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Chapter 10 - Waterfall

Flashback - December 7:

"Herm - Granger, pass the knife."

At the suggestively sadistic words, Hermione looked up. She had recognized his voice, so her eyes blazed with a fire already as she glanced into his eyes before looking down again to cut up her roots.

"Granger. I need the knife." He held out his hand, rolling his eyes. They were assigned to share the table, and each table had one knife, specially designed to cut up the roots they were using for the potion.

Hermione looked at his outstretched hand and gave him a high-five before cutting up her roots again, agonizingly slowly. Draco groaned.

"Seriously," he said impatiently. "Hurry up!"

After a few minutes, she had finished daintily cutting up the last root. He glared at her as she passed the knife without looking at him.

"Finally," he muttered. Hermione smirked to herself.

"Three black beetles," Hermione said under her breath as she scanned the instructions. She got up to get them from the storage cupboard.

"Get me three too!" Draco called, starting to chop his roots. Hermione gave no sign that she had heard him and returned, almost skipping, with three beetles clutched in her hand.

After he looked at her hands expectantly for another three beetles and found none, he leaned closer and glared at her again. "What's the matter with you?" he growled.

She gave him an innocent smile and dropped her beetles inside her cauldron, where they sizzled and dropped to the bottom. Smugly, she turned back and stirred. When the class was over, she hurried to clear up and left without another glance at Draco.

It was difficult to ignore a person who you happen to have many classes with, who you happen to share dormitories with, who you happen to have feelings for. Hermione, with her tenacity, tried her best. It wasn't too hard for her, since she had nothing to say to him anyway. Sometimes she'd feel an urge to go talk to him and see him smile again, but she would push it away, remembering the night they had talked last. Once today, she'd heard Draco muttering anxiously, "Three days... only three more days...!" and she'd rolled her eyes, wondering if he was talking about the Hogsmeade trip.

That night, she waited at the door of their dormitory for Draco, with whom she was supposed to patrol. She tapped her foot in annoyance as ten minutes passed. Either he was in his room sulking, or not in the dormitory at all. Draco Malfoy rarely sulked, so she assumed it was the latter, and started patrolling without him.

She paused by the boys' washroom on the third floor, thinking she heard a noise inside .

After standing by the door for a minute without hearing anything, she carried on walking around aimlessly. When was Draco going to come?, she wondered, then berated herself for thinking about him.

As she turned, she passed by the boys' washroom again and heard more noises. After a short inner debate about whether or not she could go inside, being a girl, curiosity won. She gently pushed the door open without a sound. The door seemed to be able to block some noise, because whoever was in here was certainly making a racket with his sobbing. Why was this boy crying so hard? She fleetingly wondered if it was because she was ignoring Draco - but was this even Draco Malfoy? Did Draco Malfoy ever cry? She pushed the thought away; Malfoy wouldn't cry over something as trivial as her ignoring him, would he? No, she told herself, of course not, that's not Malfoy. Frowning, she looked a little closer. The boy was gripping the edges of the sink, shaking as he cried. Hermione took in his appearance - clean white button-up shirt, green and silver necktie, Head badge ... white blonde hair ...

When she accidentally let out a gasp as she realized who it was, he turned around, trembling, trying to calm down and muffle his sniffles and hiccups. Hermione had already dashed out of the washroom. Unfortunately, she didn't get out quick enough - he caught a glimpse of bushy brown hair.

oOoOo

I'm so fed up with catching Ron and Lavender kissing in the corridors, Hermione scrawled angrily. It's so annoying.

What do you do when you catch them?

I tell them off. It's pretty disgusting to see them at it in public, you know?

Yeah, I know what you mean. Why don't you try taking points?

What, for kissing in the hallways? Taking points from my own house, just because they're kissing in the halls? She raised her eyebrows quizzically.

If it makes you feel better, go for it.

She smiled. He seemed to care about her. Yeah, thanks. She remembered something and decided to ask him for comfort, advice, or anything he could give her. You know what's weird? Yesterday, I was talking to Ron. In the middle of our conversation, I started to daydream and I didn't even know what he said - I didn't know what I said, either. Isn't that strange?

Yeah, that is strange. Maybe... Maybe you studied too much or stayed up too late the night before, and you simply drifted off.

Thinking back to the book she was reading the night before her conversation with Ron, she understood. You're right; I was rereading the Standard Book of Spells the night before that row.

Are you kidding? I can barely get through that book! She imagined his disbelieving laughter.

I did reread it. Fifth time I reread it, mind you... It took my mind off Ron and Lavender, which was good. Ironic how I ran into the two of them that night.

Ironic, yeah.

Hermione checked her watch. Time for dinner, wanna come?

Sure.

oOoOo

Harry and Ron were already at the Great Hall. Ladling soup in his bowl, Ron started to talk. "I fought with Hermione yesterday."

"Again?" Harry's exasperated tone made Ron grin sheepishly.

"Yeah. She was acting all angry because I was kissing Lavender."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Hermione's your ex-girlfriend, remember? Of course she'd be angry."

Ron huffed. "Are you taking her side or mine?"

"I'll take the side of whoever's right."

Ron ate a bit of roast beef before speaking again. "She's kind of different these days, don't you think?"

"Yeah, she got over the guy she was missing." Harry said before filling his mouth with carrot.

"No, I mean... She's different. She seems distant. Like, during our conversation - in the middle of it, she was grinning crazily even though she was supposed to be mad at me."

"You know our Hermione. Always lost in thought." Harry shrugged.

Ron rolled his eyes. "Yes, but she doesn't do that during a fight."

Shrugging again, Harry gulped down some pumpkin juice. "Guess so. Also, she's often writing in that diary of hers. Have you noticed?"

Frowning, Ron leaned forward, putting his fork down. "Yeah, I have. She's always caught up in it, isn't she?"

"Yep. I've even seen her smiling at it ... and after she writes, she always pauses and reads - and makes a facial expression. What's up with that?" Harry wondered. "She's the one who wrote the stuff, so why would she reread it and -"

"Hello!" Hermione called as she came over and sat down facing them. "I'm starving!" Picking up her quill, she opened her diary and wrote something to Draco again before smiling at her two friends.

Ron gave him a wide-eyed look that plainly said "See?".

Harry looked at the diary. "What's that?"

"A diary, I told you before. My diary." Hermione sounded impatient. "Could you pass the mashed potatoes?"

Harry passed the potatoes as she scribbled back to Draco. Lavender bounced over to where they were sitting, hugged Ron from behind, and ran off with Parvati, giggling all the while. Ron looked at Hermione, checking for reaction, and was ready to apologize. But she hadn't even noticed Lavender - she was still writing, smiling to herself.

"Hermione?" Ron said, deciding to apologize for the night before.

"Hm?"

Prodding a pea with his fork, he said, "I'm sorry about last night."

"Oh, that's fine." Hermione didn't look up from writing. She barely sounded like she was listening to what Ron said. Surprised, Ron leaned back and relaxed. His task was done, the weight on his shoulders lifted, and Hermione hadn't even given him a hard time.

A few minutes passed as the two friends watched Hermione write in the diary. There was a pattern. She wrote. She read. She grimaced, rolled her eyes, sighed, or smiled.

Ron leaned toward Harry. "Is she mad?" he whispered.

Harry chuckled and shook his head. "No. Remember our Hermione? She's probably writing something about homework... We still have to do our essays on Silencing Charms, remember that."

Groaning, Ron focused his attention on his food again, while Hermione kept writing fervently, deep in conversation.

The food vanished, and the students were dismissed. Harry was the only one to notice that Hermione had written in her diary all through dinner and hadn't eaten anything more than two bites of mashed potatoes - and she had said she was starving.

A/N: Sorry for the late update, everybody! :(

My goodness, this is my first double digit chapter on this site! Ever! Hooray! -cheers and does a happy dance!-

I hope this chapter makes up for it!

THANK YOU TO MY BETA VANILLA COOKIE (:

And thanks to the readers and reviewers because you make me smile :)

So, this chapter... people are getting suspicious. Liked it? Disliked it? Let me know and tell me why in a review, please! (:

(PS: I kinda like writing the disclaimer things :P what do you think of them? lol!)