Chapter 5
Hermione POV
She had met Tom in the library, and they had worked relatively well. Now when she looked at him, she still got annoyed by the smarmy bastard, but not furious, her anger had abated a bit. He never admitted to poisoning her, but his point on the whole research premise being void from the beginning was actually correct. She had been unable to refute him when he pointed out the obvious—Old Sluggie was going nowhere with the research. Frustrated tears welled up in her eyes, and she gave in to the urge to punch her pillow. But her tears did not continue for long—the tingling and itchiness in her hand and arm signaled the time for her to take her antidotes again.
As she went to the common room, she let herself be lulled into sleepiness by the talk of Quidditch around Harry and Ron, and the upcoming Quidditch team tryouts. Harry was already on the team, but Ron would be trying out for the position of Chaser the next week. Wishing both boys a goodnight, Hermione went up to her room. So what if she hadn't cracked one opportunity to find some employment or further her education post Hogwarts, she still had some time, and she was not giving up with just Old Sluggie—she needed to look for more reliable opportunities. These thoughts finally pulled her to sleep.
***~***~***
The week had gone by in a blur, and the past three days when she happened to glance at Tom, the urge to glower at him at not been there, and that augured well for their Sunday meet-up for the Fluxweed assignment. While she looked forward to working with Tom because he was the only person so far who displayed a raw intelligence which none of her peers had, she was definitely on her guard around him.
The afternoon of their assignment went fairly well. A half hour spent on getting all the reference books, and a quick two-minute chat on dividing the reading between them, they had set up a fairly quick rhythm, and tacitly this time Tom set up the repelling charm around their table while Hermione merely lifted her brow at it and went back to her reading.
After 3 hours of solid work, they agreed to meet up on next Sunday. Overall, they had worked efficiently and Hermione had never felt so productive with her work. It seemed that all the times she had teamed up with Parvati or Ginny or Neville occasionally, she had never had the same headway or the sense of being on the same page. Generally any team projects went quite slow with her explaining the right method, and then getting her friends to agree with her. She often ended up being called "bossy", but she didn't mind it as long as her directions resulted in being on the right track—with Tom...it was surprising really, their ideas matched, and they had agreed fairly quickly on the reading, and on every other aspect of their work, and it was truly wonderful to work like that—to work with someone who understood her well, at least academically. Too bad, Tom Riddle was too much of a snake—he was attractive, yes, but truly just a snake.
Tom POV
He was pleased to see Granger at their library table where they had last met. Since it was a Sunday, she had foregone her robes for a loose fitting cardigan over loose-fit jeans. Her bushy hair tied back with a simple hair tie. After nodding at each other, they jumped right into the assignment. This time too they had worked seamlessly. He did not have to give her long explanations for choosing a particular book over another, and they had readily divided the readings amongst themselves, creating their notes which they would compare and combine in the final scroll.
Just as they were touching the 3 hour mark, Tom got up to place one of the books back into the shelf. Glancing up, he could not help but notice the small ink smudge on Granger's cheek. He had lifted his hand to rub it off, but realized it in time, and instead swiped a book placed at Granger's side. At his sudden movement, Granger looked up at him. He pretended to peruse the index of the book he had taken, and kept the book back near her. "We have set a good pace. We can meet up next Sunday at the same time."
With that, they left the desk. Tom wordlessly removed the repelling charm around the desk, and they had both gone their own way.
Walking back to his room, Tom could not help remembering the ink smudge on Granger's cheek, and remembering the faint sprinkling of a few freckles on the apples of her cheeks. He realized with a little annoyance that he liked Granger—she was not a beauty to be likened to Helen of Troy, but she was intelligent even if only bookishly, and she had a clean and simple charm to her presence that was undeniable. He recognized his attraction to Granger, because he had felt the same for Mabel Greengrass in his 4th year. The Greengrass girl was in her 7th year at the time, and he had found her blonde locks and delicate features quite beautiful—he had been right to chalk those unnecessary emotions down to his hormones, and this time too, it was just hormones. Yes, Granger was pretty, but then so were many other girls at Hogwarts, and he just noticed her because of this assignment—the warmth he felt with Granger, that was nothing, just his hormones acting up—by the next week, these unnecessary feelings would be all gone, just as his crush on Greengrass had gone when the girl had graduated in her 7th year. He laughed at himself, it was a coincidence too that both girls had their surname starting with 'g', and his brain was just confused. But a small part of him noted that both the girls were nothing alike, one had been a pureblood blonde, and the other was a brunette muggleborn. He had not even talked to Greengrass, his attraction to the pureblood witch similar to a young man admiring a beautiful woman, whereas he had spent quite some time with Granger and had been noticing her more and more through the weeks. He quashed all the thoughts of Granger—it was all some hormonal reaction, he was above those, by the time of their next meeting, he would be in control of any pesky feelings. Satisfied with his reasoning, Tom changed up to go to the Great Hall for dinner.