Hermione wasn't a very brave girl. She was noble, had a knack for thinking up some ingenious solutions to problems and rolled her eyes when the other girls squealed about a spider. But when it came down to it, she was just a pretender, a sheep in wolf's clothing.
"What did I tell you?" The sound of his hand meeting her soft flesh echoed around the empty hall. Cormac growled with a furious gusto and Hermione cowered against the wall.
All the things she could have said (how dare you, leave me alone, I'll hex you into oblivion) stayed inside her miserable mind. He raised his hand, perhaps to hit her again when a smooth voice stopped Cormac in his tracks.
"Hitting a fellow student? 40 points from Gryffindor."
Snape stood tall, wrapped in his cloak and with a snarl on his lips. His eyebrows were furrowed. His dark irises caught the dim glow of the light that hovered above his head.
His hand shot up and gestured towards the Gryffindor common room, causing the boy standing next to Hermione to begin moving unhappily in that discretion, shooting Hermione furtive glance as he went.
Something was slipped into Hermione's pocket when she walked by the professor.
Upon returning to her bed and drawing the curtains closed, she discovered it to be a small supply of Bruise Removal Paste.
