The next evening Hermione was sitting on the floor of the library alone reading a book when she heard somebody come in. Harry came and sat down beside her and Hermione pretended to ignore his presence but this just made him smile because a little crease appeared on her forehead as she resisted the urge to talk to him.
"Hey, Hermione whatcha reading?"
"Nothing"
"Oh well it looks interesting"
"Well why you be interested in what mudbloods are reading I thought you only associated with pure bloods like Malfoy and Weasley"
"Look I'm sorry it just slipped out I swear I was just so angry at Snape and Malfoys an idiot besides my mums muggleborn, I really didn't mean it, I'm so sorry"
"Yeah well, what did you want?"
"Nothing I just wanted to talk to you, Aren't you cold? its freezing in here"
"I'm fine and if that's all you wa-" she began
"Your shivering, I'll go light the fire"
"No you don't have to, I'm fine really"
Harry despite this began to murmur spells trying to light a fire but resulting to trying to rub the pieces of wood together before they suddenly set on fire.
"Haha muggle tactics have beaten the mighty magic!" shouted Harry triumphantly
"Actually I used a spell because you are clearly useless" she said laughing at his geekiness "You know I think I like you like this"
"Like what" he said sitting down next to her, a little too close perhaps
"Like not showing off or being stupid, I like you being you"
"I like being me too"
Hermione looked up at him and saw that he had a smudge of charcoal on his face so went to go wipe it away when he smiled.
"What? Why are you smiling you had charcoal on your nose"
"Oh nothing, anyway I meant to ask you something, do you know who Nicholas Flamel is?"
"Uh no actually, but its getting late I should probably go to bed now"
"Yeah me too, Yeah I could walk with you back... if you want obviously because if you don't want to..."
"No its fine it's kind of dark and we've only been here two days so at least if I get lost I'm not alone"
When they got to the two staircases to each of their dormitories they stopped and Hermione politely said good night leaving Harry to think about what just happened, usually with girls it was pretty simple they liked him, he chose the pretty ones and that was that but with Hermione he couldn't figure it out.
They both had Charms first lesson and when Harry saw Hermione he wasn't exactly sure how to react so to save both of them embarrassment he simply smiled at Hermione who smiled back weakly. Perhaps he had dreamed last night because last night it seemed like she had almost forgiven him for the situation which he will not bring up in his mind in case she can read minds or something and is reminded of 'that thing' which will not be mentioned this side of his grave.
After class Harry watched Hermione go down the third corridor despite all Gryffindors having defence against the dark arts upstairs so he followed her a little bit curious as to where she was going, then when she went downstairs into the dungeons but when followed down the steps he found that she had vanished so he wandered aimlessly down the corridors until he saw her and malfoy kissing, had he been less blinded by what he saw perhaps he would have noticed that Malfoy was pushing into her a little hard, or that he had two wands in his trouser pocket or perhaps that a single tiny tear was running down Hermione pale face, but Harry didn't bother with the details he took one look and ran off to class trying desperately to forget last night.
