Chapter Text

Is There Anything Better Than a Friend?

Greetings, well heck lets make them seasonal ones

Hermione sprinted up the stairs, the floorboards creaking beneath her. She had to make sure she got to her dorm and back before her class started or McGonagall would be absolutely furious. Being the star student that she was (after all, you aren’t made prefect for nothing) she was never late. She also never forgot her work for Arithmetic- but here we were. Reaching the top of the stairs was a relief, and crossed the hall to the second to last dorm.

“Oh! Goyle- please” The voice of her dorm-mate, Eloise, was of a tone Hermione did not want to be hearing again. Yet she lifted her hand to knock, just pausing a moment to decide if it was really worth it to interrupt them…. but the homework. Knock knock, knick, knock knock.

“Eloise, I forgot my maths papers in there, would you be able to slide them under the door?”

Silence for a moment, then whispers “see i told you -” interrupted by “don’t scold me!” After no more than a moment the thin stack of papers were slid under the door.

“Thanks El” Hermione tried to keep her giggles back. Just because she was in her sixth year didn’t mean that she was mature enough to ignore the irony that her best friend was sleeping with honestly one of the worst people she could be. Goyle was not a bad person, not by any means. He just- was…. ugly? Eloise on the other hand was stuck up, rude, ridiculously rich, and stunning. She deserved someone who wouldn’t love her but would make her worse qualities worse and her redeeming ones slowly slip away. Hermione stuffed the papers into her bag and rushed back down the three sets of stairs heading to the class she was about to miss.

Arithmetic wasn’t Hermione’s favorite class, but it made sense. There was a kind of order to it, clean rows of desks, a consistent structure to the problems, and a quiet rhythm to the lessons. The desks themselves were old, musty even and worn with the names of students long gone, carved deep into the wood like ghosts trying to be remembered. The chalkboard , still an actual chalkboard, not some sleek whiteboard, creaked a bit when McGonagall wrote, and the tall windows were always a bit frosted at the corners this time of year.

Best of all, Draco was sitting beside her.

They had shared this seating arrangement all term. Most days they tapped their toes together absently under the desk while scribbling notes, a small habit neither really acknowledged out loud. Today was no different, Draco’s knee bumped against hers halfway through the lesson and she didn’t pull away. McGonagall didn’t notice, too busy lecturing on statistical probability and the “birthday paradox” otherwise she would have scolded them.

Draco’s hair kept falling into his eyes. He pushed it back without thinking, again and again, his pen mostly still on his paper. Hermione caught herself watching. It was a small thing, but somehow made him more real, less untouchable and detached from reality.

She turned back to her own work, grinding her teeth together in a way that her mother would be very disappointing in.

The problem wasn’t hard, but she was overthinking it. Her numbers were neat, her logic sound, but she kept circling the last part, checking and rechecking her solution like it might suddenly collapse under scrutiny. It was close. Correct, probably, but not perfect. And Hermione Granger didn’t turn in work that was just probably.

Draco, meanwhile, was doodling. A floppy-eared dog sprawled across the corner of his parchment. The rest of the sheet was already filled with numbers- slightly rushed and definitely sloppy but complete. He didn’t notice the minor error halfway through and he wouldn’t, not until McGonagall handed back the marked papers, and even then, he’d likely shrug it off. She awarded more credit for effort than she should, and Draco more than knew it.

“Granger,” he muttered, still focused on sketching his poodle’s tail, “what on earth is taking you so long?”

Hermione exhaled through her nose. “Not everyone likes to rush, my Lord.”

That shut him up. At least until the end of class.

They were dismissed a few minutes later into the freezing air. Hermione tugged her coat tighter around her and stuffed her hands in her sleeves, shoulders rising to her ears with the cold.

The walk between the main hall and the dormitories took them past the lake, which glittered with a thin film of ice, not quite thick enough for skating. Everything looked perfect; the trimmed hedges, the stone pathways, the sprawling landscape of the school grounds. Yet Hermione still couldn’t stop fidgeting. She picked at the stitching in her glove.

Draco’s voice pulled her back to the present.

“So….what are Mr. and Mrs. Tooth Investigators doing over the holidays?”

She smirked despite herself. “Probably not much. They don’t close the practices, even for Christmas. Something about helping patients who,” she added air quotes, “need appointments during the holidays.”

Draco tilted his head as they walked. “That sounds painfully dull.”

She shrugged, still looking ahead. “It is.” She giggled a bit, “so you know how i had to run back to my room in order to get my homework i left behind " “Yeah and you almost had a heart attack when you came back as Prof was walking back”

Hermione huffed, “Eloise was in there. With Goyle.”

Draco stopped walking. Like he Actually stopped.

“In your dorm?”

“Yes.”

“With Goyle?”

“Yes.”

“In your bed?”

She made a face, furrowing her eyebrows “I think so?”

Draco looked to the sky, cloudless as it was, and rubbed his hands through his hair. " We can burn the room, of course there would be casualties but its nothing my parents cant pay the school off for.”

“I didn’t even know what to do,” Hermione said, her voice quickening in that way it always did when she was flustered. “I just, i duh know, stood there outside the door for a second trying to do the math of whether I should try and survive a missed homework penalty, and then I knocked. On my own door.”

Draco’s lips twitched. “How polite of you.”

“I panicked! I didn’t know the etiquette for interrupting someone mid-whatever that was. And then I had to ask for my notes. Out loud.”

“Oh, no. Please tell me you didn’t say ‘notes.’” He turned to her, his not quite grey eyes gleaming. “Did you say ‘Could you please slide my Arithmetic notes under the door while you’re… indisposed?’”

“I didn’t say that exactly-” Hermione covered her face. “They whispered for a moment and then the papers actually slid out from under the door. Like it was some kind of vending machine where you had to trade embarrassment for refreshments.”

Draco laughed, really laughed, his voice echoing across the empty stone path. “That is the most horrifying thing I’ve ever heard.”

She couldn’t help but laugh too, though her cheeks were still warm. “I’m changing rooms next term.”

“You should be changing sheets today,”

“Stop,” she said, nudging him with her elbow. “You’re not helping.”

“I’m not trying to. I’m basking in your suffering.”

Hermione rolled her eyes, but didn’t argue, and they kept walking. The cold air bit at her cheeks making them a rosy pink, and their shoes crunched faintly against the gravel path that wound between the buildings. Smoke was curling from a distant chimney.

She pulled her scarf tighter, teeth chattering a little. “How is it always colder on this side of campus?”

“Because my house is built on ancient bones and family trauma,” Draco said breezily. “Come on. I’ll make tea.”

“Your definition of ‘make’ is pointing at the kettle and waiting for someone else to do it.”

“That’s a valid system for man like me.”

He held the door open for her at the entrance to the Snake dorm block, and they stepped inside. The change in temperature was instant, warmth wrapped around them like a thick blanket, and Hermione exhaled in relief.

Draco’s common room was quieter than hers. There was dim lighting, deep green armchairs and a fireplace that crackled low in the corner. The whole place always smelled faintly of parchment and cedar, and it was almost unsettling how clean it stayed compared to her common rooms in the Lion block.

He flopped dramatically into one of the oversized chairs near the fire. “Right, let’s see if I can trounce you at chess again.”

Hermione gave him a skeptical look, shrugging off her coat. “You won once. And I let you.”

“Revisionist history,” he muttered, already pulling the enchanted chessboard toward them.

She dropped into the seat across from him, brushing her hair behind her ear and trying very hard not to think about Eloise, Goyle, or any lingering horror tied to her own duvet.

“I’m white this time,” she said firmly.

Draco grinned, setting up the board. “Of course you are. You always have to go first.”

“And you always have to be dramatic about losing.”

“Oh, I don’t lose. I just allow you small victories for morale. of the common folk”

The chess pieces began to shift into position with a series of tiny clinks, and as they leaned in toward the board, the rest of the world slipped away—no homework, no classes, no tangled sheets with unfortunate housemates. Just two friends, the firelight between them, and the steady rhythm of their oldest ritual.