We interrupt this extended break from the internet to bring you this update. Thank you for being so (willingly/unwillingly) patient.
Fun fact: My current state of mind = Hermione in this chapter x 100 (minus the involvement of a blond distraction.)

This chapter - hell, the next ten chapters - are dedicated to mcal for being flat-out, all-round amazing.

DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING BUT THIS SO-CALLED PLOT.

.

.

There was a part of her – the part that pressed ice under her eyes every morning and prevented her from meeting Theo's particular, penetrative gaze – that knew she was stretching herself too thin.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act...

Fell Hermione.

(Literally, flat on her arse, as she attempted to annotate the annotations in her Runes textbook while skipping down a staircase.)

She was the shadow, too – of herself, of her perseverance. Just a spectral mass that hovered and performed the things that Real Hermione had instructed her to perform. (After which, Real Hermione had crawled into a titanium sarcophagus and gone to sleep.)
Shadow Hermione carried on.
Now to Transfiguration, now to the greenhouses, and now... now... racing up to the library, and now to her room because everywhere else was so noisy –

The walking shadow strutting and fretting her hour upon the stage –

But her resolve never wavered and her schedule never slipped. So really, Hermione Granger was fine.

She was fine at seven thirty on a Friday evening, in the library that was more crowded than usual, but still reasonably quiet.

The mild light-headedness she was experiencing was pleasant. The throbbing behind her eyes had an interesting tempo. The fact that she had slid so low in her chair because she couldn't hold herself up was easily ignorable.

See? Fine.

She took a break after a foot-long elaboration on planetary cycles to massage the base of her thumb. Across the table, Malfoy – with his impeccable posture and all – continued to write on a parchment that was quite clearly longer than a foot. How on earth had he managed to surpass her?
She slipped a little further down, and rested her head against the back of her chair. Her neck had been having a hard time handling the weight of her head.

"Did you ever go back to that muggle bookshop?" she asked with a barely perceptible crackle in her voice.

There was this thing he did – an understated stiffening of sorts – every time she spoke to him unexpectedly; like he was bracing himself or summoning divine patience or something. It annoyed her that he did it and it annoyed her that she noticed it.

"Once," he muttered, (clipped, clear-cut – thank you very much,) then went on to flip very deliberately through his textbook.
Hermione hummed, (airy, intrigued – I see, do go on,) and asked, "Buy anything?"

She lifted her arms behind her head and gripped the top rail of her chair, stretching her shoulder blades in a very satisfying manner. He huffed and closed his eyes in a theatrical show of aggravation before looking at her.
His face said that he was looking at the shoddiest, most pathetic creature he'd ever seen. His voice said, "I didn't get a chance to."
"How come?" she persisted. She kicked her legs out, pulling them taught and straight and dragging herself lower. Her elbows folded awkwardly on either side of her head like blinkers. They put her entire focus on the crotchety person in front of her.
He huffed again, but this time he loosened. His shoulders relaxed.

"I was just browsing, minding my own business, when a woman as old as the hills barged in and shoved a book into my face." He paused then, giving Hermione a shifty, speculative look. "She was short. Terrible hair, grating voice... now I'm wondering if she was you in disguise."
"Hardy har," Hermione mumbled.

She had an appalling, outrageous idea that involved sliding right off her chair... crawling under the table... sitting on the floor by his feet and resting her heavy head on his lap while he draped is very, very soft looking cloak over her –

Fucking hell. She forced herself to shimmy inelegantly into a more upright position as he went on –

"So she began climbing all over me, shoving this bloody book at me while screeching, embrace the word o' god, lad. what are orl these books compared to the word o' god - nowt, nowt! Let the lord guide ya to salvation – screeching, I tell you – and I tried to shove her off over and over again–"

His put-on accent was absolutely atrocious. Hermione gasped, "Oh god!" and began to laugh.

"Exactly," he drawled darkly, "She was raving. Then the owner came along – Slughorn-shaped bloke – and he began shouting at her – What's tha' doing, mum? leave 's customers alone, mad old hag! Get art o' the shop! Mum, gi' over, mum!"
Hermione, stooped and boneless, choked out, "What did you do?"
"I fucking scarpered, of course. They were primed to bring the building down with their howling."

A jarring, strangled sound tore out of the back of Hermione's throat as she laughed.
"I suppose," she wheezed, "That encounter did nothing to inspire an interest in actually reading the Bible?"
"I am quite done with dogmatic belief systems and their terrifying propagators."

Oh, well done, you laggard, she thought but didn't say. Instead, she went with: "If the Bible-woman and Voldemort were pitted against each other, who do you think would win?"

Her upper body had spilled onto the table by this time. She looked up at him through her eyelashes, waiting for him to turn cold.

But he grinned, he grinned, and said, "She would, without a doubt. You know how he was; performative and dramatic... all those long speeches and flourishes. Bible-woman would've bashed him over the head before he could even begin his dance."
"Incidentally," Hermione laughed, "Aggressive proponents like her are actually called Bible-bashers."
"How appropriate."

Ginny dragged her down the staircase after staircase at a frenzied pace, but Hermione was fine because that wild and physically taxing bout of manhandling was prefaced by the phrase, Harry's here.
That fact effectively negated her intense fatigue and left her in a state that was, as previously mentioned –

F I N E.

They spilled out of the main doors and into the courtyard, where Harry was perched on the low stone stairs. He wasn't alone – Percy was standing right next to him with his hands full of important looking parchments. That isn't to say that the parchments themselves possessed any qualities that suggested importance: It was the way he held them, and his lofty expression, that lent them that status.

Hermione and Ginny settled on either side of Harry, and he put his arm around the latter and kissed her temple.
"Hi," he grumbled.
"What brings you here?" Hermione asked.
"Kingsley dragged me along to speak to McGonagall," he replied with a shrug, "To talk about this war-anniversary do they're planning. And it's always nice to have me around when talking about shit like that, you know."
Percy clicked his tongue. "The Minister respects you a great deal, Harry. By keeping you in the loop he is–"
"Yeah, Yeah," Harry scoffed, "He asked me if I would make a speech, too."
"What did you say to that?" Ginny asked.
Harry stuck out his tongue and blew a loud raspberry. Percy pursed his lips.

Ha. Percy pursed his prissy lips.

"And where is this... do... happening?" Hermione enquired around a yawn.
"Here, of course," Harry said blandly, "The Great Hall."
"So what – the whole student body is to attend?" said Ginny.
"Only those of age," Percy answered, "And it isn't a do," he added with a scowl, "It's a memorial dinner."

Persecuted Percy pursed his prissy lips primly.

"You know what Ron said?" Harry interjected, "It ought to be a don't. As in, don't do it."

Persecuted Percy pursed his prim lips with pristine pissy prissiness.

"I should get back to the Headmistresses office to see if I am needed. Ginny, Hermione... Harry–" he nodded to them in turn, "I'll see you later."

He left and Harry groaned and planted his face in Ginny's hair.

For some time, they were silent. The early afternoon sun was harsh, its white hot light flooded the ground and kissed the tips of their shoes. Hermione yawned again and reached up to rub her eyes.

"Are you all right?"

She blinked around at Harry who was eyeing her with some concern. But Ginny spoke up before she could –

"The N.E.W.T.s are a little over a month away, and she's Hermione Granger – of course she isn't all right."
"I'm perfectly fine," Hermione opposed deftly, "How's Ron?"
"Good. He um... he..." Harry gave her a funny, uneasy peek, "He's on a date with Verity."
"Who's that?"
"The shop assistant at Wheezes."
"Oh. Right."

Hermione stared at her knees, taken aback. That was, irrefutably, an unexpected development.

"No!" Harry moaned, "No! Don't tell me you're jealous. I can't deal with jealous Hermione again–"
"Sod off, I'm not jealous!"
"The worst part of sixth year, it was!"
"Oh really?" she drawled, "That was the worst part?"
"Yes!" he affirmed as Ginny laughed, "You were so painfully, obviously over-the-top–"
"And what about you then?" she exclaimed, "Hissing and spitting every time Ginny showed up with Dean?"
"I was the epitome of dignity and composure–"

They went on in that vein till they were all grinning and finally, Hermione left to give the two of them some time alone.
She walked slowly and lightly; floated like a butterfly down corridors – Catch her if you can! It was as dark inside as it was bright outside, and dazzling streaks of dustlight criss-crossed across passageways through high windows.

She yawned, trying to remember if Verity had brown hair or blonde.

As she turned a corner and drifted into the sixth floor, her journey that had thus far been unimpeded by anyone of consequence came to a pause. Malfoy was leaning against the wall, with one leg folded and resting against the stones behind him. He was eating something out of a brightly coloured packet – Apple Rings, she realised as she got nearer.
The distance between them shrank and shrank, and she wondered how exactly she ought to go about acknowledging his existence, and if she ought to at all. A nod? A brisk Malfoy as she breezed past? Dare she... smile?

Before she knew it, she was standing right before him, and tumbling out of her mouth were the words, "Hello, Draco."

Well, that was one way to do it.

He kept looking at something over her head, but his mouth twitched upwards with amusement.
"Am I supposed to be particularly pissed off with you about something?" he asked
She rolled her eyes, (but not too dramatically, for she was sure they were too tired to perform something that impressive,) and replied, "Your name is Draco, is it not?"
"However did you find out?"
"So why shouldn't I call you by your name?"
"That's a fair point, Hermione."

Never before had her name been said with such scathing mockery and contumely. It was that same inflection with which people might say cockroach, or Tory.
Or mudblood.

He still wasn't looking at her and she wanted him out of her sight. But then something danced at the bottom edge of her vision, and looking down, she saw it was his packet of Apple Rings. He'd turned the mouth towards her, and as she blinked, he shook it. Twice.
Nonplussed, stumped, thrown for a fucking loop, she reached in and took one. And not a moment after, he carelessly took one for himself and chucked it into his mouth. One that her hand maybe, possibly could've brushed against.

"Thanks," she muttered.
"Hm," he grunted.
But his eyes were even now fixed on something behind her.
"What are you looking at?" she wondered out loud.
Once again, his mouth twitched. "Longbottom and Abbott are having a flaming row over there in what they believe is a well concealed alcove."
"What?"
Hermione spun around. There was a cluster of pillars in front of her, so she shifted a bit to the side and – sure enough – she saw Neville and Hannah embrangled in an exchange that involved a lot of heated gesticulation.
"Oh–! But what's happened?" she cried.
"Not a clue," Malfoy replied, "They've put up a bloody silencing charm. But – Ah! She just thumped him again! Hah! That's the third time!"

He sounded preposterously blithesome. She, with an equal amount of outrage, whirled about to face him once more.

"You're foul!"
"Sure–"
"Standing here – scarfing down sweets like – like they're some sort of spectacle–"
"They are."
"Well, I refuse to participate!"
"Nobody asked you to," he drawled, "Toddle along."

He'd kept watching the poor couple keenly through that entire exchange. Not once had his focus wavered. Arse.

Hermione cleared her throat. "I will do just that."
"Brilliant."
"But first I want another Apple Ring."

A pithy little laugh burst out of his throat, and it inserted itself perfectly within the stream of crackles that the packet made as he held it out to her. She was tempted to pull out a whole handful... but made do with just two rings.
She left then. And only when she'd reached the foot of the staircase leading up to the seventh floor did she look back over her shoulder.
He was still standing right where she'd left him, chomping away and being a prat.

Hermione had been marching to Herbology while caught up in extracting her textbook from her bag when, in her state of regrettable distraction, she'd collided into Susan. There was an Ouch! and an Oh no! and all the contents of her bag had fallen pell-mell onto the dusty ground.
But that was fine, and she was fine. Nothing that couldn't be solved with some summoning and cleaning charms and a group of helpful friends. All was well. She wasn't even late for her lesson. Her head wasn't even swimming all that much.

She made a last minute amendment to her seating plan, abandoning the stool next to Ginny in favour of the one beside a rather forlorn looking Neville.

"Are you okay?" she whispered after their task for the day had been set. (Surprisingly tame for Sprout: They'd been provided with a pile of leaves and simply had to identify which plant they belonged to.)
"Yeah? Well... no. Not really."
He twirled a shrivelfig leaf between two fingers and stared at it morosely.
"What's the matter?" she ventured cautiously.
"Hannah's furious with me," he mumbled, "I took up this offer to go to Switzerland after school, and... well, I didn't really consult her about it, and she doesn't think we'll be able to make things work..."
"Wait... Switzerland?"
"Yeah," he sighed, "The Institut d'Etudes Herbologiques has offered me a researcher's position–"
"Wow! Neville that's incredible!"
"I still don't believe it, honestly. I didn't even apply myself. Never thought I'd... I mean... Professor Sprout did it, all of it."
"She made the right call," Hermione smiled, "You deserve this. Absolutely."
"Yeah?"
"Of course! And just give Hannah some time."
He looked glumly over to where his fractious paramour sat, pointedly ignoring him.
"She'll come around," Hermione pressed, "It's obvious to one and all that you're a brilliant herbologist."
He flushed, and at long last, mustered up a smile.

After the lesson, she watched him timidly approach Hannah and offer to carry her bag. She refused, but didn't stomp away from him either. They walked towards the castle together, with a good three feet between them.

"Did you find out what happened?"

Malfoy – and Theo, Luna, Ginny, and Dean – had appeared by her side, all looking askance.

"None of your business," Hermione snapped.
"Let me guess," Malfoy prattled on, "Did he accidentally set her hair on fire? No? Her skirt? Her tits? Dear god, not her fan–"
"Shut up!" she yelped.
"Nah," Theo countered, pretending Hermione hadn't spoken, "Finnigan's the pyromaniac. Our friend Neville Longbottom has other issues."
"Coordination?" Dean ventured.
"Yep," Theo agreed, "He was probably aiming for one thing, and ended up going somewhere... else."
"You are all vile," Hermione ground out, looking at Ginny and Luna to back her up.
But Ginny was sniggering and Luna –

Luna said, "I'm sure Neville is a wonderful lover. I've kissed him, and he was very good at it. Oh, don't worry Theo – it was before you and I got together."

It was moments like these that convinced Hermione that Luna was honestly the most brilliant one of them all. For hours after her proclamation, Theo had kittens over and over again as he badgered her for the background, explanation, and justification for that kiss. Everybody else watched with amusement. The subject of Neville and Hannah's relationship didn't come up again.

Hermione was not fine.

Dad's birthday was a day and a half away, and taking the time difference into account, she had to send his present by that night at the latest.
For context, it was already eleven thirty PM, and she still had a good portion of the scarf left to knit. Oh, why had she decided to gift him a handmade scarf? Just because he'd been so enthusiastic in his appreciation for the one she had knitted for Theo? She could just as easily have picked up a book and he'd have been thrilled.

But no – she'd chosen to knit, and now she was stuck trying to mind her needle AND the book that was hovering in front of her, as there was also a considerable amount of reading to get through for Arithmancy the next morning.
No, Hermione was not fine. Hermione felt downright hysterical. Every time she'd get caught up in reading she'd end up missing a few stitches, and then she'd get involved in amending her error and forget about reading and everything was just awful. Simply frightful.
But the thin, light wool in English-cricket-team-blue was going along the business of becoming a scarf rather well. She hoped it would make dad feel better about being stuck in a sea of Aussies while the world cup commenced back in England.

Then, a few minutes short of midnight, Theo wandered down into the common room, sat beside her on the sofa, and very patly informed her that she looked like a nutjob.
"I know," she croaked, and much to her chagrin, she felt her eyes well up a little.
Which, of course, horrified Theo into a tizzy of sorts, enough to compel him to snatch up her hovering book and begin to read it out loud.
(That made her want to cry even more, but she reined it in for his sake.)

Her life got somewhat easier after that. Somewhat because the text was littered with equations and Greek symbols that Theo had no idea how to navigate. Nevertheless, he stuck with it for five entire pages before –
"Oh, fuck me!" he groaned, "This page is full of damnable swiggly things!"
"It's alright, Theo," she placated gently, "You've been enormously helpful. I'll manage just fine now."
He frowned. "No, you won't. Not if we want Robert to get our scarf on time."
"Our scarf?"
"Right. I'll try my best to – Oh good!" He perked up suddenly; "Problem solved! DRACO! C'MERE, WILL YOU?"
"What are you calling him for?!" Hermione demanded in alarm.

But Theo paid her no mind, waving animatedly at something – someone – behind her. An odd sensation that she could best describe as 'internal squirming' took her under its thrall.

("Theo. This is not necessary!"
"Would you prefer I call that arse-faced pillock, Longbottom? Can he even read? He'll probably just try to kiss you!"
"Get over that, will you–"
"No. Now hush. Draco! DRACO!")

As her insides writhed, she simply stared at her deftly flashing needles, and two figures came over and occupied the corner of her vision.

"What?" said Malfoy, in a tetchy sort of way that did not bode well for anyone.
"Be a good lad and read the rest of this chapter, will you?"

The needles clicked against each other like clashing swords.

"What are you doing with an Arithmancy book?"
"Not for me, silly chap. As you can see, Hermione's a bit occupied, and we can help her out by reading aloud to her."
"Occupied," Malfoy intoned blandly, "With... knitting."

And that's when Hermione finally looked up. Malfoy was grimacing at her labour like it was cat vomit. Just behind him, Mandy was watching the whole scene with open boredom.

"Well, Hermione clearly needs to rethink her priorities." He turned to Theo, "Goodnight."
Theo grinned. "You owe me a favour, Draco."
"Yes," he replied with a scowl, "You. Not Granger."
"Well, since if you refuse, I'll be stuck trying to plough my way though this shit, it's definitely me you'll be helping."
"Or," Malfoy argued, "Granger can handle herself like the big girl she is, and we both can–"
"But look at her! She isn't big at all–"
"Honestly, Theo," Hermione cut in cogently, "I'll manage–"
"See! Well, goodnight–"

Malfoy spun around, but Theo caught the end of his robe and yanked him back.
"I told you to hush, Hermione," he reprimanded pleasantly, "Don't mind Draco, you know he's a drama queen. Draco, Draco... you owe me one, you prick!"
"Get your paws off me!" Malfoy growled.
But then, much to Hermione's great shock, he snatched the book from Theo and fell into the vacant armchair in front of them.
"Are you seriously–?!" Mandy sputtered.
"Yeah," he snapped.

And then he began to read.

Hermione gaped at him for the duration of four sentences. Mandy, highly aggravated, sat on the arm of his chair, and for a brief second, her arm hovered over his shoulders before landing limply on her own lap. Theo put his feet up on the centre table and sat back comfortably.
The text poured out of Draco with practiced fluidity: He'd obviously already prepared for the next day's lesson. Even the way he recited equations had an easy staccato rhythm. Every word seeped through the fog around her mind. She wove a scarf and he wove a bridge from the book to her brain.
Perhaps it was fatigue and relief – perhaps it was the way he said Theta – but she wondered...
What if she, like Penelope, undid her stitches night after night so that he would have to keep reading to her?

Instead she knitted faster than ever, even taking a chance on adding the famous crown-and-three-lions emblem in one corner. It was tiny and wonky, but quite satisfactorily discernable.

Malfoy made it past the "swiggly" pages and moved onto the next lot that was full of medieval suppositions about Ancient Greek methodology. His opinions coloured his tone, and by the time he was through, she knew how little he thought of Gabriele of Padua, and how impressive he found Leonardo of Pisa. He wasn't wrong.
The last two pages dealt with fine-tuned modernised versions of that methodology. That bit he read at double his previous pace, somehow without compromising the clarity. Or perhaps he hadn't changed a thing, and Hermione's brain was up to its usual late night antics.
The scarf was a little over one-quarter away from completion.

"...opened a way for great advancement in the field of Arithmancy." – With that, he snapped the book shut and dumped it on the table by Theo's feet. Both he and Mandy had walked away before Hermione had time to internalise their departure.
"Thanks!" she called to his back, and he didn't acknowledge it.

She went back to knitting in silence that was occasionally disrupted by Theo's erratic snores.

The day had gone by quite finely.

She hadn't overslept, despite getting just an hour and a half of shut-eye. The Arithmancy lesson had been a whole lot of fun; she's even out-performed Malfoy, (and he'd looked sour and splenetic about that fact.)

By the time she settled down for dinner, she felt placid like someone who'd been lobotomised and she watched the day die its ruddy death through the Great Hall ceiling. She was meant to meet the group in the library after, for Transfiguration practice, but she'd already made her excuses. The fact was that by then, everybody was very aware of the date that was creeping up on them and it showed on their faces. And they tried their hardest to nullify that by acting out, with Ginny being the most outrageous of them all. Just that morning, she'd set off a few dung bombs in a corridor that Filch was cleaning, an ode to Fred or something, and ran off cackling louder than Peeves.
Hermione wanted none of that.

So she slipped away and found a small windowed nook to sit in and read through her notes on her own. As the sky darkened, her reflection appeared in the glass, her reflection, HER, and it would never again be Bellatrix's.
She rested her forehead against her reflection's and closed her eyes –––

She woke up with a start, kicking her legs out and causing her book to fall to the floor.
"Shit," she hissed, and slipped off the ledge.
Hastily, she gathered her belongings and checked her watch: Eleven-twenty.

Three times she nearly tripped over her own feet in her scurry to get to the common room. She had to be in the forest by midnight to collect mallowsweet leaves for her Repleo draft, (cut with a copper clipper that was – bugger it all – sitting on her bedside table.)
She nearly collided into Draco at the entrance. She was rushing through the door with her hair in her face, and he was looking down, slipping a drawstring pouch into his pocket and –
"OH!" she dug her heels into the ground and stopped inches away from his chest. She blinked up at his blank face as she regained her bearings. Then she asked, "Are you headed to the forest?"
He raised his eyebrows.
"All right... good. Me too," she gabbled, "Just have to collect something from my room. Would you wait for me? Yeah, okay. I'll just – just be back–"

She made her way up the stairs in a solid sprint. Five minutes to, to five minutes after midnight: That was the small window the potion afforded them to collect the herb.
When she raced back down, Malfoy was nowhere to be found. Bastard. She shifted into fifth gear, scuttling down, down, and down, and she finally caught up with him on the fifth floor.

"You!" she gasped as she fell into step with him, "You didn't wait!"
"Didn't want to," he jabbed nonchalantly.
"I hardly took two minutes–"
"I don't care how long you took. I'm not exactly interested in company right now, and certainly not yours."
Hermione's temper sparked at once. "Well, too bloody bad! I have the same assignment as you, as you well know. I'm not coming along for the pleasure of your company either!"
He made a dismissive, mocking sound through his teeth. "Then let's not talk, yeah?"
"I remember the last time we were in the forest together at night. You were terrified by the prospect of being alone–"
"What are you talking about?"
"You know... detention. In first year!"
"First–?! Oh, Merlin, shut the fuck up, Granger."
"Fine!"

Yes – fine. Fine finefinefine. She moved to the opposite railing of the staircase, and they descended to the main entrance in absolute zero silence.
The grounds were quiet and empty. The summer night was all warmth, cut by gentle cool breezes. The sky was full of stars and an enormous moon. Hermione peaked at Malfoy just as he glanced up at the sky and scowled. There was certainly something off about him. He seemed taut with tension, his left hand kept flexing, and his mouth was turned down. Well, clearly he was as affected by what was looming as anyone else.
Yet, he was the only one being an arse about it.

As they neared the edge of the forest, Hermione spotted Padma, Susan, and Anthony just stepping into it. She didn't call out to them.

Hermione and Malfoy lit their wands the moment the forest engulfed them. Tree trunks bleached by moonlight towered around them like the columns of a marble sepulchre. Crickets sang over and under the noise of their muted footfalls and the tender rustling of their cloaks.
Hermione trained her wand on the various shrubs around her hunting for small leaves with those telltale serrated edges.
She couldn't see her other three classmates anymore. Just one surly, sulky Malfoy person. She wished she possessed the level of dickishness required to be such a slave to her moods. She had every reason to be snapping and barking at people too. How on earth had Theo put up with him all his life?

All thoughts ceased when she spotted a tuft of mallowsweet clumped around a thicket of trees. She dropped to her knees and began snipping – and Malfoy followed suit. However, she had to stop within moments.
"These aren't mature enough," she muttered, "We should go further."
"Okay," he replied gruffly.
They squeezed their way through the trees, and crouched low, scrutinising each sprig and twig carefully. Malfoy swore when he walked into a low branch. Hermione giggled.
Little by little, scrounging around in that dense patch of vegetation, they managed to fill their pouches with leaves.

Hermione was dusting the back of her cloak, ready to head back, when a flicker of light caught her eye. It was a flash amid the deeply intertwined branches of two trees. Piqued, she moved closer, and with a wave of her hand, rendered the twigs transparent, revealing a clearing...

"Oh my god," she breathed, "Malfoy! Look!"

She'd stumbled upon an actual centaur ritual! They stood in a circle, bare-chests smeared with something red, and their hind legs clicking against the ground in perfect synchrony.

"Holy shit! We need to leave!" Malfoy whispered frantically.
"What?" she hissed back, "Are you mad? Do you have any idea how rare–"
"They're centaurs, you idiot! Do you have any idea what they'll do if they spot us?"

One of the centaurs – with dark hair and a darker tail – trotted over to the centre of the circle, where there was a small pile of shrubbery, and lit it on fire.

"That's mallowsweet, isn't it? And sage? Oh, they're going to–"
"–Granger, get back here!"

Hermione stepped on a twig and the noise it made rang out like a gun shot. And everything she thought she knew about centaurs went flying out the window. They didn't leap into a fury. They didn't come bounding towards her screaming bloody murder.
No: She'd startled them, and they collapsed. Every one of them. Flop. Thud. Like fainting goats.

"Run!" Malfoy ordered, and this time she obeyed.
Running through the thicket was like wading through a swamp. Malfoy was ahead of her, chanting "fuck fuck fuck fuck," which finally drove the severity of the situation into Hermione's head. Was this divine comeuppance for what she'd done to Umbridge? Surely whoever was up there agreed that that old bag got what she deserved?
They made it out of the forest unpersued. No hoofs thudded in their wake. No arrows whizzed by their heads – or indeed plunged into their backs.

Hermione laid one hand against her heart when they finally slowed, and brought the other up to wipe her forehead.
"Oh... oh my," she murmured.
"What is wrong with you?" Malfoy seethed through his teeth, "Why were you trying to get us killed?"
"I wasn't–"
"Trying to sneak up on a hoard of fucking centaurs! You know they're psychotic, don't you? They would have skinned us–"
"They didn't though," she countered shakily, "They didn't at all. Did you see that? They just – just keeled over."
"Yes, but–"
"Just toppled over like skittles–"
"Yes, I was there–"
"Did you know they could do that? I mean... Why did they do that?"
"Bad centaur of gravity?"

Hermione stopped walking. He kept walking. She stared at his gliding shoulders. Then she rushed back to his side.

"Did you just say–"
"I said what I said."
"Malfoy. That was terrible."
"I don't augury."
Unfortunately, she wasn't too stunned to not laugh anymore. So she laughed, and she said "I'm afraid your head is skrewt up."
She watched his profile carefully and his lips curled up faintly.
"Imp-possible," he declared.
"Oh, con-troll yourself."
"You have no erkling of what good humour is."
She let out a groan that was a laugh or a laugh that was a groan and said, "Please stop. You can't expect me to keep goblin up such awful puns. I refuse."
"House-Elf-ish of you, Granger."
"Ha!" she exclaimed, "That's the most absurd one, because House-Elves are actually the least – Hey?"

He made a tortured sound and began to strive off away from her in the middle of her sentence.

"Malfoy?"
"Do not start on the sodding House-Elves!" he called without turning.
"I wasn't – Argh!" She sped up to keep pace with him. "I wasn't starting on anything. I was merely pointing out that – Malfoy?!"

He broke into a proper run, sailing across the grounds like some ethereal creature of the night. As if they hadn't run enough already – fucking lout – Ugh – she took off after him.

"Malfoy!" she cried in a tone of unfortunately pitiable desperation, and it didn't make a dent. He kept running. His hair flopped up and down like molten silver waves. The wind, so kind to the slothful, was brutal to those in haste. It slammed against her face and she felt her throat and eyes dry up. Nevertheless, Hermione had been running for nearly a year – she was no slouch. Malfoy's long limbs could only get him so far.
He began running out of steam halfway up the grand staircase. By the time Hermione got to the top, he was slumped by a window with his hands on his knees. She clutched the newel post and fell into a similar pose as him.
But even through her gasps, she managed to throw out the words – "House...Elves... no-ot... selfish."

Draco chuckled, and she looked up in surprise.
He was standing in the confluence of silver moonlight and golden lamplight. His eyes were aimed heavenwards with exasperation, but he still chuckled as he straightened and pushed his hair away from his brow.