'Coward' was the first thing that had come to her mind after she had left 15c like a dementor chased by a patronus. 'War heroine', 'brightest witch'… She felt like neither as she sat in her living room after her shift had ended and felt even more stupid for crying. Her nose run and she wiped angrily at it while biting her lip. "This is stupid," she told herself and hiccupped. Hermione really tried to stifle the nagging thought that Theodore Nott's words had hit harder than she wanted to admit.

The muggle-born witch was tired. She wasn't a golden girl. She was alone and felt left behind and swotty and annoying and she hated every second of all this feeling.

Of course, all of her sniffling and whining couldn't help the fact that Hermione was an unreasonably dutiful witch. So she splashed cold water in her face and went to sleep. The next morning, she put a thin layer make up and a glamour charm on to hide her puffy eyes and went to work on Wednesday morning. As she pretended to casually stroll into the prisoner's ward, her heart seemed to explode within her chest. Merlin, she was so nervous. Her steps became smaller and smaller until she hesitantly pushed the door of 15c open. Nott Senior slept there, quite soundly, but the room was empty otherwise.

The moment Hermione entered the room, though; she felt the familiar breeze of an alarm charm wash over her. A year of running away from death eaters and living in a tent had made Hermione suspicious and jumpy and she whipped out her wand carefully and looked around. "No need to let the war heroine out," a quiet voice came from the far corner of the room. "I only wanted to be awake when you came." It was still raining outside and it made the light murky and grey.

Theodore Nott rose from a chair in one of the dark corners of the room and held up his hands. "I wanted… I want to talk to you," he said and he sounded like he desperately tried to keep his voice calm and almost friendly. "You do?" the witch echoed faintly and found that she couldn't let go of her wand as easily as she wanted to. "Yes." Realizing that they were alone in a room and that she had her weapon drawn and he was pretty much defenseless, Theodore Nott frowned. "I want to… explain," he tried again, obviously trying to reason with her now that a 'friendly' approach hadn't worked as he had expected.

"Go ahead," Hermione replied stiffly and slipped her wand back into the appropriate holster. Her hazel eyes strayed from the lanky form of the wizard and moved to his father. The sound of her steps echoed in the quiet room as she made her way over to his father and started to check on him. Her back was exposed and she didn't quite trust him to start cursing her back while she was working on curing his father. He might be an arsehole, but she firmly believed that he had enough intelligence to refrain from attacking her.

Theodore stared at the woman's back. It was awkward. He was awkward. Over the seven years he had been in school, he hadn't talked once to the witch. They had exchanged looks, maybe. Probably in the library if he had to guess. But words? No. Words had never been his strength. Of course he had never had trouble speaking his mind but he had never been one for knowing how to achieve something with only words.

Maybe he was simply a sarcastic idiot but he just wasn't able to whisper sweet nothings or offer kind support by saying just the right thing. She had been able to. And he had sometimes envied her for that. Well, he maybe envied her for a lot more things, for example how she was so beloved by everyone and didn't even realize that. Draco and he had been found not guilty, despite their engagement in the Dark Lord's affairs while Goyle had been given a ticket to Azkaban (the idiot had been spouting off nonsense about blood purity during his hearing). Of course, he always had Blaise and Pansy who were evenly despised by a lot of people and well, no one thought to mention the unfortunate fate that Crabbe had brought upon himself but otherwise, he pretty much stood alone. Theo thought that yes, he was angry that she was surrounded by support and glory and that yes, she had people outside of her three closest friends checking on her.

That was the reason why Hermione Granger, of all people, angered him so much. She had everything and yet she dared to criticize his speech. The only way he had to deny someone something. She dared to rub it into his face that 'mudbloods' could be as good as every other wizard or witch and he hated everything she stood for. It wasn't even that he was all for blood purity, no, it was… His green eyes started to burn with the intensity of a person who couldn't quite express his emotions, not even in the safeness of his own mind.

As Theodore slowly stepped forward, he almost cringed when he looked at her. It wasn't that he had ever thought that blood purity thing to be true. He had participated in that bullshit, yes, but what other choice did he have? Theodore's gaze fell on his father who slept soundly, maybe for the first time in the three years after having been imprisoned.

"I'm waiting," Granger suddenly said and if she hadn't been the golden girl, he might have described her tone as snarling. "I don't think you're a mudblood." Her head whipped around as if he had pulled her leash too harshly and stared at him. "I don't believe mixing genes with muggle-borns is wrong." His tone is acid, he thinks, he's nice enough for now, so he keeps on rambling. "I think muggles are hairless apes though. And I think you're a talented witch. But at the same time, I'd wish, you'd work somewhere else because I look at you and see what I don't have and, really, it bothers me."

Theo had never had someone stare at him the way Granger did. Her brown eyes were wide and… moved? Pitiful? Angry? He couldn't begin to describe it and he didn't want to guess at it. He closed the distance between his father's bed and him so that they stood on both sides of the bed and stared at each other. "I think, you should have let me stick with 'the speech pattern of a baby'," he commented quietly as they both had stared at another for far too long. "No," she slowly replied and seemed to finally manage to rip her eyes away from him. "I think, it's… good that you told me what you think. Truly, I mean. No lies."

Now it was his turn to look lightning-struck. She sounded as if being lied to was a frequent experience for her. "Why? We're not friends." Granger stopped fiddling with her wand over his father and looked up at him or rather at his cheek. So she wasn't one for eye-contact. "Well, we could be."

He didn't know how to respond. Feeling was too much, too engaging.

"I mean, we could be, we were going to the same school and all and we're the same age and..." Oh. So that was what she meant. "I suppose," he answered and even he heard that his voice sounded pretty hollow. She probably thought that he looked shocked instead of overwhelmed. "And we both like books," he added as an afterthought. And when she stood there, facing him with the hint of a smile in one of the corners of her mouth, he felt something positive stir in him. "Yes," she agreed, still rather tentatively but he didn't mind, "books are good." Or a safe topic to speak about, he thought.

"I always envied you for being able to read muggle literature." At this confession, Granger's mouth dropped open and he smirked. The witch quickly caught herself and shrugged it off like a blanket, the shock falling from her face easily. "I'll lend you something. What genres do you like?" Theo thought she talked a lot for someone who wanted to rip his head off a few minutes ago. "Thriller?" he answered, not sure if that was a genre which applied to both muggle and wizard literature. "Ok, you know, there is that really talented writer. He writes about Chicago in the 50s and his main character is a detective who has quite the drug problem and…"

She rambled on, talked and explained and she forgot who he was—he was sure of that—and she started on the background of the author before she highlighted the talent of the author and he listened on and on and on and was surprised that he actually wanted to make an effort. If he wasn't able to tell anyone anything, he could as well start to listen to someone else. But, he thought as she compared muggle thriller to wizard thriller with a careful comment on how literature had changed in general during the last century, she's a swot after all.

I guess Theo's not an asshole. Or maybe he is. I like his pov. This feels about 1/3 on, so probably 6 chapters to come. Thanks for the favs/follows. ;)

xoxo