"Get out of my way, Granger."
He looked through her and it was annoying.
It seemed that his glare was pricking her bowels with an icy crumb. The peremptory notes in his rough voice with its lead weight seemed to be pushed her away. It almost nailed her down the coach's wall, forcing her to feel her vertebra rested again the firm protrusion of window frame. It was all for to let Malfoy pass by and to avoid contact with him and his repulsive cold eyes.
And of course. He made a face with disgust.
It's natural. What else should she expect from him...
Hermione made some inarticulate sound, noticing by the edge of her eyes the approaching company of five-year Gryffindor girls, chattering among themselves enthusiastically. She didn't want another scene with this vain despot. That was all she need - to pay extra attention to this little detail. That's why she only hissed:
"Go where you wanted to go, Malfoy."
A few moments he was looking somewhere at her nose, drilling an empty hole in her skin with the same empty glare. And only his arrogantly raised chin seemed to imply that he was thinking about her words.
To be honest, she wasn't interested in it at all. She only stood, snuggling her back up the wall, and felt an increasing itch of irritation under her fingernails from this position.
And also because of smooth train's rocking fastened a sharp corner of a frame somewhere under her shovel.
Get out, for Merlin's sake.
Meanwhile, her brain noted with some out-of-body slowness that Malfoy became even taller than last year. He towered over her already on ten inches. His hair fell on his forehead, barely touching his dark eyebrows. Earlier, his locks were much longer, but she had to admit that his new hairstyle was more suit, marking out his high cheekbones and thin nose. Hermione noted unwittingly that now Malfoy can't comb it back so that his hair didn't cover his face, because it was too short for this. She wanted to laugh gloatingly. She felt herself foolish immediately.
Among other things, this person caused an unpleasant aching feeling in her stomach. She was desirable to put two fingers into her mouth from that, or to become invisible for that he finally stopped to play his squeamish looks.
Meanwhile, Malfoy passed by her without even turning his head. He just twisted his damn lips again.
Hermione repeated this motion against her will, staring at his profile, and in a second she was already scudding along the coach to the opposite direction from Malfoy side, holding on to the walls and grabbing the handles of glass doors.
Irritation.
Every damn collision with damn Malfoy caused a damn annoyance in her. The presence of this buzzing feeling awakened desire to dig her fingers into her palms and to tear it to the meat.
She didn't like unreasonable anger.
Very seldom she allowed to take her emotions under control over the restrained and trained severity, that she cultivated in herself for eighteen years. And this wit is not worth to break her rules. He's worthless.
So she needs to calm down.
Breath in - breath out.
She rushed in the compartment, slapping the door so loud that the clang rang in her ears.
Everything is fine.
Her hair whipped her on her cheeks when Hermione abruptly turned to the frozen Ron and Harry. Redheaded didn't even have time to carry a paper glass to his mouth, slightly crumpled with his strong hands, and stopped his attempts to push fawning Crookshanks away from his foot. He looked over with Harry, who only raised his eyebrows and put the Prophet on the table.
"Did something... happen?" he watched Hermione touched down the opposite seat (Ron slightly drew his neck, leaving his juice constrained) and covered her eyes. The cat slid on her knees, and she tunneled her fingers in its bushy hair.
"Nothing worth someone's attention," Hermione touched the corner of her mouth with the tip of her tongue. And then she snorted and stared at the landscape passing by outside the window. Or rather at the dull glass, because her pupils were frozen.
When the dusk was growing, it calmed her down a little: the light became softer and more subdued. Bulbs began to light in the train, and the atmosphere became warmer, more comfortable. The Express was soon to arrive to Hogwarts.
"You look so... angry," Ron murmured.
His voice was always a little anxious and insecure. It wasn't necessary to turn away from the window to see what emotions were expressed on his freckled face. Ridiculously tender as a girl has. His frowning forehead, partially hidden under his red bangs, and a tense chin line.
"During the summer I have weaned from these... reptiles," Hermione muttered, clenching her lips. However, the irritation slowly released her. Malfoy's cold glance, touched her in the corridor, gradually disappeared from her consciousness, replaced the native eyes of her friends.
Damn him.
"Have you met someone from Slytherin?"
They are very shrewd.
"There was Malfoy," Hermione raised her chin in usual way, looking at the boys.
And suddenly.
She noted to herself with great pleasure, as they matured in a few months.
From this thought her lips stretched in an unwitting and unexpected smile. Seeing her reaction, Ron sighed in relief, though this hateful name forced him to strain for a second.
"It's good that I wasn't there. I would... "
"Don't talk nonsense, Ronald. All that we need is fighting in the train. I'm seriously. This is not the beginning of the year, we should think about it now," she turned her look to Harry keeping silence, "Not after what was in the past... Actually, you know. I've told you, and more than once."
For a few seconds the silence hung in the compartment. Weasley scratched his crown. Then his ears and cheeks, and after he shrugged his shoulders cheerfully:
"They have reconciled everything, right? Dumbledore and McGonagall, six months ago. We can relax now."
Hermione snorted, returning to the moss of the green hills and the mirrored river surface, in that reflected the setting sun.
The headmaster and the heads of houses invested their quantities that the students could return to Hogwarts after Christmas. And most of them really came back. After Harry's victory over Voldemort, passed more than half a year. Winter, spring and whole summer have passed. But no one wanted to talk about it. Therefore she shook her head, taking a good look at the boundary of an uneven horizon and a bright sky with torn snow-white clouds. There darken dense rows of trees.
Hermione remembered their rambles to the Forbidden Forest with Hagrid. It was gloomy, scary and... forbidden.
And what brings this year?
This question hanging in her head with the unfolding rumble. Her fingertips tunneled deeper in the Crookshanks soft hair. She felt a strange, slightly overpowering feeling in her chest.
Foretaste... New school year. The last one. And then.
She had no prediction.
"What about Malfoy, I... "
"Ron, that's enough," Hermione frowned strictly, turning her head.
"Not always he will get away with everything!" there was no limit to his righteous indignation, "Harry, tell her!"
Harry answered something indistinct.
Hermione didn't hear it, but she didn't ask again. There was a strange calm on her shoulders, mixed with a light and pleasant excitement. So it was always. It remained about two hours of the way to Hogwarts, this native stone lump, piercing sky with its peaks of towers. Something told her that this school year would be different from the six that were left behind.
Crookshanks purred and jumped off her knees.
It was the time to wear school uniform.