Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Chapter Summary: A short post-hospital wing interlude.

Author's Note: I am back, after about two years' hiatus. I wrote chapters four to about nine a year ago, immediately after posting chapter three, but my laptop crashed (as it has about three times since then) and all of my work went down the proverbial drain. My style, obviously, may have changed since then; indeed, I'm planning on editing previous chapters to my taste. Influences as to the changes come from reading Dorothy L. Sayers' Peter Wimsey mystery novels, Laurie R. King's Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell novels, and some of the fandom's best Snape/Hermione and Draco/Hermione fics.

In this chapter, I'm just testing the waters for a bit, see if I can still write, so it's quite short. I hope you enjoy it—and I would love feedback.

Dedicated to my beloved Apocalypse. I apologise for not reviewing.

A Way With Words

Chapter 4: Slipping

Diary,

Why is it that when I plan to keep a diary and have to write down something important, I feel too horrible to write about it? Why do I even keep a diary? It seems that I can't ever write about the important things. She keeps a journal, and Lavender's even seen it, but she says it's all about books and schoolwork. What does that say about Her? Is She different from me because She can write about the things that matter, or is She exactly the same as me, and… and does the fact that nothing I do features in the entries Lavender saw, mean that I am important? To her? Or is it in fact the exact opposite? Gods. If Ron ever saw this diary…

…

I… Merlin. It can't be true. Please, please, don't let this be true. I'm not Ron, and I'm not about to start being intimidating and overprotective and unreasonable and jealous. What am I going to do when she starts dating? Grill each and every one of her dates as if… as if I had any right to do so? Blimey. I wish… but the holidays will come soon, and before that, a Quidditch Match. I don't have to see her very much at all, assuming she sticks to her plan of going home for Christmas. Perhaps this will fade in her absence.

I wish it didn't matter quite so much that I'd miss her.

I wish Draco Malfoy would drown in the lake, and take his stupid hair down with him.

H. P. 

***

She could get used to this. Waking up daily in the warm, scarlet brocade of the Gryffindor dormitories, she found it refreshing to open her eyes to a room with white curtains and free sunlight. She wondered how it was that she could still hear the birds singing their morning hymns, while the Hospital Wing was very high up and the birds and trees were very far down, and far away.

She took a silent assessment of the situation. She was Hermione Granger. She was in the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts, and feeling relatively weak, but with no bruises or noted broken bones. She sighed in momentarily relief, and continued her assessment. It was Sunday. She glanced at the watch that lay on her wrist, and tried to resist a smile when she remembered that it was a present from Harry. It was still quite early; only six thirty. If she stood up now, she would be able to make the morning service at a certain chapel some distance outside of Hogsmeade.

When she'd started Hogwarts, and when her parents had asked Albus Dumbledore whether there would be any services at school on Sundays, they had been disappointed to know that no, Mr and Mrs Granger, there would not; but they had been pacified when Dumbledore gave Hermione permission to saunter out the door, early on every Sunday morning, for church.

She wasn't especially religious, and this made her wince inwardly every time she remembered it. She did retain this belief in a certain higher power from her childhood, and pray to it before examinations and such, and she did believe in His existence, and in Heaven and Hell, but that was it. No Bible passages that she memorised, no singing secret Hebrew hymns (although she suspected doing so would be more Jewish than Christian). Sometimes she felt bad that she only went to church to… get away from it all. To preserve some tie with the Muggle World (because most of the churchgoers she saw were Muggle, and were unaware of the school's existence). To keep herself sane, perhaps, with that yearly ritual of 'Peace be with You' and 'And also with you', in the midst of everything, everything that was dark and painful in the magical everything.

Hermione gingerly sat up straight and tried to stand up. She was relieved that she could; apparently, aside from a certain point of pain every time she set her foot down, she still had the strength to walk. Sitting down for a bit to spare herself while she opened the bed curtains, she was reminded of The Little Mermaid, which had been one of her favourite fairy tales when she was little, simply because the original version ended up so sad and deep and empty. Hermione found herself smiling wistfully. Now there was a comparison she could do without. She certainly didn't look like a siren, and although she could sing, she knew it was not as well. And her voice wasn't something which was delightful to the ear, and which was something anyone would miss. She was well aware that everyone got tired of her constantly rattling tongue. Even Harry. Especially Harry.

Oh, well.

The curtains parted with a whisper, and vaguely she wondered who had closed them at all; when she'd dozed off yesterday she certainly hadn't, and Madame Pomfrey had finished lecturing her and treating her before she'd gone away to the Nurse office, so Hermione doubted it had been the Nurse.

She looked up and wished she hadn't; Draco Malfoy was crouching on the floor a few feet away on her right, looking at something down on the flagstones. For some reason her cheeks tingled, and her stupid heart turned over, and she suddenly wished that she didn't have morning breath, or look too dreadful. She wondered absently where her white hair ribbon from yesterday was, knowing that her hair must be an unruly tangle. If she cleared her throat with a heightened awareness of the way the fabric of his dark pants stretched over his legs, or the way his hair fell fetchingly down to his eyes, well, what was it to anyone?

Malfoy looked up at the sound of it, and, to her surprise, did not bother to straighten up immediately, as she would have done. Different strokes, and all that. She did note, however, the hand that Malfoy quickly took to his robe pocket, as if he were pocketing whatever it was that he had been looking at on the floor.

'Malfoy,' she said.

'Granger,' he murmured.

'Why are you here?' she said, keeping either resentment or familiarity out of her voice. She was so unsure as to where she stood with anyone, especially with people like him… Oh, no, there was no one like him.

'Same reason as you, I suspect.'

'Lake?'

'Unfortunately. Since last ni—yesterday afternoon.'

'Pansy must be devastated.'

He looked up sharply. 'If you're about to make some comment about no one warming her bed while I'm away…'

Draco watched thoughtfully as her eyes widened, and he wondered what it was like, not really meaning anything mean that you unwittingly said. 'Of course not,' she retorted. 'I was just—it was just conversation.'

He shifted his stance, and for the first time looked uncertain. 'Are you—are you all right?'

'Fine,' she said automatically, startled. 'What's it to you?'

'Pansy didn't mean—' he began, as though he were trying to apologise; but he stopped, and it looked to Hermione that he changed what he had been about to say. 'Because if you're not, then it would mean I won't be, too,' he said, reminding her that they had both been in the lake and would, theoretically speaking, suffer quite the same effects. 'Where are you going?' he added abruptly as she stood up, wincing almost imperceptibly.

'Church,' she said, trying to keep the little pain out of her expression as she slid her feet into the slippers that came with the hospital gown. Then she realised what she had said, and wondered if that had been a wrong move in the façade game that people were always playing. Were you supposed to say that to a Malfoy, instead of 'Mind your own business'?

His face changed. 'You're in pain,' he said softly.

'Just a bit, Malfoy, and—and why am I telling you this? Go away. You're obviously going out yourself,' she added, glancing at his ready apparel.

'I am,' he said. 'Madame Pomfrey came and told me I could.'

As if on cue, the nurse herself opened the door to the room and walked in. 'Oh, good, you're awake, Miss Granger. I'm just going to give you something, and I'm going to take a spot of blood from you, and you can go on and have your breakfast.'

Both women paused briefly to look as Draco Malfoy strode out of the room without excusing himself, although he did not bang the Wing door.

The blood was given and the potion taken, although Hermione couldn't help but wonder what potion it was, and took note of the ingredients she could smell: Tansy Extract. Monkshood, combined with Opaleye blood to cancel the poisonous effects and intensify others…

***

She had got downstairs to the dormitory without anything untoward happening, and entered the Common Room to realise with a small smile at that no one appeared to be awake. The Gryffindors tended to sleep in during Saturday nights and make the best of their last free night until the academic week.

Her foolish, foolish heart seemed to move for the second time that morning when she saw Harry sprawled on one of the couches, sound asleep. Had he been waiting for her? She looked away and tried not to feel so hopeful.

***

Journal,

If Only she were stupid, or exceptionally ugly, or unkind. It would all be so much easier.

D. M.

***

Filch usually monitored the Sunday gate, and that morning she was surprised to see Hagrid standing by the hidden door, which sort of reminded her of something out of The Secret Garden, with the green vines coiled over it like snakes… friendly snakes, that didn't look quite so poisonous, and lent a certain beauty to the scene. She smiled.

'Good morning, Hagrid,' she said as she came up, braids bouncing. 'Where's Mr Filch?'

Hagrid smiled a smile that did not quite reach his eyes, and she felt a bit troubled. Not on Sunday, she groaned inwardly…

He saw the look on her face and tried to make her relax. 'Not ter worry, Hermione, it's not anythin' ter worry abou'. Filch just got called 'way.'

'I—please tell me if something bad happens,' she said, wishing the moment the words came out that she hadn't said anything. 'Or something good, actually. I'm so tired of waiting for news, for him to pounce…' 

Before Hagrid could say anything, she straightened and felt the corners of her lips lift again in a not quite genuine grin again.

'I'll see you later,' she said, and walked out of the gateway that Hagrid held open.

And snorted.

'Here we go,' Hermione muttered when Draco Malfoy looked up.

For the first time, he smiled at her, although this smile wasn't particularly friendly. It was more sarcastic than anything else. 'So glad to see me, Granger.'

'What are you doing here?'

An elegant shrug. 'Going on my way to service. You?'

When she didn't say anything, he hinted, 'My mother is Catholic, Granger.' Still nothing, but those big, curious, incredulous eyes. 'I didn't say we were saints,' he said, irritated, and this seemed to wake her up.

'Run along, then,' she said. His sinister smile had set the mood. No more casual conversation, eh? She thought, fingering the wand inside her coat pocket. Hermione just remembered that he could be dangerous. Was dangerous. Yesterday wasn't anything to base anything on.

'I'm coming with you,' he said, and lifted himself up off the tree on which he had been leaning, to face the path leading to the slightly secluded chapel.

Without any choice, Hermione held the wand tighter in her hand and walked on.

As they continued, and as Hermione gradually forgot the pain that came with every footstep, the tension seemed to fade, and she was ready to say again, when the chapel was finally in view; 'I can't believe you're Catholic, Malfoy.'

She was privately pleased to see that the defences hadn't gone up yet. 'I can't, either,' he said, with a smirk that she could get used to and which she almost never saw on Harry anymore. It hurt to realise that she missed it. 'My mother usually meets me here on Sundays. She's been ill lately. I don't think she'll be able to come,' he murmured, and Hermione wished so hard that she hadn't seen that little flash of sadness in his eyes, heard that little bell of gloom in his voice.

'I hope she will,' she said, and astonished herself.

He hadn't time to say anything more, because they had to step inside and give way to the church music that flowed softly about them.

***

If Only, indeed. He tried not to notice her hair that looked, must feel, so like the ones that clung to the white hair ribbon that he held and fingered in his pocket. He tried not to see her neck, and the little row of freckles across her nose that he found, to his amazement, terribly cute. He tried not to think about why he was walking to church with Hermione Granger, and sitting down with her, and listening to her sing.

The only person he'd ever heard sing like that was The Mater.

The light filtered in through the stained glass windows of the church, bathing the priest in light yellow and blue and red and green and purple as he stood in the pulpit. He opened his mouth, and Draco knew the man must be saying something, but all he could hear was birdsong, and light breath, and the swish of her dark blue skirt on the wood as she sat down.

What were you supposed to do when it came to the part to say 'Peace be with you'?—Kiss her on the cheek? Most people would. Would he have liked to? Hell, yeah. But all she did was look at him gravely, as if wanting him to promise that he'd keep the peace but holding little hope for it. He wanted to kiss her.

The mass ended, and people went filing out. Draco wondered if all of them except him felt light or hope after services. He wasn't particularly religious, himself, and much of the reason he went to service at all was the fact that his mother would meet him there. (Why hadn't they ever seen Hermione there before?)

He hadn't been about to  go today, because Narcissa Malfoy had been ill lately and it wasn't likely she would be allowed to go out, and to so far. But then Hermione had said she was going, and suddenly that gave him a reason to dress up properly and walk all the way down to the Gate. Even if Narcissa wasn't there.

'She wasn't there,' Hermione said once they stepped out of the chapel.

'I noticed,' he said flatly, knowing that she was referring to his mother, and that she felt sorry.

'I'm sorry,' she said predictably. 'I should have liked to meet her.' At his sharp look, she hastened to add, 'I mean, see her outside, of… when your father isn't around. Is she… is she afraid of him?'

They both kept on walking, but Draco could barely restrain from taking her by the shoulders and shaking her. 'What made you ask?'

'I didn't mean that in the way it sounded,' she said, half almost-angry, half apologetic. 'I only meant to ask… just forget it.'

He didn't say anything, only kept walking. Until the soft sound of her footsteps on the dried leaves stopped, and he had to stop and turn to her in question.

'Hm?'

'Why are you doing this, Draco Malfoy?' she blurted out.

Draco was genuinely puzzled. 'What?' 

'Don't play dumb,' she said. 'You can't keep at it for very long.'

He tried not to look so pleased with himself, and failed. 'Why, was that a veiled little compliment, Granger?'

She flushed an angry red. 'Don't twist my words. I'm not letting you change the subject, either,' Hermione added, and he didn't know whether to smirk or to scowl. He still wanted to kiss her, though.

This didn't change when she put one hand on her hip and stood with her weight to one side. Vixen, he thought, and wondered absently if she could possibly know how appealing that was, before he convinced himself that no, Malfoy, it was not at all appealing.

'I can't figure it out,' she was saying, and he paid attention. 'It would be nice to think that you're suddenly reformed, or with newly discovered morality, but considering the past few years I can't help but think there's a really, really good reason that you haven't killed me yet.' Her tone was flippant, but she truly hoped he wasn't going to do anything. Pleasegodno. Her careful eyes watched his hands, and tried to look at his eyes at the same time.

His careful gaze encompassed all of her little actions, and he raised an eyebrow. 'Don't be so nervous, Granger. It grates.'

'I can't trust you,' she blurted out.

'I've behaved myself perfectly well since yesterday, Ms Granger,' he said with the tone of the mildly affronted.

'I wouldn't put anything past you,' she said. 'Know thine enemy is not something I've taken the time to do yet.'

Draco Malfoy knew his face didn't change. Years of practice made him sure of that. You could stick a knife in his back and he wouldn't flinch, if not flinching were necessary. It was just that, when she said enemy, he felt that some momentary pain—momentary, but no less deep—would spill out of his eyes and betray the biggest secret he'd ever kept from the world—and from himself.

It couldn't do to back up just yet, he thought, his mind struggling to get back on the fencing game of words. Too obvious. Right. Strategy: feign that you're feigning offense. 'I am hurt, Granger,' he said, an effective, theatrical hand flying to his chest.

She didn't laugh or get angry. Instead she looked shocked, and Draco couldn't figure out why, until Hermione said, her eyes veiled a bit in sadness, 'Too long, Malfoy.'

'What?'

'You paused. Just one second too long.'

Silence lay before them, embedded heavily in the air. He looked at her, and the detached part of him wondered just who she had practiced verbal chess with. He said as much, in an absent, distracted tone.

'… I mean, Potter and Weasley would lose a battle of wits with a rubber duck.' 

A tiny quirk of a smile. 'Professor Snape is quite willing to teach me how to spar verbally,' she said. 'Helping him on the Wolfsbane is not exactly my idea of fun, but one does learn things.'

'Lupin?'

'Mm-hmm.'

He took a second too long to speak again, and the smart remark he would have made wouldn't have fitted in smoothly. He felt like a tennis player who failed to toss the ball back; he watched his repartee sitting on the ground, sullenly, just like a fallen ball.

'I'm slipping,' he said with a sigh.

'I know' was all she said for a while. Moments later, they turned and walked back home, one feeling as though the world had turned upside down, and the other feeling rather ashamed and embarrassed, and strangely naked in spite of his designer clothing.

***

PS: I would like to offer an apology for my characterisation of Pansy Parkinson in the last chapters. I have actually grown to write her; Save Yourself and another author's Pressed Flowers made certain of it.