantically running through possible spells in her head, Malfoy just watched her. He did that quite often for someone who seemed to be hating her. Watching her when she sat in front of him in Potions class, furiously scribbling away at her notes. When he spotted her in the library, completely at the mercy of the words on the page in front of her, not paying attention to anything that happened outside of her book. It was quite interesting, watching the little genius working her magic and making everyone around her seem like a complete and utter idiot. A small smile creeped onto his face before he could stop it.

But that smile vanished when the head of the werewolf slowly crept into his vision. He wasn’t looking at them, his head was turned to the opposite side of them and Hermione used that to her advantage.

She shot a strong slicing curse at his shoulder and while the creature wailed in agony she grabbed Malfoy’s arm and dragged him behind her towards the big doors of the library.

As soon as she heard the werewolf growl behind her, she knew he was about to attack them so, as graceful as a ballet dancer, she whirled around and shot a confringo that hit him right in the chest. He was sent back a few steps and hit with another spell. An incarcerous.

As soon as the ropes bound around his body Hermione turned back around and bolted for the exit, knowing that although her magic was strong, the restraints weren’t going to last long with the beast fighting so furiously to escape them.

When Hermione turned around again, she did so just in time to see the werewolf break out of the rope and preparing to attack.

She knew they weren’t going to make it out the door and if she didn’t get him with a hex that would absolutely immobilize him he would tear his targets apart. She couldn’t risk both of their lives because she refused to inflict serious injuries.

She didn’t hesitate a second longer and threw another powerful slicing curse at the werewolf that hit him in the head. Another howl of anguish escaped his throat before it turned into a disgusting gargling sound when his head slid clean off his shoulders and the rest of his body went limp. He fell on the blood soaked carpet of the library with a loud thud.