Sigh. I jinxed myself as soon as I started a oneshot. I should have known it.

I'm now entirely enamored with this pairing. If it turns into the next Hermione/Sirius for me, I'm going to cry.

(And I love you too, Donahermurphy. Feel my pain.)

Perfect Marks
By Rurouni Star

Three.

There were protests, of course. She would have protested, too, if she had to go tell someone like Moody that the job wasn't going to be done. Funny enough, she felt no guilt whatsoever in doing this to Blaise Zabini.

"Whoever sent that threat wasn't nearly as dangerous to me as you've been," she told him bluntly, as he was herded out the door. "They haven't even talked to me, whereas you managed to knock me out, steal my wand, and turn me homicidal." She paused, one hand on the door. "Good job."

And slammed it shut.

To clarify, there had been threats before. There had been plenty. Oh, she wouldn't deign to say that she received them all, of course – she'd gotten the most, followed by Harry, followed by Ron. It wasn't any big distinguishment between their power, really; it was simply the fact that she was female, and people seemed to think that Harry and Ron would get protective of her. Well. That much was true. She'd stopped sharing her mail with them after the first three.

The only reason this one was different, so far as she could tell, was the fact that it had been sent to someone other than her. She hadn't been told who – she assumed it was Harry. Considering the letter he mailed her after it was revealed, it was most likely.

Both he and Ron had stubbornly insisted that they be allowed to come stay with her, but she'd given back a very firm no. If it had been a suggestion made in good humor, like two friends visiting to talk about old times, she would have gladly taken them up on it (but refused the Firewhisky, this time). Instead, it was two testosterone-driven pigheads who would probably move in and never leave, for fear of her delicate little self being damaged in their absence. It had been somewhat cute, at Hogwarts. Now, it was merely tiring.

Hermione liked her privacy. It was a tendency she'd always had, but it had only grown when she'd been forced to share a room with two other girls, both of them anything but quiet. She had finally settled in to her independence. She liked it. She wasn't giving it up.

She was going to have some harsh words for Moody, when she next saw him.

Of all things in her past to haunt her, she'd very little expected that two days of Transfiguration tutoring would give her so much grief. One and a half, if she really made it fair. She did feel a tiny, very tiny shred of pity for Zabini. Having Moody as a mentor had to be inspire some amount of franticness in him. If he didn't come out of this little relationship totally paranoid and antisocial, she'd be surprised. Actually, it seemed he was already well on his way.

Crookshanks was sulking on the couch, when she got back. She gave him a pointed look.

"Cozying up to the enemy?" she asked him. "Where's the loyalty, Crookshanks?"

He mewed - a low, snuffled sound - and rolled over to give her room. She sighed, and sat down. There was a mostly-content cat in her lap, soon after.

0-0-0-0-0

So maybe he'd gone a bit too far.

A bit.

Moody had told him to surprise her – jolt her out of her complacency. You're good at that, he said. So, he'd done his level best (though, no, not his absolute best, because he probably could have set her to crying). And... yes, it had gotten just a little, tiny bit out of hand.

He felt justified, though. Hermione Granger had shown him, not once, but twice, that she was a complete fool. Oh, in academic matters, she was still unrivaled, considering her job, but ask her to take on any less than honest opponent and she'd be doomed. Fairness had no place in fighting for your life. Common decency was not only redundant, but dangerous. Attention to social pleasantries was even worse.

To be fair, Moody had also said that she'd received more than one threat in her time. That did tend to make things look less imposing. But there was a grave difference in this one, something that she seemed to have entirely missed.

The war was not over.

Oh, most people thought it was. Those who noted the sudden, cheerful lack of Dark Marks in the sky; the people who had celebrated Voldemort's ultimate demise, then promptly settled back into their old lifestyles once more. But the truth of the matter was much more complicated. Moody had explained his view on it, and Blaise had agreed with him.

Without a leader to drive them on maniacally, the Death Eaters had receded from view, to bide their time. Best evidence was that some of the higher ranked ones had created a committee sort of rule, no less strict than Voldemort's, but with the illusion of democracy to it. It would have been an easy matter, to step into that sudden power void. The Death Eaters were afraid, suddenly bereft of their immortal figurehead, and in need of direction.

So they had gone underground, and waited for people to relax. This didn't mean that they had stopped killing and controlling people – only that they had begun to do so in less flashy ways. Many of the 'natural deaths' he'd been sent to check on had the tell-tale signs of badly concealed poisoning. Moody had picked these out shrewdly from the others, further cementing his respect for the old coot.

The important question, though, was not so much 'what have they done?'. It was more what they were going to do.

Eventually, Moody had said. They'll have to come into the open again. That's in the nature of a war. But they'll want to do it with a bang, and they'll want to do it in a way that reacts to their past failures.

What better bang than Hermione Granger's mangled body?

Hence why Blaise Zabini was following her to work the next morning, under a slightly altered Disillusionment charm.

"Morning," said one of the men he'd passed – he didn't use his name, because he didn't know it. The feeling of familiarity was entirely fake. The man took a moment to try and figure out how Blaise was familiar, but gave it up after a moment. He nodded back briefly, as though he hadn't noticed the slip, continuing up the steps of the library.

Blasted things. There were a horrible lot of them.

Hermione was carrying a large bag of books herself, today, as she headed up. That much, at least, hadn't changed. In fact, her bookbag was in such blatant disrepair that he could almost imagine it was the very same one she'd had in her sixth year. No, that was silly. Looking at her load, she'd probably worn down similar bags at least once a year. She really was a book fiend, and not even in the usual, amusing sense of the phrase. Hermione Granger devoured books. She'd probably only checked that pile of giant tomes out the Friday before.

Blaise sighed, taking the double doors after her. His thoughts kept taking strange, unwieldy turns. It was probably because he hadn't had to focus on an extended mission for so long. Technically, he was supposed to remain stringently vigilant for as long as he was told to. This went double for someone under Mad Eye Moody's reign. In practice, though, everyone's mind wandered at some point.

"I told you, you've got a very boring life," he muttered at Hermione's back. She didn't react. She wasn't supposed to.

He sighed, and headed for one of the more concealed tables near the front – then settled himself in, prepared for a long day.

0-0-0-0-0

Hermione could have been any number of things, had she so chosen. In spite of the fact that Scrimgeour and Harry were on fairly terrible terms, she'd had multiple moderate-level positions offered to her in the Ministry. The research departments had been particularly interested, and the Department of Mysteries had, in an almost unprecedented manner, offered her work as a contract advisor on certain of their works. She had, however, finally reached a point where she'd burned herself out. She wrote back to the Ministry in a politely apologetic manner; to the Department of Mysteries, she'd given a more heartfelt letter, intimating that she might be interested within the year, if they still needed her.

In the meantime, though, her instincts led her somewhere unavoidable. There was a library that needed her.

Haggard Library was the largest library in London. It was the only Wizarding one. To her (admittedly strange) delight, it was also the most disorganized.

Since being hired there, she'd spent many hours dusting shelves, reorganizing books, and refreshing the card catalogue. Her predecessors had followed the more classic model of wizarding libraries everywhere – the one that said as long as the librarians knew where things were, it was all perfectly fine. She'd differed in opinion considerably. Within a week, she'd scrounged up an obscure system of organization they'd used at the library of Alexandria (the one the muggles hadn't seen). Her few compatriots seemed uneasy about the sudden change, but said very little about it - Order of Merlin did that to people. For herself, she couldn't even remember what class they'd given her.

Hermione was still in the process of reorganizing, of course. It was quite a library. She adored the constant feeling of progress, though, and the chance to look through the collection for interesting volumes; the things this place held still staggered her, on occasion.

Of course, they usually didn't get too many visitors during the earlier hours of the day. She usually liked to talk with them when they did come in. The man in here today, though, had sit down at one of the back tables, indicating that he didn't want to be disturbed. In truth, he really didn't seem that interesting anyway.

She shrugged, and shifted back to the stack of returned books. Shelving seemed to be entirely in order.

0-0-0-0-0

The hours dragged on, and on, and on. At some point, he decided to pick himself up a book, partially to keep up the semblance, and partially to alleviate the boredom. Out of a sense of irony, he decided to take another look at the Transfiguration book he'd once perfectly frustrated himself over. It took him a time to recall its name, but the library did have it. Had it been arranged in the usual fashion, he never would have found it – but he'd never been in the library before the change, so he hadn't the capacity to appreciate this nuance.

He sat down, thus, with Vittory's Transfiguration, and inwardly groaned at himself.

This was all so horrifically simple, looking back at it. She'd probably thought him a complete idiot.

Then again, the training methods Moody used were rather memorable. You never really forgot a lesson, once he'd pounded it into you in his own unique way. Dark recollections of what had happened to this Auror or that one, because of the lack. Blaise had even gone so far as to organize curses morbidly in his head by which poor Auror had been killed, driven insane, or turned temporarily inside out by them. Everything he'd ever learned about the Cruciatus curse was now rooted in the word 'Longbottom'. Most people wouldn't have approved. Then again, most people didn't participate in raids on dark wizards, or Death Eaters. Most people never even saw a dark artifact; it took a person of particular caliber (insanity) to try to disenchant one.

Well, he thought, staring at the book with a sigh. You wanted something challenging.

At least, he thought that was why. Mostly.

"Oh honestly," Hermione muttered, startling him a bit. He glanced over, and soon relaxed. She was looking at the inside of a book, not at him. "Marking up books is so... impolite."

Blaise resisted the urge to spell a little joke onto the one in front of him. Not because she'd disapprove, but because she might notice. He might have been disappointed that she hadn't seen through the disillusionment yet anyway, if he hadn't spent a month perfecting it.

In the meantime, he set aside the book and decided to give her a closer look instead. He'd already done so a few times, of course, but it never hurt to be thorough. In fact, he'd been required to take note of a new detail regarding one of his partner's mannerisms every day, back in training. They drilled it as habit, so you could recognize the signs of an impersonator. Or, occasionally, impersonate someone yourself.

Hermione was unique, of course. Everyone was. But she was, in ways, even more unique than the norm. He threw that thought away as a sort of oxymoron, almost idly. She'd mostly been inside her house over the weekend, which limited observation, but he'd already picked up on a few of her more obvious habits. For one thing, she carried herself in a very different way – somewhere between the straight, confident steps of a man, and the swaying, balanced hips of a woman. Strangely, she tended more toward the former when there were other people about. As though it were a sort of unconscious adjustment, to make people listen to her more seriously.

Serious. That was another one. He'd barely ever seen her smile. Not because she wasn't happy or content or any such thing, but because she seemed to find it frivolous. Her smiles were all for utility – to put someone at ease, or to catch their attention. Bit of a waste, really. She had nice teeth.

He blinked at the thought, and shook himself a little. Right. Vigilance. Certainly. His mind was clearly wandering from lack of food.

Speaking of which – wasn't it far past lunch?

Didn't this woman ever eat?

No indeed. She was happily shelving books, at the moment. Funny that she seemed to take such pleasure in organization when she let her own life get so disorganized. Her hair was frazzled and curled, coming out of the lopsided bun she'd shoved it into with her pencil. And though she seemed to take an inordinate pride in fresh clothing and regular bathing, she didn't seem to understand the meaning of the word 'iron'. This little ironic detail would have amused him, perhaps, if he hadn't been so hungry.

Blaise glanced at the clock impatiently. Surely, she was just going to go for a late lunch. Perhaps her shift ended early enough that she just went straight through it.

Such logical assumptions were dashed when she went back for another full cart of books.

"Blast," she muttered suddenly, grabbing at a seemingly random book on the shelf. "If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times- this one goes in Arithmancy." She added it on top of the cart with an irritated exasperation.

Funny, he thought. That book got more consideration that the threat on her life.

Well. He'd never claimed to understand Gryffindors.

One of the doors at the front pushed open, while she was busy with the cart. The first of the after-work crowd was headed in. Blaise shrugged, looking away and thinking suddenly of his very empty stomach. Hermione glanced up, and headed toward the desk.

Maybe I'll see if I can lure a Ministry elf into making the trip for me...

Blaise stopped the thought abruptly, realizing the sudden way his thoughts had been diverted.

He pushed to his feet quickly, taking a run for the desk. The man was gone – Hermione was reaching for the book he'd left behind.

0-0-0-0-0

Hermione sighed, rubbing at her face a little. There were plenty of books to be reshelved, still, and though she didn't mind the organization, she did get a bit bothered when people didn't listen. The system was immensely simple. It would take a fool or a person rushed to get home to botch things up. She had a suspicion as to which it was.

The day was so incredibly slow today, too. Well – Monday, it was to be expected. She'd rather hoped to have someone to talk to, though. She'd met some of the most interesting people in this library. The man at the table wasn't saying a word, though. She had the feeling she'd seen him somewhere before – perhaps he'd been in some other time – but he must have been terribly quiet then as well, because there wasn't a single thing about him that captured her interest.

So it was that when the door opened behind her, she sighed with relief. Even a quick hello-goodbye would be nice. She liked quiet, yes, but true silence tended to be unnerving after a bit.

When she turned, though, there was no one there. She was disappointed to see that someone had merely left their book to be checked back in.

Hermione headed toward the desk, waving her wand once to disarm any return charms on it. She reached toward it, intending to add it to the existing cart-

She let out a surprised yelp as someone grabbed her by the arms. Her wand was already in hand, but there was a strong, familiar grip on her wrists that kept her from directing it. Her eyes stopped sliding around – she narrowed them angrily.

"I thought I told you to-"

"Out of the way," Zabini said, cutting her off. She found herself speechless as he seemed to toss her aside rather easily. He had his wand pointed at the book that had just come in, and hissed a dark-sounding word.

For a moment, nothing happened. The silence of the library crept back in slowly, draining out the excitement and leaving only resigned irritation behind.

Then, there was a scream.

Hermione's eyes widened; she covered her ears, trying to block it out, but it seemed to slip through her fingers, ignoring flesh and bone to worm its way into her consciousness. She saw Zabini flinch – his own hands moved to do the same as hers, but he only allowed one to do so. His wand, he kept out. There was a sharp gesture, and another inaudible word through clenched teeth, in the midst of the sudden wail.

The sound cut off abruptly.

It caught them both off-balance. Like a ship ducking beneath a wave, and coming up again. It didn't affect her much – she was already on the ground, she realized. Zabini gave a funny sort of sway, though, as he overcompensated for some imagined force, still ringing in his ears. She thought she heard him mutter something like 'Williamson, poor bastard'.

Hermione found herself unable to speak.

He turned after a second, having caught himself on the desk - his face was inscrutable. She had the sudden insight that it probably meant he was feeling uneasy.

Zabini offered his hand, then. Hermione recalled herself on the floor. She took it, a little shakily, and he pulled her up.

"Wha-" She swallowed. "What was-" Her voice sounded strange in her own ears.

He pulled something from the book – looking past him, she saw that it seemed to have its pages burnt out in some way. It took her a moment to recognize what he offered out, between two fingers.

"...a Mandrake leaf...?"

Zabini grinned, suddenly. It had a strange humor to it - she felt him sway a bit more, as he put a hand to his head. "Disgusting magic. I'm sure you don't want to know."

Hermione frowned. "Of course I do. I always want to-"

He pitched forward, quite suddenly, with a groan. Hermione blinked, surprised, and moved forward to take some of his weight. Her knees buckled as she caught him – she realized belatedly that he'd actually gone unconscious.

...she'd just had to call it a boring day.