Disclaimer: No characters are mine!
At breakfast the next morning, Hermione and Malfoy were still the talk of the school, her for slapping him, and him for getting some unknown one up on her. Hermione walked into the room, her head held high. Everyone cloud see the black marks under her eyes, and the blood shot red that infected them, but no one said anything, not even the Slytherin table who were always ready to throw verbal abuse at the members of the other houses. Malfoy, who was already sitting at the house table, kept his head down as she passed him. There was a time and a place for revenge, and breakfast was not that place, or the time, he needed everyone to be wide away when he got his revenge. Plus he needed no teachers to be present. He wanted to ruin Hermione, not himself and by humiliating her now he would be doing himself a dis-service.
Hermione sat down at the table away from everyone else. She just sat there with her head down, not touching any of the food that lay before her. Ron and Harry made their way over to her, she had to speak to them at some point. As they reached her she got up and left.
"Hermione?" Harry shouted after her.
"Not now Harry." She called without looking back at him. Not ever! She thought.
Hermione left the great hall, rushing out of the castle and down to Hagrid's hut. Banging loudly and frantically she almost knocked his door down, but she had no one else to talk to, Hagrid would understand, he had to.