Scratch scratch scratch.
Hermione's pen moved across her paper quickly spewing out words, her mind working just as fast. She was nearly finished her essay for Professor Sprout, and if she did say so herself, it was going along rather well.
The library was nice and silent around her as well, probably judging to the fact that it was nine thirty, and most students were in bed or in their common rooms. But no, here she was, Hermione Granger, all by herself in the library. She didn't mind much the empty desks, or the already snoring Madame Pince, and subsequently this was her favorite time in the library. No immature first years playing exploding snap in the shelves, or setting off dung bombs. She thought happily, remembering her own first year days fondly. She never had forgiven Fred Weasley for putting that dung bomb in her hair...
Shaking her head to clear it, she checked her textbook and continued to write. She would have gone to her private study seat to have extra privacy, but after the night before... Hermione shook her head again, and frowned at the paper. She had just written something completely different than she had intended to. Musn't think of last night. She told herself. Repeating the mantra in her head, she started back on her work again.
"As well as being used in different memory potions, Jobberknoll feathers are most often used in truth serums, an-" A book clattered in another area of the library, and Hermione looked up, rather annoyed at her quiet being disturbed. But the shelves fell silent after a moment, and since Madam Pince was still asleep on her desk, Hermione went back to her essay.
"Wolfsbane potion is extre-" Hermione started writing again, but had to stop mid-word. She had started to write something totally different again. Groaning, Hermione flopped down onto her arms. I'm losing my mind! She thought. I never forget a thing, and here I am, writing out a whole different potion! Then she paused, horrified, as something occurred to her.
Rapidly flipping back through her last sheet of work, she cried out when she saw her mistake. The last page and a half had all been written on potions and their ingredients, while her essay was supposed to be on magical maladies. Hermione was close to tears at the sight of all that work. She had wasted hours on writing that, and it wasn't even needed. Mustering up some determination, she shed her robes and pushed up the sleeves of her black shirt, taking out a new piece of parchment. She stared blankly at the empty expanse and no words came. Just as she felt as if she was about to rip the whole essay up, she paused, and turned an ear towards the book shelves.
From behind came a noise again, and a distant giggle. Frustrated with her peace and quiet being disturbed, Hermione's head snapped up in annoyance. She got up, and strode into the shelves, looking for the culprit and intending to ream them out for being noisy. She was soon lost in the tall shelves that flanked her sides, filled to the ceiling with all sorts of magical and ancient tomes. Some books twitched on the shelf as she passed, and others glowed, but Hermione had long learned to ignore the sudden flashes and movement, and just pass by. She heard the laughter again up ahead of her, and strode forward purposely, turning at the next junction and heading deeper into the shelves to where she thought the noise was coming from.
A loud bang! Came from her left suddenly, and she ran to the next aisle and down a few shelves, looking for the noise. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion as she bent down to pick up a fallen book - the source of the bang. Her fingers danced along the other covers of shelved books as she looked for Modern Magical Tools (circa 1372)'s place, finding the empty slot quickly, and sliding the book back into place. Feeling oddly good about cleaning up the already nearly impeccable library, Hermione almost forgot about the laugh. Then, closer now, came another giggle, and she set off to find the person.
Probably a pair of flirting students causing trouble again. Where can a girl get some quiet around here? Hermione grumbled to herself, not realizing she sounded like the old Madam Pince herself. A few moments later, there was another bang and giggle. Hermione ran around the corner to find another book out of the shelf, and lying in the middle of the aisle. She picked it up, frowning, and saw that it belonged at the opposite side of the library. To take it there, she would miss catching the trouble maker, who by now knew that she was looking for them. Why else drop books and keep laughing? She huffed in annoyance and walked on, intent on finding the culprit and berating them. All her frustration at her essay and last night's events came out in her search.
Hermione whirled around and ran down another aisle as another book dropped, and the person laughed. It was no longer a quiet giggle, but loud, full bellied laughter. Hermione hoped that Madam Pince would wake up and help catch the person, but the old lady had been drinking out of her flask when she thought Hermione wasn't looking, and the girl doubted she'd be up any time soon. It went that way every night.
She picked up the next book on the floor, and again, it was from the opposite side of the library. Hermione walked down that aisle, figuring out the person was playing a little game of follow-the-books with her. Peeved with them, Hermione walked brusquely down the aisle and into the next, twisting and turning each time she heard another bang. Every time she also found a book lying on the floor, usually from the opposite side of the library, and each time she picked it up and carried it with her, intending to re-shelve them when this whole adventure was over.
After a while, Hermione's agitation grew. The person was now dropping very thick, or very vicious books down for her to collect. The last one she had come across was the infamous Monster Book of Monsters, and she had to flee down another aisle to escape the snapping book. How the person had got it out of the locked cage the book was kept in, she didn't know. But it furthered her severe annoyance with whoever it was, and she strode down the aisles quicker, now leaving the fallen books when she came across them.
She first realized the person wasn't dropping books anymore when she noticed the extreme silence in the large room. She had grown used to the constant laughter and thumps of the books, but now that the person was not dropping them anymore, the silence was deafening.
Hermione was now running full tilt down the lanes of shelves, knowing that the books had stopped being dropped because she was close. The books still clutched in her arms were jostling around and slipping as she ran, and for a moment, Hermione slowed and looked down to grab a falling one as she was turning the corner.
Bang! She collided into something soft and the books went crashing onto the floor in an extra loud bang. One started to smoke alarmingly and glow blue as Hermione surveyed the wreckage piled about her culprit's black robes. Before she even saw their face, she knew who it was.
"Well if it isn't Granger... Book police." Draco Malfoy drawled out, bending over and picking up the blue book by a corner. He dropped it rather quickly when it fell open and flames bloomed out. Hermione breathed in deeply a few times, trying to calm both her temper and racing heart. She cursed her body for reacting to the sheer proximity of Malfoy, and stared pointedly at the books, grinding her teeth very slowly.
"Out of all the people in this school, I would have never expected to find your bushy head here." Malfoy spoke again, turning around, and walking into a reading nook, his tone heavily sarcastic. Hermione looked up and blinked at the sudden sight of the small nook, which housed two rather large chairs, and a single portrait. The occupant was missing from it, the bleak wintery backdrop devoid of any life. Malfoy reclined in one of the large chairs and smiled out at her with a lazy self-satisfied smirk.
"Speak up ingrate, I can't hear your whining voice." He said, rolling his eyes, and delicately yawed and stretched, reminding Hermione of a very graceful cat. He was dressed in black robes, as usual, and a green and silver tie was hanging undone around his neck.
"You can throw your petty insults at someone else Malfoy. I'm not standing around for your amusement." Hermione said, returning his smirk with her usual glare, feeling a little more of her usual hate bubbling up. He's so bloody arrogant and calm, so self assured... That bastard! She thought angrily, not particularly wanting to start fighting with him. She couldn't ignore the rapid beating of her heart, and knew that if she did start yelling at him, she'd be up all night dreaming about the way his grey eyes flashed in anger, the way he carried himself, as if he was a prince, or the way his cloak swirled about his lean body as he paced....
"You already amuse me by being here mudblood." Malfoy's voice brought her back from her daydream and Hermione flushed: both from her thoughts, and from the insult. Smirking, his gaze flicked to the books at her feet and then back to her face. Well he obviously enjoyed his little game of hide and seek. But I didn't!
"Sod off Malfoy." Hermione spat at him, keeping her growing anger tightly reined. She turned around to leave, and he jumped up and followed beside her.
"What are you doing?" She asked rather peevishly after a moment, disconcerted by his presence beside her. She felt him turn and look to her, and grin.
"Going back to the Slytherin common room. Everyone there at least is pure blood." He said, sneering at her. The jibe hurt Hermione as always, and she pursed her lips in anger, lest she lash out at him. Though, the thought of smacking him did have its appeal...
They continued walking on in silence through the giant shelves.
As they traveled along quietly, Malfoy stayed uncomfortably close to her, his robes brushing her arm as she walked. Hermione pulled her limb close in to avoid the contact, and moved a little away from him. He moved with her, and was once again walking too close beside her. She glared at him, for he was far too close for comfort, but Draco looked innocently ahead, as if he wasn't doing a thing. Now, Hermione's shoulder was brushing the book shelves as she walked, and it added fuel to her anger at Draco, and to her agitation.
Draco stuck his foot out suddenly a moment after she tried to move farther away from him, and Hermione tripped on it, staggering into a bookshelf. The sudden spiteful act unleashed all the anger that had been brewing in her, and she turned to Malfoy, her eyes blazing, and a foul word falling off her lips. Malfoy looked shocked to hear such a utterance out of her, and looked like he was going to protest. But he couldn't get a word in edgewise, as all Hermione ever wanted to say to him poured out in her hatred.
"You vain, pompous, self absorbed git! Always demeaning others, playind dirty minded tricks... Never thinking for other people, only for yourself! I could have fallen there, and hurt myself, but you never think for other people's welfare! You play stupid, petty games and tricks to annoy already stressed out people, and then you laugh at them and hurl insults towards them and their families! You are the epitome of rudeness. Do you ever stop to think of what your words and actions could mean to some people?
"You think you're all powerful, a leader of the Slytherins: especially for having Snape on your side. But you know what? You're only a slimy git and a teacher's pet. I despise you, Draco Malfoy. You are not worth the time of anyone in this school." She had delivered that all in a furious whisper, and when she had stopped, her chest was heaving and she felt even worse. She shouldn't be speaking like this to anyone, even Draco Malfoy. It was just so rude, and Hermione liked to think of herself as a very kind person. She was contemplating apologizing when Malfoy recovered.
Hermione slammed painfully backwards into the bookshelf, her wrists pinned to the wood. Her startled eyes met the steely grey ones of Draco.
"Don't you ever, ever speak to me again like that you stupid mudblood." Her growled deep in his throat, his nose inches away from her own. Her spine dug into the hard wood of the shelf, and his body was pressed close up against hers to keep her there. This close, she could smell him: spicy, edgy, dark. It thrilled her all in a very frightening way.
Hermione could easily see that her diatribe had angered him: and she didn't think she had ever seen him so furious before. His beautiful face was contorted into an angry and malicious sneer; his eyes nearly sparked in fury. She mustered up her courage and stared back defiantly.
Draco snarled at her after a moment and let go of her wrists. The charged energy between them crackled as he stepped back, not losing eye contact. But in his eyes, Hermione could see his anger slipping, and him fighting with himself over something else. He stood in front of her for a moment longer, his gaze fixated... And then he broke his eyes away, and turned away with the swirl of his cloak, passing on her left to head away down another aisle.
Hermione let the air out of her lungs with one gush, and realized that she was shaking slightly; though in what she did not know. Anger, fear, hatred, lust? She couldn't tell. She leaned against the shelf for support and looked straight ahead, willing her knees not to give in to the shaky, wobbling feeling. Her heart beating erratically in her chest at an impossible speed also made it difficult to focus on any clear thought. She knew she should be triumphant now, exultant in her victory over Draco Malfoy. She had made him look away in their contest of wills. It would be a story to tell her fellow Gryffindors by the fire that night, and something to gloat and be congratulated over...
But Hermione felt only bitter disappointment in herself. Again, she knew she shouldn't have said all those things, sunk to his low level. Just because he was rude, and would put people down, didn't mean that she had to fight with him, and do the same. In doing that, she was no better than he.
That upset her, and she blinked a few times as she felt her heart slowing down, her legs getting stronger, her shakes subsiding.
Just before she was about to return the nook and collect the books to re-shelve, her chin was wrenched to the side by a cold hand. She found herself staring into Draco's eyes again that night, and almost immediately, her heart started to beat quickly. An apology started to bubble to her lips, but she couldn't bring herself to say it, though it was the right thing to do. Draco was searching her face with those lovely eyes of his, looking for something, his own face no longer angry, but as Hermione thought hers must looks like: upset, dazed, angry, sorry.
When his eyes focused back onto her own, he blinked once, and his hold on her chin loosened a bit.
"Goodnight Hermione." He said quietly. Before she could reply to that, or give her own apology, he leaned in, and touched his lips ever so lightly to her cheek. The feather soft touch was barely enough to register as any more than a polite kiss, but Hermione's skin blazed at the contact. Her heart was racing so quickly she thought it would burst. Draco's silvery hair brushed against her cheek as he moved back, and she shivered, goosebumps rising up on her exposed arms. For a fleeting moment his face had some indescribable (and most un-Malfoy like) expression upon it, before it settled to the usual sneer. Draco gave a mocking bow as Hermione struggled for words, and then swept off for a second time.
This time, Hermione's wobbly knees did give out, and she sat hard onto the wooden floor of the library, her mind miles ahead of herself, trying to figure out what happened, what that look was; why Draco kept appearing near her. Her swallowed and leaned her head back on the wood, taking a few deeps breaths, though the nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach did not abate.
Hermione sat there for quite some time, until she heard even Madame Pince get up and dim the lamps, and the quiet shut of the door as she left for her rooms. The silence of the room helped to calm Hermione's jangled nerves, and slowly she returned to normal.
Where her behind began to get sore from sitting there, she slowly stood up, and made her way to where her books and essay were sitting out. With still shaky hands, she swept everything into her bag, knowing perfectly well she wouldn't be finishing that essay today. Her mind in a fuzzy daze, Hermione slipped out of the dark library and up to the Gryffindor tower and bed, not knowing that a silver haired shadow watched her leave from behind the shelves.