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There were some things Hermione thought were a little silly about the wizarding world. She could spell a small stone to be her nightlight when she tucked up under the covers and read, but wasn’t it sort of just like having a book-light with extra steps? And yet the longer she spent at Hogwarts, the longer she spent away from home, the more it became a ritual between her and her book – that embedded Lumos fading with a Finite Incantem and marking the end of her reading for the night.
The finality of it. The knowledge that it was time to sleep instead of time to pretend she was sleeping. The way the smooth stone felt between her hands as she rubbed it between her palms and enjoyed the fading warmth. Like saying good night to a friend. A constant weight in her hand to keep her company through the endless pages they travelled through together.
She’s in the library – it’s a golden afternoon and everyone else is out practicing Quidditch or enjoying the sunshine – and Hermione is yawning as she wanders through the aisles. Her History of Magic essay is almost finished, but her mind is thick with facts and she needs a turn around the room, something to get her blood flowing again.
When she gets back to her seat, Draco Malfoy is pawing through her bag like he owns it. He looks up – for a moment guilt streaks across his features before he tamps it down with a sneer – and tosses her nightlight in his hands.
“Rocks, Granger? No wonder you always look so weighed down by your bag.”
“Oh, piss off, Malfoy.” Hermione leans across the table to snatch at his hand.
He pulls it back, out of her reach. Smirks at her as she frowns at him.
It’s not fair that he got a growth spurt right as she stopped getting taller. Hermione huffs and glances around. There’s no one paying attention to them – just a few seventh years huddled over reams of parchment and a nervous-looking first year half-hidden behind a pile of books.
Hermione puts her hands on her hips and scowls. “Give it back.”
“Shan’t.” Draco tosses his head and throws her little stone up into the air, deftly catching it between his fingers. “It’s mine now.”
“Why were you going through my bag, anyway?” Hermione glances at the mess of papers on the table. At least he'd left those alone.
“I was hoping you had snacks.” Draco flops down into the chair opposite her. “Gryffindor got the pitch and everyone else,” he waves his free hand, “went back to enjoy the afternoon. So I figured you’d be here.” His features shift – soften – and Hermione glances around again.
“Draco,” she says, warningly. “Not in public.”
He rolls his eyes as he huffs and slumps down in his chair. “There’s no one around, Hermione.”
She pushes her bookbag closer towards him as she takes a seat. “The side compartment. I think there’s some chocolate frogs in there, if they haven’t hopped away.”
Draco’s face lights up as he rummages through her bag and Hermione shakes her head slightly. Turns her concentration back to the final paragraph of her essay.
After she’d slapped him, Draco had avoided her for weeks. And then a note had appeared in her bookbag – one she had to squint to read because the handwriting was so angled and elegant. An apology – stiff and hardly even saying sorry at all – signed with a D that could’ve belonged to anyone.
The emerald green ink was sort of obvious, though.
She’d scribbled a response on a scrap of paper that had made its way into Draco’s bag, and for the rest of the school year they’d communicated through pieces of torn parchment, scribbled notes in class, papers that she collected and bound together in a thin scrapbook she kept tucked between the pages of her thickest and most unappealing textbook. The evidence of a friendship that shifted after the holidays from words on pages to whispered conversations and fleeting smiles.
“What is it, anyway?” Draco asks, a chocolate frog in one hand and her nightlight in the other.
“A reading light,” Hermione answers as she finishes her sentence. “And you’re not pinching it.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Draco drawls as he reaches across the table and flicks the end of her quill. “Are you almost done?”
“Why?” Hermione glances up and raises an eyebrow.
“Well, everyone’s busy.” Draco grins at her, but his cheeks are staining pink. “Thought I’d sneak you into the Slytherin Common Room so you can say hi to the squid.”
“That sounds like a euphemism,” Hermione mutters as she re-reads the last few paragraphs of her essay.
“It’s not,” Draco protests. “I’d invite you to the Astronomy Tower for that.”
She looks up, startled, and sees Draco grinning at her. “What?”
“What?” Draco echoes, giving her a faux-innocent look. “Nothing. How’s the essay?”
“Done.” Hermione rolls it up and organises her books – Draco making a vague effort to help – and setting all her things away in her bag. “The squid, huh?”
“Or the tower.” Draco shrugs. He snatches at the strap of her bag before Hermione can pick it up. “Whichever you want.”
“I want my bag, you prat.” Hermione rolls her eyes. But Draco just keeps grinning at her as he walks – backwards, almost tripping – away from the table. Forcing her to follow. Holding her little worn-smooth stone between his fingers as he beckons her forward.
Much later, when it’s long past dinner and everyone is sound asleep and the ghosts and the portraits are obstacles between Hermione and her warm bed, the stone glimmers between her fingers as a makeshift torch. She’d spent the afternoon curled up in Draco’s bed as they read – his head against her shoulder, her leg carelessly tossed over his – and then after dinner he’d caught her in the hall and whispered a time in her shivering ears.
Kissing Draco Malfoy in the Astronomy Tower at midnight had not been on her weekend schedule, but Hermione had spent most of the evening fizzing with excitement about it all the same. She’d waved off the curious questions from the other Gryffindors and tried to mask her excitement, but just like the stone in her hand it seemed to shine through all the same.
He’d offered to walk her back – to escort her through the darkened castle halls – but Hermione hadn’t wanted to get caught with him. There would be no plausible explanation for them to be together in the middle of the night, and their relationship – whatever it was – was too new for her to want to have to quantify and explain it to someone else.
And besides, Harry and Ron wouldn’t understand.
It’s not until she’s tucked back up in bed that Hermione remembers to extinguish the stone she’d shoved under her pillow. With a sleepy yawn she carefully pulls it free and whispers a soft “Finite Incantem,” ending the faint silver glow he’d charmed it with before they’d parted for the night.
The stone isn’t quite as warm as Draco’s hand around hers, but she holds it in her palm as she falls asleep all the same, dreaming of stars and silver hair and kisses under the expanse of night sky.