Hermione was eating her third piece of toast. The crunching only made her pounding head feel worse, but she remembered Muggle media claiming that eating was the best cure after a drunken night, so she persevered, nonetheless. As she slathered a fourth piece of toast with currant jam, she tried to rearrange her impossibly askew thoughts, hoping that the migraine would subside as she started making sense out of her own reality. Her Saturday had, after all, been strange, and after seeing Malfoy that morning, she had a feeling their meeting was going to be even stranger.

Draco Malfoy was sorry. That much, she was sure of. After spending so much time with him, she had begun to understand his language that he kept so private: the language that shone only in his steel eyes, occasionally accompanied by gesticulations or a distracting remark. The look he had given her that morning was the look she had never known she wanted, but now that it had happened, an inexplicable weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

Before she could ponder any longer, Ginny plopped down in the spot to her left. The redhead carried a disgruntled air about her; if Hermione did not know better, she might have thought Gryffindor lost another Quidditch game.

"Good morning," Hermione said in between bites.

Ginny forcefully stabbed a kipper. "Morning."

"Is something wrong?"

"Wrong?" Ginny sniffed. "Why would something be wrong?"

"I don't know," Hermione replied, pointing at the disfigured fillet, "but you've mangled your kipper."

"It's my kipper. I can mangle it if I want."

Hermione's head ached far too much to play guessing games that morning, so she ate her toast and let Ginny keep pouting in a fashion that very much reminded her of Ron. It was only when she was ready to go back to her dormitory that the Weasley girl decided to ask the question she had clearly been itching to ask.

"So yesterday, you met with Luna and Neville, right?"

"Yes, of course," Hermione replied, casting a wordless Vanishing Spell on the crumbs upon her front. "Why?"

"Well, Lydia Clappord claimed she saw you last night—drunk." Ginny's dark eyes searched her own. "According to her, you were with Malfoy."

Hermione knew that Ginny would find out, eventually. Others, including Pansy Parkinson, had seen the two of them, and a reporter had even taken a photograph. With such brewing gossip, the outpouring of truth was unavoidable and Hermione was bright enough to know that. Nevertheless, it was a conversation she was not yet prepared for—not while she was still recovering from the confusing night in question.

"Luna and Neville left me alone at the Hog's Head because of another one of Luna's silly little delusions," she said, pointedly. "I got far too drunk and Malfoy walked me back to the castle. That's it."

"That doesn't sound like Malfoy," Ginny said, disbelievingly.

"Well, that's what happened!"

Unfortunately, her omissions would not slip by so easily. A slew of owls flapped into the Great Hall, dipping down to deliver the post and accept their Knuts and treats as they always did. Hermione gulped when a rather twitchy owl dropped in front of a nearby second-year. A rolled-up newspaper was tied to its leg.

"Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy?"

A Ravenclaw gasped and exclaimed, "Are they dating?"

"I told you they were together last night! I saw them!"

Ginny swung her legs around, and marched towards the second-year. With fire in her eyes, she shouted "give me that!" and, to the second-year's protest, snagged the newspaper. Her jaw was set as she slapped it on the table and sat back down, waiting for an explanation.

Staring back at Hermione was an image of herself and Malfoy. Her moving likeness was alternating between a grin and a laugh, giddier than she had seen herself since midsummer, while Malfoy appeared to be flustered as she gave him bunny ears with her fingers. The last time she had given somebody bunny ears, she was in primary school.

"Just walked you back to the castle, did he?" Ginny finally asked, cocking a brow. She poked the headline with her forefinger and added, "Or is this 'Criminal and the War Heroine' nonsense something I should be worried about?"

"Ginny, you weren't there—"

"Don't change the subject. Is something going on between you two?"

"Are you serious? It's Malfoy!"

"Yes, it is Malfoy, and here you are looking like you're having a ripe old time with him."

"And maybe I wouldn't have been if you came with me!"

For hours, Hermione had begged Ginny to come with her to meet Luna and Neville, but Ginny had refused as she had to "avoid spending money before the wedding", an excuse that Hermione hardly could believe, let alone forgive. Harry's fortune was sure to pay for the entire affair.

"Don't blame this on me, Hermione. Whatever you're doing with him, I don't care, but don't blame me when Harry and Ron come asking questions." She gestured the ogling second-year. "As you can see, you spending time with Malfoy is clearly going to earn you that extra attention you wanted."

"You think I want this?"

Ginny shrugged. "Just seems a bit funny that you'd choose the one person my brother hates the most. I mean, I don't blame you. If I were trying to make Harry jealous, Malfoy'd be my first pick too."

Hermione could not listen to such accusations. Instead, she wordlessly stood up and stamped out of the Great Hall. Her morning was better-spent nursing her hangover than it was defending herself when there was nothing to defend.

Besides, she would need her strength by afternoon. If facing Ginny was a challenge, facing Malfoy was sure to be hell.


Impatient, Hermione waited by Hagrid's hut. Her headache had barely subsided, likely due to the many hours she spent thinking about her aimless tiff with Ginny that morning. Once upon a time, Hermione tried to make Ron jealous with Cormac McLaggen, but postwar, she was far beyond such pettiness. If Ginny was a good friend, she would know that.

"I can drink with whomever I please," Hermione muttered to herself, "and if I choose to drink with Malfoy, it has nothing to do with Ronald Weasley."

For another few moments, she revisited her talking points to assure she would win her next argument with her friend—to assure her that Ronald was the furthest thing from her mind when she let Malfoy sit with her that evening. She had quietly recited the disagreement three times when the blond Slytherin finally came down the hill, his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

"It's cold again."

"I guess so."

They followed the trails they almost always followed, once in awhile warning one another of cursed vegetation or slick mud—simple words filling empty air to make it seem less empty. Nothing more, nothing less.

Malfoy stumbled over raised roots and cursed to himself, though he denied it when Hermione asked him if he was okay. It was the most substance their conversation had during the entire walk.

Before long, they had settled into their usual spots in their usual place, where they silently studied. Malfoy was poring over his Arithmancy notes while Hermione focused on Potions—a subject he had apparently entrusted her to learn on her own, at least for the day.

Hermione had nearly finished her notes for the chapter when Malfoy asked, "Primordial past number: add or subtract from the ancestral number?"

"Subtract."

It had to have been twenty minutes later when Hermione was reviewing her notes, searching for an answer that she had been trying to find since she started the chapter. Her notes, unfortunately, failed her, and asking Malfoy was her last resort.

"Splitterwort is poisonous if ingested, isn't it?"

"Unless it's diluted, yes."

The silence that followed was louder than any silence Hermione had ever known. Without Harry, without Ron, without Ginny, without Luna or Neville, and now, strangely, without Draco Malfoy, she was utterly alone. Friendship had guided her through even the darkest times, and now, with evenings full of nightmares and days full of arguments, she had nobody to turn to for some sense of normalcy—not even her former enemy.

The world was changing, and it had left her behind.

As tears threatened to fall, Hermione tried to blink them back, determined to wait until she was alone—but she couldn't.

They streamed down her cheeks, and all the while, she stared at her notes, not bothering to fix the smudging ink. There would be a time to clean up the water stains. Malfoy was too close, though. If he saw her quietly casting spells, he might have noticed she was crying.

Then, absentmindedly, she sniffled.

Panicking, she wiped away her tears, hoping that he would think her running nose was only due to the cold air.

"What are you sobbing about? Get an Exceeds Expectations on your last essay?"

He was much more astute than most teenage boys. He always had been.

Hermione wished that he wasn't.

"No," she breathed, still wiping her eyes. "I'm fine."

"Just tell me. We won't get much done unless you spit it out."

It was not the kindhearted way that Harry Potter may have asked her to admit she was upset. It was the way Ronald Weasley would demand she told him what was wrong so he could confirm it was not his fault, and as such, he would hold no blame.

She shook the thought of Ron and met Malfoy's searing gaze.

"Well if you must know," she started, setting her quill down on her book, "Ginny and I had a bit of a disagreement."

"About what? She find out you used to have a thing for Potter?"

"No!" Granger's face flushed, though she was not entirely sure why. Many times, she had been accused of being in love with Harry, sometimes even in the public eye. "Harry and I—we aren't—he's like my brother. And it had nothing to do with Harry. It had to do with—" She paused, trying to decide whether she should even bother telling him the truth. "—with you, actually."

"With me? What about me?"

"She thought that we were—I don't know—friends, I suppose?" Hermione stopped again, and she felt her expression falter as she decided whether or not she ought to be honest. She finally added nothing more than, "She thought I'd gone mad."

"And what did you tell her?"

Hermione cleared her throat. "I told her the truth. I was drunk, and she ought to come with me next time so it doesn't happen again."

While that was what she had told Ginny, she had not lied when she told Malfoy she had fun.

Fun: such a distant feeling. She wanted to feel it again. Maybe they were not close friends, but would another drink hurt?

It didn't matter. They would never drink together again—not after all of the attention they received.

Malfoy stared at her for a moment before mumbling, "Good. Maybe next time she'll keep you sorted since you clearly can't be trusted with liquor."

Hermione did not know what she had expected him to say, but she found herself disappointed by his response. Nevertheless, she decided it was best not to let it show, so she asked, "Did you work out all of your Arithmancy prompts?"

"Yes," he answered, evenly.

"You're working faster than before," Hermione said, wondering if he had picked up on her subtle compliment: the extended olive branch.

"Yeah well, I didn't have much of a choice if I wanted to pass my N.E.W.T." He closed his book and began shoving it into his schoolbag. With one final heave, he clasped the schoolbag shut and added, "There isn't much of a point in taking the class if I'm not going to finish with a N.E.W.T."

"I suppose that's fair," Hermione sighed. His snarkiness was not lost on her. "Are you going back to the castle?"

"No, I was just packing my things so I could spend the rest of my day here in the cold bloody woods," he jeered.

"Right, erm—let me pack up. We shouldn't walk by ourselves."

Malfoy rolled his eyes and waited. The walk back was silent.