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She woke up the next morning and found the bed empty, and the curtains drawn. They'd been darked with a spell that made them look, on the inside, like the night sky. When Millicent drew back the curtains, the sun was shining brightly through the lattice window of the dorm room, and the room was empty of all roommates.

She hastily wrapped herself in a blanket against the colder than usual late February day, and, wearing the blanket as a hood, she walked downstairs to her broom closet outside of the Gryffindor dorm. There, she put on her clothes for the day and went about her business.

She didn't know why Hermione hadn't awoken her, but that wasn't the point. Now she had to go and live her life, and pretend that she wasn't a changed person.

But with every step she took towards the Great Hall, Millicent felt a little burble of joy and anxiety well inside her. She knew she needed to get a hold of herself. Surely Hermione wasn't nearly so fumbly and light-headed this morning after such a glorious night of cuddling together. Chances are, her back was hurting and she felt underslept no matter how much tea she drank.

Ah, tea. That sounded about heavenly right now.

As Millicent entered the Great Hall, she halfway expected people to turn and stare at her. But no one did. She was just one more bedraggled student dragged out of bed late on a Saturday morning. No one paid her any attention at all - neither the Slytherins nor the Gryffindors, nor anyone else. It was as if they'd had a secret pact not to talk to each other.

For the most part, Millicent was grateful that she could be left alone to her thoughts. But still she felt like they were purposefully ignoring the very important feelings that were no doubt painted across her face. And she felt the slight, even though it wasn't real, she knew.

She looked around for Hermione at the Gryffindor table. She saw a pot of tea left behind in the manner that she recognized Hermione used it - positioned at the perfect angle for the other girl to pick it up and pour whilst reading. There was also a plate there, licked clean and tidy. Yes, Hermione had been here. And she was probably in the library.

Alas, Millicent saw that she was to eat alone. But where?

Seeing as no place availed itself at the Slytherin table, and she was already at Hermione's place, she went ahead and sat down. It wasn't as if there were any better options.

So she sat there, and took for herself about a half-dozen doughnuts and laid them upon her plate. She surrounded them with rashers of bacon, sweet and maple-flavored, and doused the whole serving with nearly a quarter of a jar of honey.

Ah yes, this was the breakfast she wanted.

Her fork went to her mouth, and she relaxed into the symphony of taste that laid itself in her mouth. Then her hand reached out to touch the teapot left by Hermione. It was still warm, and judging from the way it sloshed invitingly, there was a bit of tea left in it.

Millicent poured herself a fragrant cup. Hermione, she knew, prefered a strong blend of black tea flavored by a hint of mango. The taste was like liquid sunshine, and it was tropical and warm and bright as it washed across Millicent's palate like the tide against the Moroccan shore.

She desperately wished that Hermione would think to come back. And she realized that eventually Hermione would probably return, seeing that she left a spot of tea in her pot. Hermione rarely did this, and Millicent had the sense that Hermione might have done this for her. Perhaps.

Perhaps not, of course, but she flattered herself to think that Hermione was looking out for her, in the same Slytherin way that Solome had tried to.

It might not have been realistic, but there was no harm in a little imagination, was there?

So Millicent sat there and dutifully finished her overloaded plate, bite by hasty bite, and then she realized she should have been reading the whole time. She got her most recent book prescribed by Hermione from her book bag and proceeded to load up her plate again, this time with mash and sausage.

She sat there and thumbed her way through Alice Walker's The Color Purple, which she found disturbing but strangely mystifying.

It came as a surprise when her fork scraped around her plate a final time, and she hadn't found herself any more morsels of food. She'd cleaned another heaping plateful without even a blink.

And Hermione hadn't returned.

The Great Hall was already sparsely attended when Millicent came in, and there were still a few people coming in, but mostly the breakfast crowd was on its way out.

She knew it was customary for those who liked to linger a little more over their morning cuppa to have their privacy to do so, on a Saturday morning, and she continued to sit there. But she did not resume reading until she had filled her plate a third time with more sausage and mash, and also set aside several enormous scones for her further consumption once everything else had disappeared magically into the kitchens.

This sated her at long last, once she was done with it. Satisfied, her fingers ran down the front of her cardigan as she rummaged around the cluttered table until she found another pot of the delicious mango tea that Hermione favored. It was steaming hot, and she settled down to pour herself a cup.

Fresh from the pot it was a lot stronger and hotter, of course, and Millicent sipped it, her fingers worrying the buttons of her shirt through the forgiving fabric of her cardigan.

She'd found that in order to conceal the complete disarray of her button-downs these days, she had to constantly wear something over them. Gone were the days she could comfortably waltz around in just her shirts - these days her breasts and bulbous belly made too many unseemly gaps that would have made her mother blush with rage.

No, nowadays she had to wear cardis over everything. They effectively disgused some of the portliness she'd acquired, but only until you looked at her from the side - once you did, you could see how pronounced and vast her tum had gotten in recent months.

Ah, yes. She grabbed onto the thick flab of gut that squeezed out over her waistband, and squeezed it affectionately. While some could never understand the appeal of her body, she had a newfound appreciation for it after spending last night with Hermione. She sipped her tea, and she let the headiness of the sensations she felt overwhelm her. Here she was, sitting with a good book, luxuriously wrapped in the rolls of her own overindulgence, sipping a fragrant and aromatic tea favored by her lover, fresh from a night of unsurpassed lovemaking and tender affection.

Millicent felt positively drunk on her own glory.

Then, all of a sudden, she heard a set of heavy footsteps coming from the entrance of the Great Hall entry.

As she'd been subtly doing for the past hour, Millicent glanced at the door to register who was entering. Was it Hermione? She felt pathetic, infatuated, but so what?

This time, unlike the previous dozen, it actually was Hermione. And she looked elated to see Millicent.

In fact, the other girl jogged up to the table where Millicent sat in her repleteness, and Hermione sat down immediately next to the other girl. Even the short dash across the hall had made her winded, and she had to take a moment to catch her breath.

"How are you this morning?" asked Millicent with a smirk, appreciating the way Hermione's breasts heaved with the exertion. The girl had been truly putting it on recently, and her belly was now truly flabby and rotund, and Hermione's clothes seemed plastered against her expanding tum.

"Could be better," Hermione said, and as Millicent poured her a cup of tea, she accepted it gratefully. "I do have good news, however."

"And what is that?" Millicent asked, feeling her heart thrum in her chest like the call of a bird greeting the sunrise. The sense of anxious expectation that had been in her belly all morning now reemerged even more forcefully than before. She unwrapped one of her scones from its napkin, and stuffed nearly the whole thing in her mouth.

"I've solved your problem," Hermione said, her eyes lighting up. "You won't have to sleep in the Slytherin dorms anymore."

Millicent was shocked. "I... what?" she asked, and she put down the scone on the table. "Wait, how?"

"I talked to Professor McGonagall," said Hermione, and she was beaming. "She has arranged it so that you now have your own bedroom in one of the spare ones normally kept for staff. She was not thrilled to make the accommodation, but there you have it. You'll not have to keep sleeping in the Gryffindor tower any longer."

Millicent felt her heart sink. She'd LIKED being in the Gryffindor tower. And she'd particularly liked being so close to Hermione.

"I... thanks?" she said, fighting back what seemed to be tears emerging from her eyelids. She managed successfully, and she looked up at Hermione with what she hoped was a brave face. "I just... I didn't expect there to be that simple of a solution."

Hermione shrugged. "She offered it to me at one point. As well as Luna Lovegood. I knew it was an option. But neither of our situations is quite as vile as yours is. I'm glad you can benefit from it."

"I'm comforted at how you have helped me," Millicent said, though her heart was aching. It was true, though; Hermione had been trying to be thoughtful. Millicent was clever enough to read between the lines. Even though the result was exactly the opposite of what she herself preferred.

"I'm glad you approve," Hermione said briskly, with a nod of her head. "Now, if you don't mind, I've got to be headed to the library."

"Let me come with you," Millicent said, rising slowly, pushing away her half-finished tea.

Hermione looked at Millicent, and looked at the unfinished tea, and then sighed and sat again. Millicent did the same, feeling like there was something off about the situation.

Then Hermione said, "You're reading the Alice Walker book," and she then reached for her own unfinished cup of tea. She downed it in a gulp. "I'm a bit surprised you've gotten this far on my list."

"Really?" Millicent said, and she sensed that there was something unsettling behind Hermione's words.

"Yeah," Hermione said, and, staring into her cup, she explained, "I'm surprised you care so much what this dirty muggleborn cares about."

"I..."

Millicent didn't exactly know how to respond to that.

"It's complicated," she responded finally. "I like reading books that are so diametrically opposed to my own views."

"Ah," Hermione said, "and why is that?"

Millicent, having become used to defending her reading choices in the Slytherin common room, said without thinking, "It helps me refine my own arguments and understand how, so to speak, the enemy might think."

Then she realized what she'd said, and she put a hand over her mouth. The half of scone that had been on its way to her mouth dropped onto her sloping belly, landing squarely in the place where her belly formed a shelf under her breasts.

And then, Hermione's eyes narrowed. "Is that how you think of me?" she asked, and there was an intense malice and anger behind those words.

"No," Millicent said, her heart breaking as she saw Hermione being mad at her. "I... I don't think of you that way at all, Hermione," she said, "It just slipped out..."

"In Muggle studies, if you'd bothered to taken it, you might have heard of something called a Freudian Slip?" Hermione said, and she stood up. She brushed the crumbs off the front of her own paunch, and dusted off her skirt as well.

Millicent watched the crumbs tumble down from Hermione's body, and she couldn't tear her eyes away. She felt like those crumbs - she was being dismissed just as swiftly and easily.

Hermione Granger was hot-tempered. It was part of why Millicent had fallen for her. It also, seemingly, was to be her doom.

"I really didn't mean it," she said, feeling her heart breaking as Hermione steeled herself visibly against her words. It didn't matter what she said at this point. The damage had been done.

"Methinks she protests too much," Hermione said with a sneer, and stomped away. Only once she was several paces away did she turn around, and announce, "Last night was a mistake. I'm sorry you had to be burdened with sleeping with the enemy."

"No," Millicent said, but it was far too little, too late.

Hermione had left the Great Hall, and all of Millicent's warmth and happiness had gone along with her.

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