"Hey, Hermione!...Hermione!...'Mione?...OY!!!"
"WHAT?" Hermione tore her eyes from where she'd been staring, turning to look at a rather irritated Ginny Weasley.
"Well, I was trying to talk to you, but you were so deep in your daydream that you didn't seem to hear me the first three times I tried to get your attention. Next time you do that, I will slap you across the face to get your attention and I will not feel sorry for it."
"Okay, okay. What did you want?"
"You know what? Never mind. Obviously you don't really care about it."
"Of course I do! I was just distracted, that's all!"
"Whatever. You never listen to me."
"Yes I do! What's wrong with you? Why are you so mad at me? I didn't do anything!"
"See? You would know what was bothering me if you had been listening when I was talking to you earlier!"
Hermione stared at Ginny in disbelief. "Well, if you're going to act this way, I'm not going to sit here and listen to you accuse me of being a bad friend just because I got distracted a couple of times." She stood, slung her bookbag over her shoulder, and flounced off. Ginny glared after her, then sat where Hermione had been sitting moments earlier. I wonder what she was so distracted by? She looked to where Hermione had been staring. The only thing she saw was Draco copying down someone else's Potions homework onto his parchment. Ginny looked around to see if there could be anything else that Hermione would be distracted by, but Draco was pretty much the only interesting thing in the vicinity. Ginny shrugged. At least she's got good taste in men.
Hermione was livid. She stormed into the Gryffindor common room and slammed her bag onto a nearby desk before marching over to where Ron and Harry sat, attempting to do their Divinations homework. "RON!" she barked.
"What?" Ron glanced up, but stopped writing when he saw the anger on the Head Girl's face. Harry pretended to not notice that anything was going on.
"You tell your sister to stop being such a prat! She got mad at me today over absolutely nothing!"
Harry, unable to concentrate on his assignment, turned to Hermione and said, "Could you argue somewhere else, or at least keep your voice down so I can finish my homework?"
Hermione stared, then whirled around and grabbed her bag off the desk. "Aaargh, forget about the bloody homework! Just make stuff up, like you did before!" She stomped loudly out of the common room, leaving two very bewildered boys behind. Ron shook his head. "Honestly, half the time I don't know what she's talking about."
"Me neither. Come on, we need to finish this assignment- I don't want to get behind in class." said Harry, and the boys turned back to their parchments.
Hermione was running up the stairs. She just wanted to get to her dormitory, so she could be mad in peace. Muttering angrily to herself, she wasn't watching where she was going and consequentially ran straight into Draco Malfoy. "AAHHHHH!" The pair toppled down the stairs, landing hard on the stone floor below. After a few moments the shock wore off, and Draco sat up first, rubbing his pounding head. "Merlin, Hermione, watch where you're going. You could've killed me."
Hermione stood and brushed off her robes. "Thanks for your concern, Draco. I'm fine, by the way."
"That's nice." He got up and turned to leave, but Hermione, suddenly interested, fell into step behind him.
"Where are you going?"
He kept walking without a backward glance. "Why do you want to know?"
"Just wondering."
"I'm going nowhere that concerns you."
Hermione sulked in silence for a few seconds but still she followed Draco. Finally, he stopped and turned to face her. "Stop following me. It's getting really annoying."
"I would have thought you'd be happy to have a girl following you around."
"Perhaps a girl that I fancied."
Hermione couldn't help but feel somewhat offended. After all, she'd been having a bad day and all she wanted was to have a friendly conversation with him. She was trying to think of a comeback, but it was kind of hard when he was standing so close to her, his platinum blonde hair shining brightly with the light that was filtering in through the window.
"Hermione? Why are you staring at my hair? Is there something in it?" Draco reached up and combed through his hair with his fingers. Hermione sighed and Draco gave her a weird look. Seeing this, Hermione decided that it was time to go. "Oh! I just remembered! I have an essay to finish!" She hurried off, her cheeks turning crimson as she ran.
Somehow she ended up in front of the kitchens. For a moment she hesitated, then reached up and tickled the pear. The portrait swung open and Hermione climbed in.
Inside, there was the usual mass of house elves. Upon seeing Hermione, they crowded around her, offering plates of food to the girl. She politely declined, saying that she wasn't hungry. She scanned the mob of elves for Dobby or Winky, but neither of them were in sight. She then realized that Winky would never have been freed because she could never have been accused of conjuring the Dark Mark with Harry's wand, since there was no Dark Mark and no Death Eaters, and Harry was a regular boy. Dobby would never have been freed either, since the Malfoys were never involved in the Dark Arts so Dobby never had to warn Harry about going back to Hogwarts so Harry never freed Dobby.
All because Harry was no longer the Boy-Who-Lived.
Feeling saddened, Hermione left the kitchens and wandered outside. She saw Malfoy, loafing about the edge of the Forest. He saw her too and walked over.
"I thought you were going to stop following me."
"I did. And you were the one who just walked over here."
"True." He sat next to her, and Hermione felt a shiver of excitement dance up her spine when she realized how close he was. Suddenly, she had the urge to ask how Dobby was doing, but then he would probably think her to be weird and might wonder how she knew who Dobby was. This train of thought led to thinking about how the existence of Voldemort had affected everything in such a profound way, and now that he was gone her life was so ordinary. And it was all her fault.
"Why are you being so quiet? Are you okay?"
Draco's voice brought her back to the present. His face was right there, so close that she could feel his soft breath. His eyes looked gunmetal gray in the darkening evening sky. Without thinking, she leaned over and kissed him on the lips. He was so surprised that for a few seconds he didn't respond, but then he started to kiss her back.
Merlin, he's a good kisser...oh, what am I doing? This is Malfoy the Ferret that I'm kissing!...Wait, no, he's not Malfoy the Ferret any longer, he's Draco and he's nice.
Feeling heat rush to her cheeks, she pulled away abruptly then quickly stood. She murmured an embarrassed "I- I'm sorry." and walked briskly away.
Yes, the absence of Voldemort has certainly changed almost everything.