Hermione is watching the dark cloud of starlings circle and swerve, blooming and inverting on breezes. They cut the plain sky like a swarm of bees, and, for a minute, they held her attention and withdrew her from the happening world. She was not in a good state. The only reason she'd quit the warmth of the Common Room was that her eyes ached from reading. Books had been her escape, and through them she had forgotten the dark drama of the dungeons from the night before. He had done things to her that she'd never felt before. He'd said things had had altered her heart - irrevocably?



Scar tissue that I wish you saw,

Sarcastic Mr. Know-It-All

He'd strayed out of his place. He'd revealed too much of himself, and it make her shiver. The words of the American song returned to her. The lyrics rose up uninvited. They imposed on her mood. The words fit into her like a tongue inside a mouth. She began to recite them. It was a spell. The wind woke, and the music pushed through the air to produce bittersweet chords.

Push me up, against the wall

(she winced,)

Young girl in a push-up bra

Fallin' all over herself

To lick your heart and taste your health 'cuz-

Hermione shut herself up.

'I need to forget,' she snapped to herself, 'not agitate memories.' It made her throat ache. Her lips tingled. Her skin retraced his doodling fingers up her spine; the bitten lip and the angelic panic that flooded and drowned her like the shock of neon-white sky.

-Blood loss in a bathroom stall -

She'd run, then, and she'd run back to the tower, only to realise Ron and Harry would be waiting in the common room. What would they say to a girl drunk speechless, fifteen times knotted, whose breath was stolen by love?



With the birds I'll share this lonely view

With the birds I'll share this lonely view

Hermione's cheeks were wet, but she made no sound. A man entered the stillness of the parapet and attempts to draw her into the folds of his embrace. She resists, thinking with odd calm how he smells of smoke.

Soft spoken..

Step outside,

but not to brawl

Autumn's sweet-

She couldn't look at him. He steps to the edge of the tower and stands in oustanding frame like a crow cast against paper-cloud sky.



With the birds I'll share-

"I'm sorry."

His candle face had ebbed away to nothing, because she had burnt him down so dangerously far.



With the birds I'll share-

"It was my fault," she replies shortly. "I started it."

He opens his mouth, but she blusters on.

"I was lonely. I'm young. Only."



I'll share-

"Only?"

Scar tissue that I wish you saw

"I mean, I'm only young. Of course I'm lonely. I had no idea."

He looked miserable then, and she felt like kicking him. She could have ridden out on a wave of spite. His face had lost all of its former charm.

"I'm glad that's clear, Miss Granger."

He left.

With the birds, I'll share..

Close your eyes,

and I'll kiss you 'cuz-

Her cheeks were nearly dry, though her eyes were still wet and cold as the gusts of wind finally found her.