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"What are you doing here?"
Hermione Granger waited as Harry Potter took a seat next to her before she responded. "Getting some air?" She said trying to make light of the starting conversation.
She smoothed her dress again for the nth time. It's already become more than a habit by now. It's an obsession. Hopefully, Harry doesn't notice. And if he does, that he will not mind.
It's like she couldn't fix what she wanted to fix so she channeled her frustration on her dress. She now thinks it's stupid she even thought they could go to a point where he'll undress her. She can't even break through the walls Draco Malfoy created.
Seeing how gray he painted them, she just stood in the great hall wishing them all away. But she can only go through so much. It didn't take long for her to leave the room and found solace by the alcoves of the castle on the 6th floor.
She almost wondered how Harry found her. Yet she realized she wasn't so out of it enough to remember he has the Marauder's map. "Is it Malfoy?" Harry broke through her reverie.
Turning to her left where her bestfriend sat, Hermione pushed herself to smile. "You never did read me wrong." She said, resting her chin on her palm. "I suppose this is the right time to tell you, I started a fight."
Harry just listened despite the many questions that sprung in his mind from hearing the word fight. "It was a quiet battle you know? Just between me, and my expectations on how things will turn up, mostly to my favor. I needed to feel something."
As if on cue, their heart to heart was interrupted. The giggling sound came from Pansy Parkinson. The clacking of shoes on the floor belonged to Draco Malfoy.
The former, stopped on her tracks at the realization there were other students present. She covered her mouth with her hand but immediately dropped it after identifying Harry and Hermione in the dark. Draco for his part, reached for Pansy's hand, whispered to her then bowed to the Gryffindors.
As soon as they left, Hermione broke into tears. Draco Malfoy really did have a way of coming easily to her. And when he leaves, he takes the very best of her too.
Like any bestfriend would do, Harry wrapped her in his arms. "What would you have me do?" She heard him ask. The question made her heart break into even tinier pieces.
"I apologized and I guess I expected him to tell me he forgives me." She confessed in his shoulder. There was no use defending the words Malfoy would never say though. She was in the wrong. And while it was her apology to make, he wasn't obliged to forgive her.
Yet, she hoped. She had a bit of hope tonight will go smoothly. It's a shame how a sad ending came to be. Given the perfect day.
Standing next to him in the great hall earlier, Hermione felt she hasn't been anywhere cold as him. The irony of it all. But that's how life is. The people who has the capacity to leave us in the cold are the very people who gave us warmth.