Harry was deeply confused by Hermione's behavior over the next couple of days. She seemed oddly excitable and easily distressed. She was overly warm to Ron and seemed to want to spend all her time with him and do whatever it took to make him happy, but then he would say something as simple as "I love you," and she would burst into tears and run from the room. In their discussions on the topic Ron and Harry had come to the conclusion that there was some odd girl thing going on that they were not meant to understand, but that, on the whole, Ron was doing much better with her than ever before. She didn't seem to want to fight with him at all. In fact, Harry observed, though Ron seemed so pleased he didn't bring it up, she seemed to do pretty much whatever he wanted without asking any questions at all. It was, Harry thought, privately, rather a weak shade of Hermione. He didn't miss the bickering at all, but he would have had it back happily to have the real Hermione back with it.
Another thing had, mysteriously, changed. Hermione was now not only not running off to the library all the time; she was straightforwardly avoiding the place. Harry mentioned once that he was going to get a book and Hermione chirped, "Oh, thank goodness. There's one I've been needing so badly! Do you suppose you could pick it up for me? And, um, could you take these back?" She reached under the table in the common room at which she, Neville and Ginny were working and drew up and enormous stack of books, which Harry hoisted into his arms only with great difficulty.
"Why don't you take them yourself?" Harry asked her. "You love the bleeding library. I thought you looked for any excuse to nip up there?"
"Yes, well, no time anymore, is there? Thanks, Harry, you're being a great help."
Harry was not at all satisfied with this response, but he was not sure how long he could maintain his grip on the mountain of books now teetering in his arms and decided not to prolong the matter.
His trip to the library involved quite a lot of squirming and sliding and barely catching, and he was very grateful indeed to be able to set them down in front of Madam Pince with a groan of relief and stretch his arms a bit. He looked down at the note Hermione had given him. It read, "Tales of the Heart: Applied Arithmancy in the Quest for Understanding Love by Wutherbod Luddugs."
The title amused Harry. "I guess that's pretty advanced stuff, then." He checked a reference and found a couple of aisles the book might be located on. The last one he checked was way in the back of the library, in an area where he had never been. He rounded the corner rereading the paper and when he looked up, he jumped. "Chrikey, Malfoy, you scared the shit out of me!"
"Shit yourself, have you? Only expected, I suppose. Well, don't hang round here too long, I'd been planning to stay a while and I'd hate the smell to drive me off."
Ignoring this, Harry started scanning the shelves for the section he wanted and then alphabetically for Wutherbod Luddugs. "Damn." The book was absent in the last place he had to check.
"What're you looking for?" Malfoy stood up and looked over his shoulder at the little row of books he had been searching.
"Nothing. Well, something, but it's none of your business, is it?"
"Fine. Just trying to help." Malfoy sounded casual but Harry thought he caught a little dissapointment as well.
"Well, it isn't here anyway, I'll just have to tell Herm—" but then his eyes fell on the book Malfoy had set, face down to save his place, on the table, before he stood up. His hand was on it again as he was about to start reading again. "is that… is that Wutherbod Luddugs?"
"Um, yeah." Malfoy looked mildly amused. "Why?"
"Well, that's what I'm looking for. I was just… That's funny. Anyway, I'll just tell her someone else's got it and she'll understand."
"Who?"
"Hermione."
Malfoy blinked. "Take it. I've read it before I was just skimming through. She can have it. Here." He closed the book and, still sitting, extended his arm toward Harry. Harry looked at it a moment.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, absolutely. No point in my hanging on to it. I don't need it. Take it." He shook it a little.
"Alright. Um, thanks… Malfoy." This was too odd.
He carried the books back to the common room and sat down at the table with Hermione Ginny and Neville, now also joined by Seamus and Dean. Harry sat, pointedly, between Ginny and Dean, who were much too close for his taste. "here you go." He said, and shoved Luddug's book at Hermione. It slid across the table and she caught it. She picked it up and opened it quickly, turning pages fast and looking for something. A bit of parchment fluttered out and onto the floor as she did so. She kept skimming pages until she found what she wanted and read, hungrily.
"Hermione," Seamus had picked up the parchment. "This has your name on it." He held it up and she stared at it. "Looks like a letter or something."
She took it from him and glanced it over. "I don't know what that could be, I…" but she stopped. "Oh, oh, I remember this." She blushed a little. "I, um, I must have left it in there the last time I had this book out. I doubt it gets taken out much." She let out a fake little laugh and pocketed the parchment. She let the others talk a couple of minutes while she gazed fixedly into space and then said, "well, I'm pretty tired. I think I'll turn in early tonight. See you!" and bustled up the stairs.
Harry stared at her retreating back. "Early? Its 8 o'clock! What is she playing at?"
Hermione lay in bed, rereading and rereading Draco's letter. It was beautiful and sad and she cried thinking about him. He spilled to her his years of torment, how a person can be swept up in something when their parents and all the people they respect tell them it is right and how much remorse he felt for his actions. How much he hated himself for his weakness. He told her all this, and then how, in his darkness, she had seemed a burning light. Her forgivness, which he did not assume, but which he hoped to receive, was guiding him. Her kindness rekindled a sense of promise and future in him and made him believe his life could have meaning again.
The last sentece of the long, long letter, squeezed onto a little leaf of paper, was this:
"Hermione Granger, I think I will never meet another human so good as you, nor one I love so well."
She read this sentence again and again. What did it mean? She was kind when no one else was and he loved her for it, yes, but what kind of love? What was implied in that word. She finally fell asleep with the letter clutched tightly in her hand and a smile on her face.
