All across the Eastern Board

Languages were being lost

You look so elegantly bored now

Totally at ease with it all

"It Ended On An Oily Stage" British Sea Power

Hermione Granger knew better than to glance deliberately in the platinum figure's direction as she entered the Great Hall. Unfortunately, her eyes did not and needed to be distracted. Quickly. Hermione slid an arm under Ginny's and gripped her elbow tight, bursting into forced laughter at something the girl had said. Ginny gave her an odd look and her gaze slid over to Malfoy just as he turned away and crossed the Hall. Hermione exhaled in relief that he was far away again and Ginny let it go. Now was not the time to push Hermione's buttons.

With relief she spotted Ron and Harry at the Gryffindor table, already piling food on their plates. They didn't look up from stuffing themselves when she joined them. Daintily following their lead, she began to serve herself when a tingling sensation started working up her spine.

She turned slowly, already knowing the source of the prickling pleasure, and was pleasantly unsurprised (know-it-alls do not like surprises) to finding a familiar pair of silver eyes bearing down on her. He often did this at meals. She couldn't be sure if he was even conscious of it, because the only words he ever said to her were insults, usually with a "Mudblood" or two tacked on at the end as an afterthought.

This was an old game for them. Draco would initiate the stare, which never failed to make Hermione squirm, and then their eyes would meet and the two would look intently at each other until the inevitable -

"Oi, Hermione," said Ron with his mouth full, and she whipped around to face her two best friends and her plate of mashed potatoes.

"I've been talking to you for the past five minutes. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she lied glibly, spearing a piece of Christmas turkey with her fork. "Just tired…I've been studying all day. I have this Ancient Runes essay to finish before -"

Ron and Harry rolled their eyes at each other.

"Trust you," Harry said affectionately, between bites, but Hermione thought she spied a subtle glance of relief pass between them.

It was no secret that something had shifted in Hermione over the course of the summer, and it would have taken wild horses to drag from her that she was scared to death at what might happen to her parents during the impending war. For war was inevitable now, it was in the air and the question was merely a matter of when and who would strike the first blow. Only when she was alone with Harry and Ron did she act like the old Hermione; a compelling and confusing mixture of bossy, stubborn and carefree. To the rest of the world she was guarded and hidden behind a wall of frigid poise. Harry and Ron could get behind her structured façade because she had never really shut them out, but she knew the change in her demeanor startled them. Where once she would have roundly chastised Ron for his refusal to support S.P.E.W., she now simply ignored him when he tried to bait her into an argument. And Harry, who thought he could always count on her to mother him, now found himself quite without the voice in his ear nagging him to eat, to go to the hospital wing for his Quidditch bruises, to fully utilize his homework planner. Hermione Granger didn't care about those things anymore. She took care of herself and kept to herself. She kept quiet. An observer might have thought she was afraid that if she raised her voice too loud, she might catch the wrong person's attention.

But it seemed that she had done that anyway.

Draco Malfoy had noticed her, noticed her since the beginning of the school year. She remembered the look in his eyes as she glared him down on the train. Not a wise idea in retrospect, she snorted to herself. Keeping a low profile and pissing off a Slytherin were certainly not mutually amenable. At first she'd be afraid of how he'd exact his revenge, for she knew there would be consequences for humiliating him so in front of his mortal enemies. No one rendered Draco Malfoy speechless with a glare and got away with it for long. She'd held her breath and patiently waited for the bomb to drop. And waited. When he'd started staring at her at dinner, she took it as a warning. Something was coming and she braced herself for impact, but still none came. The suspense was worse than anything else he might have done to her…the looking over her shoulder every time she was alone in the corridors, the fear of shadows in the Owlery, the cheerfulness she forced to cover the worry she harbored for her parents and herself. For Harry and Ron must not know about this. Harry because he had too many other things to think about, he had to save the bloody world, he couldn't be worried about her right now, and Ron because she knew how he'd react. He'd be worried sick about her and cover that up by picking fights with her every minute of the day in order to distract himself from his own fear. And Ron too needed to be operating on all cylinders in the coming months.

The only person Hermione had confided in was McGonagall, who had taken her fears in stride, pursed her lips and assured Hermione that she would take steps to ease her fears. And Hermione believed her but nursed a secret sense of guilt that she was bothering her favorite Professor with personal matters when surely everyone was worried for their parents and families at this horrible time. And on top of that, McGonagall was a key member of the Order whose duties extended far beyond anything Hermione could imagine, and all the Hogwarts Professors were stretched thin, between their teaching duties and their new task of contending with the growing unrest of the Hogwarts student body as the young people struggled with their own allegiances. They were all choosing sides now, no doubt about it. Gryffindor and Slytherin would be the first to step up, but the rest would soon follow. Hermione was under no illusions that she would soon be meeting most of her fellow students on the battlefield and they would not all be on the same side.

Knowing this, Draco's stares took on a deeper meaning. When Harry confided to her and Ron that Draco had turned tail and was acting as double agent for the Order, she breathed a private sigh of relief, thinking that this must surely be the end of his interest in her. Perhaps he'd been trying to signal her and she'd been too daft to see it. But the next day he was back to his old tricks, only now she couldn't resist looking back. What she saw surprised her. His eyes were unguarded. They were deep, pale silver and so different from her own rich chocolate ones that she stared with unbridled fascination until a smile – a real one – curved his lips and she pulled away startled at her uncharacteristic lapse.

They'd had meetings together, the four of them, to discuss the information Draco brought to them about the movements of the Death Eaters and to plan their exit from Hogwarts, for no one could know they were leaving. Draco never offered any information regarding his change of loyalties, and Harry and Ron seemed oddly all right with this. Perhaps they already knew. It would have once incensed her that they were holding information back from her, but now she was strangely grateful for anything that kept her further apart from the complex Slytherin and his steely gaze.

But she continued to look at him, now more than ever.

Ron and Harry had switched to talk about Quidditch now, and it was safe for her to zone out. She had trained her peripheral vision well by this point, and could sweep her gaze over the entire Hall while still keeping up the appearance of being focused on her mashed potatoes. There he was. Draco was talking animatedly to a group of enraptured Slytherins, but he looked up for the briefest of moments when he felt her eyes on him. The electricity between them crackled and then was gone as Draco immediately returned to his story, gesturing wildly to compensate for the attention he'd so briefly allowed to stray.