The autumn chill was just as present inside the classroom as out, which Hermione was very thankful for, because it froze her nausea and tears before they made a bigger fool out of her. The tiny birds chirped and flitted constantly, another welcome distraction.
The room spun as the gin turned in her stomach; like everything else it was out of control.
When the door behind her creaked open, she thought it might have been a concerned friend, but instead the blank, hateful face of Draco Malfoy stared back at her. 'No, why would it have been a friend?' Hermione thought. She had no friends who would support her over Ron; how many times would she have to learn that lesson the hard way? Instead she got to deal with a blood supremacist who had possibly grown so bold as to start murdering his fellow students.
She half-fell off the desk she was sitting on in her hurry, and pointed her wand towards his neck.
"Get out," Hermione said, her voice a lot quieter and wavering than she intended. Malfoy did not turn to leave, and a sneer started to crawl across his face, and she realised she was going to have to fight her way out.
Hermione moved as fast as she could to throw a garrotte hex at him, but he had his wand out too fast and partially blocked it, and the rope wrapped around his ankle instead of his neck. There was an instant where she could see the fury in his face before her body was thrown backwards and pain exploded down her arms.
She rolled onto her side and aimed a stinging hex into his eyes, and Malfoy apparently had a similar idea as he hit her with what felt like a magical acid attack on the side of her face. He recoiled as her hex blistered across his eyes, and she hobbled as quickly as she could towards the door, unable to run with the air knocked out of her lungs. The magical sparrows circled her adversary, hiding her footsteps as she stumbled out of the classroom.
She locked the door behind her and got away as fast as she could towards the nearest corner, but he did not chase after her. After she put a couple of floors distance between them, she slid down into a dark corridor corner and tried to get her breathing and heart rate under control. Hermione touched the side of her face gingerly and winced. A muted lumos revealed his hex had broken nearly every capillary it hit.
The sting ran red down her face and in the coming days bruises blossomed down her arms, and Hermione refused to heal it, to make Harry and Ron stew in their guilt.
This is my first Dramione fic so I'm definitely interested in your thoughts, especially on whether I'm successfully keeping people in-character! I've mapped out the main plot points and will hopefully have a new chapter out shortly. Thank you for reading.