Chapter 9
Hermione woke to obnoxiously bright sunlight assaulting her face. That and a sharp, insistent poking in her cheek.
“Hermione! Hermione!”
She groaned in response. She felt like she’d been hit by a train.
“C’moooon, we’ve gotta be in Transfiguration in ten minutes,” said Sue, shaking her roughly.
Hermione couldn’t help it. Her face scrunched up and she managed to pull a pillow over it before the sobs started to wrack her body.
There was silence from the side of her bed, and then she felt a hand patting hers as Padma softly said, “Ok, looks like we’re going to be a bit late.”
Hermione wished she wouldn’t touch her. Or talk to her. She wanted everyone and everything to go away. She wanted to go back to sleep.
“We brought you toast…” said Sue hesitantly. “You like jam, right?”
“Do you wanna talk about it?” asked Padma. Hermione shook her head violently. The last thing she wanted was to talk. She wanted to go back to sleep.
“Alright. Do you want us to stay with you?”
Hermione shook her head again. She didn’t want to be seen like this.
“Ok. Sue, let’s go,” Padma asserted.
“What? But-” Sue was cut off by something Hermione couldn’t see, and then she heard the clunk of a plate being set on her bedside table and the thud of the heavy wooden door to the dormitory closing.
Hermione’s sobs continued for several minutes after the other girls were gone. She felt extremely silly. She didn’t even have anything to cry about. Other than her bone deep exhaustion and shame and the too-bright sunlight anyway.
Pulling herself into a sitting position, she lifted a piece of toast to her mouth and took a bite. It felt like sandpaper on her tongue, and she fought hard not to spit it out like a fussy child. Chewing and swallowing the thing must have taken a whole three minutes. After that, Hermione gave up on the toast and slumped down into bed, quickly falling back into unconsciousness.
When she woke again the sun had shifted to a much more comfortable angle. Looking around, she saw her uneaten toast had been replaced by a bowl of soup and some sandwiches. Her stomach growled and she dug into them without hesitation this time.
The clock on the wall showed it was nearly two thirty in the afternoon. Hermione’s stomach dropped at the thought of explaining her absence from class to her teachers. What sort of sook missed class to sleep until two thirty in the afternoon because they just couldn’t control their emotions?
What was happening to her anyway? She was well aware she struggled more than other people could see, but she’d gone six years without missing class for such a stupid reason. She’d fought a whole war and only now she was breaking down? Her meal finished, Hermione covered her face with her hands and put all of her newfound energy into stifling the well of emotions that was trying desperately to bubble over.
It must be a side effect of the extraction. Malfoy did say he didn’t know what it would feel like. Well, this must be what it felt like. That was going to cause problems.
Maybe it would get easier, though? It was an overwhelming experience to be thrust back into a child’s body and mind, and with Malfoy in her head as well.
Now that she had time to reflect, she had to admit that Malfoy at least hadn’t been the worst of it. She hadn’t been able to block him out completely – that was probably the point – but he had kept his distance. He hadn’t pried. He hadn’t laughed at her. He’d even been surprisingly… empathetic? She didn’t know if that was the right word, but he’d certainly been worried about her. And she doubted he could have been faking that with how intimately their minds had been linked.
That thought brought back a wave of embarrassment as she realised just how much of her own emotional landscape had undoubtedly been mapped out by Malfoy. He knew just how uncontrollable her temper was, and how ashamed she was of it. He knew how scared she was of her own mind and all the uncontrollable chaos around her.
Hermione slumped back down onto her bed. What was done was done. She had brought this upon herself by believing that she – the brightest witch of her age – was perfectly capable of reversing an untested memory charm. How could she have been so stupid?
Suddenly the door creaked open and Daphne’s shrewd eyes peaked around it. Seeing Hermione was awake, she slipped through and closed it quietly behind her.
“How are you doing?” she asked gently.
Hermione cleared her throat before croaking out a, “Fine.” She still hadn’t drunk anything.
Daphne seemed to read her mind as she conjured a glass and filled it with water from her wand. Hermione gulped it down gratefully.
“It seems like you had quite a night.”
Hermione froze. Did Daphne know she’d been with Malfoy? And did she know the real reason, or…? She promptly steered her brain away from that thought.
“I couldn’t sleep,” Hermione said. “Nightmares.” Surely no one would doubt her there.
“Where were you until four thirty, then?”
Hermione’s stomach sank. Not even bothering to deny it, she asked if the other girls had noticed.
“I don’t think so. As far as I could tell, they were asleep when you came in. They know you weren’t here before that, though, which is odd enough to have them concerned.”
Hermione groaned loudly and flopped back onto her bed.
“Anyway, you stumbled in here at four thirty in the morning and Draco’s been looking like he’s running on caffeine and anxiety all day. Dean was telling Seamus that he hadn’t been in his dorm when Dean fell asleep, either. Care to explain that?”
Hermione blanched.
“Why would I know what Malfoy was up to last night?”
Daphne rolled her eyes at this. “Look, Granger, you have two options here. Either tell me and we’ll be on the same side in this whole shenanigan, or don’t and I’ll have to run around chasing every rumour I can find until something sticks.”
“Had you not considered a third option?”
“What third option?”
“The one where you mind your business,” Hermione clipped.
Daphne’s eyes widened at this and she gave Hermione a strange look. “You know, with an attitude like that you’re basically asking me to just assume you two are secretly dating. Is that really the assumption you want me to make? I mean… it would explain your after-dinner absences…” Daphne mused.
“No! No we’re n- of course we’re not,” Hermione stuttered out. It sounded much less convincing than it had in her head.
“Mmhmm…” was Daphne’s irritating response.
It took about thirty seconds of Daphne’s searching eyes on her before Hermione caved.
Sighing, she said, “Look… if I tell you, you have to keep it quiet, okay? No rumours, no gossip, no nothing. I just don’t want you to think… the wrong thing.”
As ashamed as she was about the predicament she had gotten herself into, the thought of people actually believing her and Malfoy were involved left her mortified. Surely Daphne would understand. If there was a way to save her sister and only Malfoy was offering it, she would have taken it too.
Daphne nodded, eyes boring steadily into Hermione’s as she said, “My lips are sealed.”
And so Hermione told her everything. She cried mercifully little and so didn’t have to worry about Daphne trying to hug or touch her, not that she got the feeling Daphne would have done that anyway. She left out some of the more embarrassing things of course, leading Daphne to believe that it was the extraction process itself which had taken so much out of her last night. Which, as much as Hermione tried to convince herself, she knew wasn’t true.
At the end of it, Daphne – who hadn’t said a word throughout the process – leaned back on Hermione’s bed and said, “Merlin’s beard. You really are in a pickle, aren’t you?”
Hermione laughed nervously. “That’s one way to put it. Utterly fucked is another. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to do this three times a week and still go to classes.”
“Do you think it’ll get easier?” Daphne asked.
“That’s what I’m hoping. But I really have no idea.”
“Hmm…” Daphne said pensively. “What did it feel like? Besides exhausting.”
Hermione had very deliberately not elaborated on that part. She wished, not for the first time, that Daphne Greengrass was just a little less observant.
“It was very invasive. I couldn’t shut him out. I had to deal with all of his emotions as well as my own.” What Hermione didn’t mention was the strange emptiness that had followed. How afterwards some part of her had wanted him to stay with her, even when the rest wanted to be alone.
Daphne snorted at this. “Well at least it goes both ways. Let me know if you find anything strange floating around in his head.”
Hermione’s chest tightened at this. “Do… do you think he’s telling his friends everything that-” Everything that’s wrong with me… “Everything that’s going on inside my head?”
“Actually, I can guarantee he’s not.” Daphne replied with a huff. “Theo knows nothing, and if he was going to tell anyone it would be Theo.”
“Theo knew some things… before last night at least.”
Daphne’s eyes widened at that. “That bastard! He told me he had no idea.”
“Huh?”
“Well, I guess even Theo has some loyalty.” Daphne rolled her eyes. “Maybe the Gryffindors are influencing him. Still, he can’t resist a good gossip. Draco might have just threatened him into silence.”
Hermione cocked her head at the cognitive dissonance that had just arisen in it. Last year, she would have had no trouble picturing Malfoy with his wand against Theo Nott’s throat, grey eyes cold as he terrorized his dark-haired friend. Now, however, the image just wouldn’t come. She felt like she was trying to fit completely uncomplimentary puzzle pieces together.
“So, are you skipping the rest of today’s classes?” Daphne asked after glancing at her watch.
“What? No, absolutely not!” Hermione asserted, swinging her legs out of bed and marching over to the bathroom. She had a momentary dizzy spell, but thankfully Daphne didn’t seem to notice.
“Well, you’ve got ten minutes before next period. Good luck.”
Hermione thanked her as she all but ran into the bathroom and started stripping off her robes.
“Oh, and Granger?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for telling me all that. I won’t tell anyone. Especially not Theo, the lying git.”
Hermione laughed and thanked Daphne again, feeling much lighter than she had when she had woken up. Only time would tell, but she thought she had made the right decision. The idea that she would have to keep her struggles a secret had been weighing on her more than she’d realised. She longed to be able to confide in Ginny, but she had a feeling she just wouldn’t understand, let alone approve of her decision to trust Malfoy. Daphne – if a bit intimidating – was at least a relatively neutral party.
Hermione showered and dressed in record time. After a quick glance in the mirror, she instantly gave up on getting any sort of brush-shaped implement in and out of her hair in one piece and instead wrangled it into a bun, hoping no one would be looking too closely.
She was out of the common room and halfway down the winding staircase when she realised what her next period was. Muggle Studies. Fuck.
She briefly considered climbing back up to Ravenclaw tower and hiding under her covers – preferably for the rest of eternity – but knew it would do her no good. She’d missed too much class already, and she was going to have to face Malfoy at some point.
Hermione spent the remainder of the walk to class mentally steeling herself against whatever was going to happen. Realistically she was going to sit down in her usual spot, as would Malfoy, and they would go a whole, tense hour without so much as glancing at each other. She knew she had nothing to worry about, but she worried anyway. Something had shifted last night.
The classroom was empty except for Miller as Hermione strode in. The Professor smiled at her as she placed her books on her usual desk. She busied herself with arranging her notes as she pointedly ignored the curious glances sent her way by her classmates as they trickled in.
What she couldn’t ignore, however, was the thump of a pile of books being dropped onto the left side of her desk. She couldn’t ignore the scrape of the seat as it was pulled out by none other than Malfoy. She fought valiantly to keep her face completely neutral when inside she was raging. The stupid git. Could he not feel the eyes on them? Did he not know the rumours that were already going around? What was he doing?
Thankfully, Professor Miller chose that moment to start the lesson.
As Miller calmy outlined the content they’d be covering that day, Hermione glanced surreptitiously over at Malfoy. Daphne had been right. Malfoy did indeed look like he was running solely on caffeine and anxiety. His hair – although it didn’t hold a candle to the bird’s nest on Hermione’s head – was dishevelled and his eyes were oddly bright and unfocused. His face looked flushed, almost like he had a fever.
He flicked his eyes towards her once before he hastily scrawled on a piece of paper and slid it over to her side of the desk.
Are you alright? read the angular, slanted writing.
Hermione knew she shouldn’t be passing notes in class. She didn’t want to risk Miller’s attention being drawn to them. But, like many times before, her curiosity got the better of her.
I’m fine. Are you? she scribbled back.
Sue said something was wrong with you. It seemed serious.
Hermione desperately tried to keep her face from flushing as she wrote back, I was just tired. You don’t look too great yourself.
‘I’m fine’ was apparently the only response she was going to get.
She bit her lip in frustration. He clearly wasn’t. But then again, she clearly wasn’t. Hermione supposed she deserved this. That didn’t mean she was going to lie down and take it, though.
How much did you tell Theo? she wrote.
I’m sorry. He got it out of me. The bare minimum. It won’t happen again.
After a moment’s hesitation she added a small ‘I told Daphne’ to their sheet.
Malfoy didn’t respond for a long time.
Since when were you friends with Daphne? Or did she resort to trickery as well?
No trickery. I just didn’t want her to misunderstand. Hermione hesitated before adding the next part. She didn’t know anything about Malfoy and Daphnes’ relationship. She’d never paid any more attention than strictly necessary to the Slytherins in her year. I hope that’s ok.
There are much worse choices than Daphne, was his reply. Theo Nott, for one. The lying git.
Hermione’s lips quirked at his repetition of Daphne’s words.
“Miss Granger?” She jumped as Professor Miller’s voice cut through her reverie.
“Sorry Professor, what was that?”
“I was just wondering if you could explain why muggles chose to transition away from the gold standard.”
Hermione was beyond grateful for her brain in that moment, as she immediately recalled a conversation her father had had with her aunt one Christmas and summarised it neatly.
“Excellent! Five points to Ravenclaw. And when put that way, it seems the logical thing to do, but we all know-”
Hermione was distracted again by the scratch of parchment against her hand.
I’m cancelling tonight. Get some rest. I’ll see you Wednesday.
Hermione didn’t immediately know how she felt about this. Did she want to have to see Malfoy after dinner? ‘Of course not’, said a loud, clear voice in her brain. ‘Yes’, said a much smaller one. She blamed the latter on her insatiable curiosity. He really didn’t look well, and she couldn’t figure out why. And why had he sat next to her?
She scribbled a quick ‘fine’ onto their parchment before returning her attention to Miller. And she did so well. She resisted for so long. The class was almost over before she broke.
Why did you sit next to me? I thought we were trying to dodge the rumour mill, she wrote.
Malfoy didn’t reply for a long time. She worried the class was going to end without an answer, and that she’d have to wait until Wednesday night to get one.
I wanted to make sure your brain hadn’t entirely fallen apart. Sue spent all day looking like she was about to bolt out of class to go check on you. It was unnerving.
It took a while for Hermione to decipher the meaning Malfoy had hidden between those lines. When she did, she felt a strange whooping sensation in her stomach. Malfoy had been worried about her. Genuinely worried about her.
As she glanced up at him again, she realised his face had frozen over. His stony expression couldn’t hide the flushed cheeks and the untidy hair though. He had been worried. About her.
She didn’t quite know what to do with this information.
When the bell rang, Malfoy immediately swept his books into his bag and strode purposefully out of the room. After gathering her own, Hermione walked back up to her dormitory, the hour of being out of bed having taken an embarrassingly large chunk out of her energy.
As soon as she entered the room she was almost bowled over by a flash of dark hair.
“Hermione! You’re alright! We were so worried when we came back and you weren’t here but the soup was gone so Pads said you’d probably eaten it and that you were fine but we didn’t know where you’d gone and do you wanna talk about it?” Sue said all in one breath.
“I- I’m fine…” Hermione stuttered out, not quite sure she’d understood the question. “Thank you for the soup.”
“No problem at all! Are you still hungry? I have some cauldron cakes.”
“Sue, stop crowding her,” Padma said, gently prying Sue off of Hermione. “Are you feeling any better?” she directed toward the latter.
“Yes, much better thank you. Sorry about this morning. It was just- y’know… nightmares…”
Padma nodded sagely at that, not pushing any further. Sue, on the other hand…
“Oh, that’s horrible! Do you want us to go to Pomfrey and get you some Dreamless Sleep?”
“No, thank you, I really am fine now,” Hermione said, trying to sound convincing.
Hermione was saved from further interrogation by Daphne walking into the room. Silence fell awkwardly over the group. For once, Sue wasn’t the one to break it.
“Does anyone want to play gobstones or something? I’m really not in the mood for writing essays right now,” said Daphne, dropping her books unceremoniously onto her bed.
Sue stared open-mouthed at Daphne while Padma, giving the ex-Slytherin a curious look, said, “That sounds great. I get the feeling none of us are in the mood for essays right now.”
And so the four of them spent the next few hours of the floor of their dormitory playing gobstones and snacking on Sue’s cauldron cakes. It was oddly comfortable. In Gryffindor tower, Hermione had usually been excluded from things like this on account of her being swotty and bossy and not at all interested in the regular topics of conversation. But here, she felt like the other girls were all making a conscious effort to include each other. Padma was a pro at keeping the conversation focused on topics they could all contribute to while Sue’s radical friendliness ensured everyone got a chance to speak, whether they liked it or not. Daphne, for her part, was actually quite funny when she wasn’t avoiding or interrogating anyone.
Hermione had never felt so comfortable in such a large group of girls before. Although she was still embarrassed about her breakdown this morning, she got the sense that she wasn’t being judged. Maybe it was because these girls hadn’t seen the more unpleasant sides of her yet. Lavender and Pavarti had been exposed to them since the beginning. She hid them better now than she did at eleven.
Dinner continued much like their game, with all four girls together and conversing comfortably. Hermione noticed that Ginny was sitting with the other Slytherin girls, and made a mental note to ask her about it later. They split up afterwards to get some work done, and Hermione took full advantage of her Malfoy-free evening to go to bed absurdly early.