Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter book series or movie adaptations.
Chapter Three: Confused
19 September 1998
It's nearing midnight on her birthday, and not a single soul has wished her well all day.
Now, to be fair, she's sure that there's only two people who actually know her birthday, and Harry and Ron aren't exactly known for their eidetic memory, but this is only the second year since her parents were sent to Australia, and Hermione wasn't exactly paying much attention on her birthday last year. Before, they always sent a card and a nice letter and maybe a small gift. This year, however, the reality of just how alone she was hit her like a ton of bricks.
The light in the common room has been out for over an hour, and she's the only one in it, reading by firelight and trying not to think too hard about anything in particular. She's never been one for fiction, but her mother's favorite story to read to her as a girl had been one about a girl who fell asleep and met a talking rabbit and a grinning cat, so that is the story that she finds herself rereading for what must be the thousandth time.
A figure comes down the stairs from the boys' dormitory, and Hermione isn't completely sure who it is until she catches a flash of white-blond hair, lit up in such a way that it almost looks Weasley-red in the light of the dying fireplace. The comparison actually makes her smile before grey eyes find hers.
"Granger," Malfoy says, his voice thick from sleep. He's in loose pajama pants and a sleeveless Quidditch jersey for a team that she doesn't recognize, and his platinum hair is messed up and sticking out at odd angles. "So you're the reason I can't sleep."
Hermione frowns. "I haven't even been making noise."
"Doesn't matter," Malfoy says flippantly. "You think loudly." She's about to respond indignantly, but he shrugs and clicks his tongue, cutting her off. He stands next to the fireplace, looking over at her. "What are you reading?"
She lifts her book up to allow him to see the cover, as opposed to answering verbally, and then puts it down when she can see he's done reading. "Care to explain what happened the other night?" She hopes her tone is casual."Or maybe what happened at the Manor last spring?"
Malfoy's expression hardens. "I have no clue what you're talking about, Granger."
"I think you do," she says. "But I'm referring to what happened just before my friends Apparated me away. And, more importantly, afterward. I felt the pain from whatever that was for longer than I felt the Cruciatus curse's aftereffects, and I know I wasn't the only one. And then, the other night, for literally the first time since I've known you, you told me you were sorry. Without even an argument. I want answers, Malfoy."
The blond gives no reaction, no indication that he even heard her, for a long moment, his grey eyes simply searching her brown ones for a while before he finally answers in a voice much more awake than it had been earlier. "There's a lot that you don't know, Granger," he says. "You fancy yourself this all-knowing encyclopedia of knowledge, damn-near omniscient, but you aren't. Not even close. All of the things that you don't know just about me, let alone the rest of the world, could fill a library full of books."
"That didn't answer my question." Hermione's lips are set in a thin line.
Malfoy simply smirks. "I'm sure you'll figure it out," he says. "It's really rather obvious when you think about it for more than three seconds." He moves back over to the boy's staircase, but just before he ascends he looks back at her. "Good night, Granger. And happy birthday." And with that, he's gone.
Hermione barely sleeps that night, her dreams full of blonds and knives and questions. Her last thought before her fitful rest is, Why does he know my birthday?
Every day for the following week, Hermione finds herself in the library studying both her academic lessons and her, for lack of a better word, extracurricular interests. She manages to dodge Ginny's repeated attempts at hanging out after lessons with the excuse that she wants to get ahead in classes, but she almost feels bad doing so. By Sunday, she's just about studied out for the first time in possibly her entire life, so she decides to study in the common room instead of the library, hoping that perhaps a change of scene will help her.
To her pleasure, the common room happens to be completely empty for most of the day, so she's able to get all of her homework done as well as study for her next Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Care of Magical Creatures exams. She's finished all of her required readings by dinner, in fact, so afterwards she decides that some more personal research is in order and makes her way back to the library.
The first and most important question is simple: What happened at Malfoy Manor? But no matter what she looks for, she can't find anything that would explain the strange surge of magic, or the way that it had somehow helped to numb her wounds, or the splinched feeling when she was torn away from it. From him. No book from History of Magic, Charms, or Defense Against the Dark Arts seems to contain anything about any kind of spell that could've caused something like that.
Her second question is perhaps even more complex, and unfortunately she's sure that she won't find it in any book. Why is Malfoy behaving so weirdly? Why did he apologize for startling her, of all things? Why has he almost been (dare she say it) pleasant to her since school began? Comparatively to the way that things had always been between them, he's been downright sweet, and it sends warning bells off in her head.
Hermione stays in the library until the windows show a black sky and the lanterns hanging about are no longer enough to comfortably light the books she's reading, so she packs her bookbag and makes her way back to the common room. Where it had been completely empty earlier in the day, she finds almost all of her new "house"mates lounging about various areas when she walks in. She looks around and quickly finds that Pansy and Daphne are hanging on Blaise Zabini and Theo Nott, which means, thank Merlin, that they aren't in the dorm. With any luck, Hermione thinks, she'll be able to get into bed and pull her curtains around her before they get there, hopefully avoiding them completely. She had no want for a venomous exchange tonight.
She does happen to find Padma Patil in the dorm, sitting on her bed scribbling on a piece of parchment propped up on a book. Padma looks up as Hermione walks in and offers her a smile, which the brunette returns as she makes her way to her own four-poster. The two girls sit in companionable silence for about ten minutes before Padma stands up and folds her parchment, putting it in an envelope from a box inside of her trunk.
"May I ask who you're writing to?" Hermione is almost surprised at her own question. She's hardly ever spoken to Padma before, but she decides that it would be nice to have at least one friend in her new dorm.
"Parvati," Padma says with a shrug. "I promised to write every week since I decided to come back. She hates being alone at home."
All at once Hermione is reminded why the other Patil twin is alone. Her best friend was Lavender Brown. The brunette sends her roommate a sympathetic smile. "I'm sure it must be horrible to be without your sister," she says.
"We were never really close before," Padma admits. "Although I do miss her quite a bit. We spent a lot of quality time as a family over the summer, and it was kind of nice."
"I can imagine," Hermione says blandly. There's not much else to say, really. Padma crosses the room to where her pet owl, Artemis, is sleeping in her cage, and lightly taps under her chin to wake her before giving her a snack. Within five minutes the owl has left the dorm and is making her way to what Hermione assumes must be the Patil estate. Padma almost instantly picks up a book and begins reading, leaning back on her bed.
Hermione pulls her curtains close around her and casts a silencing charm. She doesn't even hear when Pansy and Daphne come into the room later, talking loudly.