Started a Twitter account under the same name. If you want to check on my progress of either or all of my stories, what I'm writing, what I'm reading, what inspires me, or you start missing my long authors notes, I recommend checking there. Also I just posted a new(or old as it was written maybe two years ago) one shot with Tomoine, so go check that out if you're interested.

Tried a lot of new stuff in this chapter.

Thanks to all my lovely followers and to everyone who has put this story in their favorites! And thanks to my lovely reviewers; AliceEnchanted, purple breeze and Slytherin Princess34. You are all amazing!

Xx

Desperate to Connect

Hermione didn't bother much with her bodyguards for a while after that. She figured she owed them for saving her life, but she wasn't about to admit it to their faces.

The boys wasn't about to shoot a gift horse in the mouth, and didn't say anything about it either, and life was peaceful.

It was the nicest either party had ever been to the other in years. And somehow her father's "congratulations" in his letter didn't even kill the mood. The boys had held their breath when they saw the owl carrying the letter. That owl could have been white as snow and they still would have seen it as a dark omen when they knew it came from Voldemort.

Not hexing the boys meant she had next to no human interaction as she had yet to apologize to any of her friends. Any potential friends were scared of by her wall of intimidating books, or wall of bodyguards. Most people had settled into friend groups anyway and weren't interested in expanding to welcome "the weird Slytherin."

She hated being called a Slytherin.

She wondered if a sign on her forehead stating "I'm a Ravenclaw!" would do no good either, she already wore blue and bronze robes.

People were idiots.

Desperate for companionship, she had started hanging out with Myrtle again. A decision resulting in her using drying charms daily. All the moisture meant her hair was worse than ever. She wondered if eventually it would go full afro. Would she be able to pull it off or should she just opt for a strong glamour charm? She touched her hair in contemplation, trying to calculate how long before she would have to decide what path to go down on. Both had merit, but just going with it seemed like the better of the two. It wasn't like people weren't afraid of her already, they would never dare say anything about her hair. And it wasn't like having horrid hair would mean less friends. Actually if it did, that might explain her friendless state.

"Hermione thank Merlin you're here." broken from her pathetic thoughts, she looked up to find Emily had joined her again.

The girl had left with Lorry, the two being closer than Hermione had been with either at any given point. Lorry had her Slytherin friends of course, so Emily had tried to befriend other Ravenclaws in Hermione's absence. A venture that proved dangerous it seemed if she was to judge by the state of the first year.

"Emily? How did you get past my guards?"

"Well I was just about to-" She started, like she was about to begin an epic tale, then she shook her head, realizing what Hermione had said "Guards? Since when do you call them that?"

Hermione shrugged, not bothered that she for once hadn't insulted them "Halloween I guess." Maybe this peaceful state meant she could actually be nice to the lads.

"So no more; stalkers, henchmen, snakes, idiots, annoying prats, Slytherins" the last one was said in a mocking tone, and she breathed in deeply to be able to keep going "wannabes, ugly puppies, slithering shadows, goblins, golems, trolls-"

Hermione cut her off with a hand on top of hers "Emily?"

"yes?"

"You were telling me how you got here."

"Oh!" she paused, trying to think "well in your absence I have been committing myself to higher learning and getting more friends this year."

"Alright." Hermione wanted her to get to the point already, annoyed with the girls prattling. At the same time she had to fight a smile, she had a friend again! Even if it only was for a few seconds, it was enough to stop her from being desperate enough to start being friendly towards her guards.

"Well…. Turns out, only one of those things is actually achievable."Emily's face fell, telling Hermione even more then her words did. She looked broken, like she almost wanted to give up. She was probably berating herself for even trying, that's what Hermione would do in her situation.

"Oh Emily I'm sorry." Hermione knew the feeling too well. Except she had her bodyguards to blame, there really wasn't anything she could do to dissuade people of the notions they had arrived at in her time at Hogwarts. Her wall saw to that.

"It's alright." Emily seemed to want to convince herself more than Hermione though. "I've missed you." She gave a sad smile to Hermione, and she could see a glimmer of doubt in her eyes, like she was afraid Hermione might not take her back.

Hermione couldn't help but give a genuine smile at last "I missed you too."

For the rest of the day, both Ravenclaws tried to let the other one know everything that had been going on since they last spoke. They attracted the ire of the librarian several times, but they were hardly sorry about it. Eventually the old dustball threw them out, muttering all the way, while Hermione and Emily continued chatting.

Again Hermione forgot about her shadows, and it wasn't until she retreated to bed, far beyond her normal hours, that she realized they hadn't done any work that day.

Maybe the hat had put her in the wrong house, maybe she should have been in Hufflepuff.

The thought was enough to keep her smiling until she fell asleep.

The next day the two girls walked down to breakfast together, talking the whole time. Hermione was happy to note that they still didn't have the need to resort to talking about school. It was a rarity for Hermione to talk about anything but school.

When the subject about her bodyguards again came up, she had to resort to talk about classes. No matter what, the subject of Halloween seemed too odd, and somehow a bit special, like it was a matter best kept between her and them.

After some days enjoying the company of Emily, Lorry came up.

The girl was still sore, and mad, at Hermione for what had happened.

To make matters worse, Hermione wasn't sorry.

She had noticed her around lately, but she had no misconceptions about what Lorry's intentions were. Experience and the way she stared at Rosier was indication enough.

Rosier had grown wary of the looks. The buffer that Hermione's presence had once offered after their fight, had diminished. Over the months following the fight, Lorry had slowly circled closer, like a shark in water.

After Halloween, the peace between Hermione and the boys often came up in the Slytherin dorms. The boys was adamant that the peace needed to be kept at all cost, no matter what other things they had to suffer through. All eyes had fallen on Rosier when that came up, and he knew what they meant. Lorry could annoy him as much as she wanted, he was not going to move to close to Hermione.

Before Halloween he could just move closer to Hermione to get rid of the girl. Hermione's temper was well known, and few dared try themselves against her arsenal of spells. Her space in the library was a safe haven for her, but for everyone else it was the one place they never went. When you added the burly guys watching over the entrance to the place, people gave a wide berth.

After falling from grace, Lorry was one of those people. Hermione was unpredictable at best, a trait Evan saw in her father often. A fact he would never mention, he knew that meant certain death.

But after the peace had been broken, without either side actually doing anything as mundane as talking about it, or shaking hands, Lorry noticed something was different.

Before he was promised peace either by Lorry leaving him alone, or Hermione sending him to the hospital wing. Now he couldn't, as he felt torn between his promise to the lads, Lorry, and Hermione.

She was innocent at first, but she soon moved very close to him, cornering him when he was alone.

He resisted at first, putting obstacles between them, making sure at least one of the others were there at the same time to run interference. He put confundus charms on her, set up ploys to keep her away.

In the end, Lorry become too much for him, and he sat down next to Hermione.

Hermione didn't notice at first, struggling for once over her homework. She had been taught a lot about Grindelwald as a child, but it was extremely different to what Binn's taught them.

Her father had tried to manipulate history to fit his own objectives. Hermione was equal parts infuriated with her dad, disappointed with herself and frustrated that she had so much studying to do. Even the history books seemed to disagree at some points.

She wanted to tear out her own hair in frustration.

Evan had watched her with trepidation, noticing her agitated state.

One minute went by, nothing happened.

two,

three,

four,

five.

Was she going to curse him?

If so, why hadn't she done so already?

Did she want to torture him?

10 minutes.

His shoulders relaxed a bit, and he started breathing more regularly. His heartbeat decreased, and he stopped fidgeting.

20 minutes.

His posture relaxed, he leaned back into the chair, studying Hermione more intently. She looked very focused on whatever it was she was doing. Her fingers were slightly smudged from ink. Her hair was even more messy than usual, and as he observed her running her fingers through it, he understood why.

30 minutes.

She slammed a book closed, muttering to herself, and dragging inky fingers over her face. She had smudges all over her face, he just hadn't noticed before. He had jumped slightly when she slammed the book, freezing as he waited for her anger to wash over him.

Nothing had happened, and he was curious. What had her in such a state?

The Muggle Second World War and Grindelwald.

Why would that infuriate her so?

He wasn't about to ask though.

45 minutes

Not long after he relaxed completely. The time for him being cursed had long since passed. Since he hadn't brought any books or homework, he just leaned back and started daydreaming.

They were both lost in their own little world. Hours later Hermione had still not noticed him sitting right next to her. It wasn't until the librarian came over and kicked them out that Hermione looked up from what she was doing.

"Rosier? When did you get here?"

"Uh." He worried about her temper, but so far so good right? "I've been here for hours."

"Oh." she blinked and started collecting her books. Then she looked up at him and gave him a quick tired smile. "alright."

It took him a second before he followed her up to her dorms. He put his hands in his pockets, looking down at the floor, Hermione walking in front of him. They didn't speak all the way up to the tower, but before she left him, she turned around and regarded him.

"see you."

And with that, Evans problems were solved.

Lorry was pretty pissed.

For so long, Hermione and Evan's relationship meant he was pushed to the side, towards her.

Then something changed.

She had heard the rumours of course. Every little rumour that circulated Hogwarts eventually made it's way to her. She was a source of information, she knew everything about everyone. It was part of the reason she was attracted to Evan, there was almost no curious rumors surrounding him. Except for the ones involving all of Hermione's bodyguards and Hermione herself. And they usually didn't stray much from what they always were. Lorry of course knew better than anyone what went on between the 6 of them.

Then an interesting rumor finally emerged from the shadows. They were all in the hospital wing the day after Halloween. None of them had any serious injuries, but all of them were kept in bed that day.

And Hermione's dad had visited the school. Apparently Dumbledore had paid the hospital wing a visit too while Hermione's dad had been there.

There were many speculations about what had happened to land them in the hospital wing in the first place. And even more regarding Hermione's dad and Dumbledore. The latter was a rumor whispered in the Slytherin dorms.

Something about Hermione's dad made all the upper classes nervous. They refused to talk about it or speculate, and would loudly express their disdain for others conversing or gossiping about anything regarding him.

They would barely speak his name.

Following that rumor, Hermione had stopped hexing the boys, throwing even more wood on the fire. She had started being cordial to them even, and stopped trying to evade them.

And Lorry had gotten so close to Evan, because he could only use Hermione as so much of a buffer.

Now all of that was ruined because Hermione hadn't bothered hexing him. She just let him sit there, it was almost the same as when Lorry had forced them to spend time together. It had started becoming a regular occurrence even!

Lorry decided the best course of action, was joining them.

It had taken a lot of manipulation of Emily, and apologizing to Hermione. But finally, she sat right there with them.

She took great pride in the reaction Evan had when she casually sat down right in front of him. He looked like he was a mouse trapped in a cage.

She had him right where she wanted him.