Soft shafts of moonlight filtered in through the halfway-drawn blinds, spilling across the sofa and the crumpled sheets Hermione was nestled in. He decided that when she wasn't blubbering pathetically, she was attractive enough. At least she'd be easy on the eyes while he tried to figure out what the fuck he was going to do about her.
After two hours perched on the bay window, puffing away furiously on a dwindling pack of Muggle cigarettes, he hadn't made any progress in devising a plan of action. He was only sure of one thing: that the sleeping witch in his flat was one huge fucking liability. One he sure as hell couldn't afford.
He tapped the ash from his cigarette on the outside brick below the open window, hoping it landed on the howling mutt out on the balcony two floors below. The moon was waning and the sky was cloudless; a light breeze played with some locks of Leo's hair, chilly on his exposed neck but refreshing nonetheless. His eyes fluttered closed briefly as he inhaled the smoke deeply, holding it longer than usual before expelling it out into the cool night air. His eyes followed it as it wisped lazily across the flat rooftops of Muggle London before dispersing against the black sky.
This peace, right here, was the only peace Leo really knew. It was the only peace he could rely upon. Hell, even if it was constantly invaded by his pessimistic thoughts, at least that was consistent, too.
Hermione groaned a little in her sleep, drawing his attention back from the soft lights and sounds of the city, bustling only a few blocks' distance from the residential street. Her hand rested by her cheek on the pillow, and she had managed to significantly tangle her stockinged legs in the cheap sheet Leo had thrown over her. Merlin, it'd be so easy to just wrap his hands around the pale skin of her neck… or a simple incantation could give him back the life he had less than 24 hours ago. Like nothing ever happened.
Except… a particular pair of blue-grey eyes kept haunting him whenever he entertained the thought. Eyes he had never actually seen, except through someone else's memory.
Should have just killed her when my conscience wasn't working against me.
He almost smirked at the irony of that.
Hermione had been a morning person for as long as she could remember. This never earned her much approval from Harry and Ron, who were content to dedicate their mornings and, sometimes, to her disgust, afternoons, to the comfort of their bedsheets.
Which is why, when she slowly became aware of the subtle sounds of morning and her unnaturally heavy eyelids protested being opened, she knew something was off.
And her pillow smelled strange…. masculine, almost. The fourth thing she became aware of was that it was light outside…. how late was it?
"SHIT!" Hermione leaped from her bed frantically, her mind a blur of thoughts and events and things she could have forgotten, before her legs crumpled beneath her full weight and she collapsed to the floor in a painful heap. "Oomph!"
And then she realized she was sprawled on unfamiliar, dusty wooden floorboards. Her legs were entangled in a foreign sheet, her head throbbed incessantly, and this was not her dormitory at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Her eyes roved to the spot near the foot of the couch where a pair of boots… Tonks' boots, more specifically, had been placed haphazardly. Her cloak and gloves were thrown over the back of an ugly, mustard-yellow armchair.
And just like that, the previous day's events came rushing back to her in an instant. Cold dread pooled in her stomach when she remembered that the last person's face she had seen had been Leo's. And he still had her wand.
She took a moment to survey her surroundings as she disentangled herself from the sheet. The room she was in was sparsely decorated, unkempt, and masculine, with a large bay window covering one wall. The linen sofa she had been sleeping on faced the window, and the worn yellow armchair in the corner faced away from it. This area opened up into small kitchen that, on sight, elicited an involuntary shudder from Hermione… dirty plates, bowls, and utensils littered the counter top, the appliances were yellow with age and grime. Off the entryway was another hall, presumably with a bedroom.
Hermione quietly got to her feet, dusting off the now-wrinkled, itchy tweed shift that she made a mental note never to sleep in again. Her muscles were tense as she moved across the foyer, taking pains not to slip in her stockings on the hardwood floor; with the thin film of dust coating it, however, this proved easier said than done.
She listened at the mouth of the tiny hallway. It was quiet except for the occasional rattling of the AC unit and white-noise hum of the fridge behind her. Two doors led off of the hall; one was cracked open and the other stood ajar, and through the open doorway she saw sunbeams cast across a wrinkled navy comforter and a dark wooden headboard. She tiptoed towards the door, easing it open a little more with a protest from the unoiled hinges, and peered inside.
No Leo.
Hermione stilled the feelings of elation that welled up inside of her at the idea of being alone, able to find a way out of here; Leo wasn't stupid, and he knew she wasn't either. There were bound to be all sorts of wards and protective spells surrounding the place, if not the whole building. It was likely she had already set off alarms, too, but a small part of her held out hope that maybe, just maybe he didn't expect her to be awake and hadn't thought about it.
That same small part of her was what led her back to the entryway. She approached the front door and paused, fingers hovering over the brass knob for a moment, considering the curses or jinxes that it was probably enchanted with; the tips of her fingers were nearly tingling with the hum of magical energy that pulsed softly around the door frame.
She sighed in annoyance, hand falling back to her side. "The best first defense is prevention," she mocked their first-year D.A.D.A. teacher, Professor Quirrell, in a singsong voice. Of course, that obviously worked well for him. Nevertheless it was a mantra that had stuck with her. Her lips quirked upwards when she imagined what the looks on Harry and Ron's faces would have been had they overheard her reciting that.
Harry and Ron. Hermione's stomach twisted slightly as she remembered her companions. They were probably throwing a fit, worried out of their minds about her right now… were they trying to find her? She ran a hand through her mussed curls, leaning back against the wall to the left of the door. What about Dumbledore and McGonagall? When she missed her portkey back, she was sure they would've owled the Ministry… and of course, they would've gotten an annoyed reply from some crotchety old secretary about how she never showed up.
It was unlikely that they'd halt the internship program until she was found; transportation was organized so that participating students could Floo straight from Dumbledore's office into their department, and each student was given a portkey that activated itself at the same time each evening to ensure their return before nightfall. But Hermione had requested special permission from Dumbledore to stop at Diagon Alley for a book on ancient runes that she insisted the library didn't carry, and he had humored her, arranging a Floo to The Leaky Cauldron. He had even allowed her to go unescorted because, he joked, he "trusted that she was responsible enough not to accept Sugar Snaps from strangers." The guilt had been eating away at her the entire morning, but she was Hermione, and wasn't possibly daft enough to let herself get caught. Right.
Flourish and Blott's, as well as Tom from the Leaky, would also say that they never saw Hermione that day.
Her heart sank at the realization that she really had completely and utterly betrayed Dumbledore's trust. She couldn't imagine having to explain herself, let alone face him, having to look into those omniscient eyes devoid of their usual sparkle, when she finally found a way out of here.
Except she kind of had to find a way out, first.
She sighed, looking apprehensively back towards the door. That option was out. The huge bay window was her next-best option; she made her way over to the far wall, pulling the blinds so that the sudden, harsh light of the mid-morning sun invaded the room and forced her to shield her eyes.
After close inspection of the windowpanes, she located two small latches, one near the sill and the other near the top slat of the blinds. Hermione wasn't surprised when neither of them would budge. Her anger only built as her fingers throbbed incessantly, presumably from a Stinging Hex that Leo had infused the latches with. Although she was curious as to why the window wasn't nearly as well-guarded as the main door, she had suddenly been so overcome with frustration that she picked up the object nearest to her (it happened to be a small potted plant) and chucked it violently at the glass.
The glass did not shatter as she expected but, instead, flexed outwards upon impact and kept stretching for another split second, before flinging the pot directly back at a wide-eyed Hermione. She yelped and only had a split second to throw her body to the floor before a terracotta blur soared overhead. It made contact with the half-wall between the kitchen and the living room, smashing to pieces with a satisfying CRUNCH, and then falling to the floor in a heap of clay shards and dirt.
The glass of the window was still wobbling happily back into place as if nothing had happened.
As soon as Hermione had remembered how to breathe again, she let out a string of curses, leaped to her feet and pounded on the annoyingly once-again-solid window. She banged until she could feel her knuckles begin to bruise. Tears of frustration threatened to pour forth but she blinked them back determinedly and gave the window one last pathetic, defeated blow. She choked out a small sob, resting her forehead and her hands against the warm glass, a lone tear making its way down to the tip of her nose before clinging to the window. Her eyes dejectedly traveled downward to the street below. She watched the Muggles walking contentedly, some of them stopping to chat, some looking straight forward and breezing past other pedestrians, quickly trying to get where they needed to be. Her fingernails tapped the enchanted glass rhythmically, the only thing separating her from freedom.
It was a narrow road, a residential street that was lined with complexes similar to this one, all brick and closely cramped together like books stuffed on a shelf. She counted the windows on the building directly across the road and determined that they were on the fourth floor, the top one.
The top floor. Wait a second.
Roof access.
Hermione sprang up from her perch on the bay window with a renewed sense of purpose, and more importantly, hope. Alright, so chances were, there was more than one unit on this top floor, and it was unlikely that each one would have individual roof access… but just to make sure, she dashed into the bedroom hallway and peered through the cracked-open door she had previously neglected. She came face-to-face with, well, herself. In the mirror of a small, dimly-lit bathroom.
She didn't give herself time to marvel at her mile-high frizz, or the smudged eyeliner that gave her the appearance of a raccoon, before the gears in her mind were turning again. It wasn't the first time she had been grateful for having lived amongst Muggles the majority of her life, as she remembered something from a cheesy, made-for-TV espionage flick she once watched.
Air vents! Air vents might lead to the roof, wouldn't they? She was willing to take a chance on that as she spotted one back through the hallway, above the kitchen stove.
"Aha!" Adrenaline coursed through her body as she sprinted back the way she had come and managed to hoist herself up onto the counter top, ignoring the protests from the germophobe inside of her. Sure, some gross sticky substance had just lifted off the counter when she touched it, but freedom was close. So close.
She hooked her fingers through a slat in the vent and tugged. Nothing. She pulled harder, placing one foot on the other side of the stove to steady herself. "Please, please, please, please…" she urged, giving the metal smaller, consecutive pulls, until she felt something give a little; and then, her foot slid further down the counter, the stockings she was wearing providing hardly any grip. Hermione squeaked as she felt herself lose balance, but held fast to the air vent for dear life. As she came tumbling to the floor, she made the painful mistake of trying to land on both feet, and her ankle gave as soon as she hit the tile, bending underneath her with a sickening SNAP.
And then pain exploded around her as she lay on the kitchen floor, stunned, for a few long moments. When Hermione finally raised herself to her elbows, sat up, and clutched at her throbbing limb, she was almost dry heaving with the ferocity of the pain, doubled over. "Oh, sweet Merlin." She sucked in a breath sharply through her teeth, barely feeling the ceiling plaster ghosting downward upon her. The cool metal vent was still an extension of her other arm.
"Great fucking job, Hermione. Way to fucking go. Of all the idiotic…." she hiccuped, warm tears making their familiar path down her cheeks for the umpteenth time since yesterday. She finally pried her fingers from the metal vent, her right hand going to join the left one clutching her ankle; sniffling and peering upwards towards the gaping hole that was almost her salvation, she couldn't help but stifle a small giggle. The hole was barely big enough to fit her head, let alone her entire body. How the hell had she thought she was going to get through there?
She really did laugh aloud to herself this time, leaning back against the bottom cabinet. The whole situation was honestly just so ridiculous, it seemed like the only fitting thing to do. Tears of pain streamed from her eyes and still, she laughed; she was surely going mad. But even that might be a blissful reprieve from all this. "This is such a mess," she chuckled sadly, leaning her head back against the cabinet and closing her eyes. She almost welcomed the throbbing pain; it was kind of cleansing.
But she was startled out her reverie by another, very unwelcome voice. "You sure as fuck have that one right, kid."