One for sorrow, two for mirth

The days go by, and Hallowe’en is already around the corner. Hermione is buried in books almost every day. This week, it’s an essay on Medieval Alchemy she is preoccupied with. Today she needs to finish the part about known attempts of creating the Philosopher’s Stone before Flamel. This means a long evening in the Library, since all of the books on the Stone are in the Restricted Section. She doesn’t mind, though, since the other students would hardly look for her here. After getting fairly accustomed to a conjoined Common room and the abolishment of the House Cup, all the self-proclaimed House activists have their attention riveted on Quidditch, which gives her a hard time. All that has ever interested Hermione in Quidditch was that the bones of the players she happened to care for remain intact. Honestly, it is a cruel joke of fate that practically every friend of hers has been a part of this dangerous sport. If it was her call, only Fifth- or maybe Sixth-years and older would be allowed to play Quidditch at Hogwarts. She all but hates the game. And now the students are constantly bombarding her with questions concerning the fate of “one of the pillars of wizarding culture”! Hermione finds the darkest and snuggest corner of the Library and quickly lays out her parchments and quills. She rarely comes here. Her favourite place is on the second floor, where she can sit right next to a large window and enjoy the view if she likes. But today she needs to be absolutely untraceable. The chapter has to be finished by tomorrow if she wants to be done with the assignment in time. Nothing must distract her. At the moment, the Library is almost empty: most of the students are at lunch. This is the best time to make a good haul of books — no welter or fighting over the only edition of a rare tome… Or bloody Quidditch questions. Hermione spends almost an hour searching for all the books on the topic. Most of them come from the Restricted Section, but the biographies of some alchemists in question, such as Richard the Rich, are exceptionally long, tedious treatises that no one bothers to guard only because of a couple paragraphs on the Philosopher’s Stone. Finally loaded with everything she might need, Hermione returns to the secluded corner where she took up residence for today. But as it immediately turns out, the corner is not that secluded. There are only two small desks here, but the other one is now occupied by… Draco. Well, he may not be her study partner of choice, but he certainly isn’t going to ask about Quidditch. 'Hello, Draco, ' she says and takes her seat across from him. 'Oh. Granger? ' he turns his head, probably checking if she has company. 'Hello. Do you mind? I can go find another table if-' 'You don’t have to.' She waves at him in clear protest. 'Stay.' He simply nods and buries himself in his book. Hermione opens The Encompassing Exploration of Ethereal and searches the index for a chapter on life, its duration, and extension. Actually this is one of her favourite books in the Restricted Section, thorough and written in a rather witty way for a scholarly work. The only problem with it is that it’s encrypted, which is apparently meant to symbolise how enigmatic all the intangible matters are. Magical encryptions are, in a way, simpler than the Muggle ones. They almost always just make letters wander and disappear and can be undone with one password spell which, in a library, usually goes with the book on a separate slip of parchment. Unfortunately, the slip for this tome has been lost for as long as Hermione remembers it. Fortunately, she has used it so often through the years that the pattern of encryption is already familiar to her. It means the reading is going to be inconvenient, but not impossible. 'Verba pulvis, ' Draco chants and touches the pages in front of her with his wand without as much as breaking away from his book. The letters immediately stop moving around, and for the first time in her life Hermione sees a perfectly readable Encompassing Exploration. 'Oh, you know the password spell… Thanks.' He nods and, while she hastily writes down the right words on a piece of parchment, explains: 'We have the same book in the Manor. I happen to remember the incantation.' Hermione, to her own shame, catches herself habitually thinking something like 'Little rich Malfoy and his big rich manor'. She bites her lip and scolds herself. It’s this kind of childish thinking that led the likes of Pineskrew to such rancour and hatred. For quite a long time, they both intently read in silence. Yet, every now and then Hermione’s gaze shifts from the text up to Draco. It’s rather annoying and distracting, even though he doesn’t do anything to bother her. He never even looks at her. After nearly two hours, which she expected to be far more productive, Hermione leaves the desk. 'I am going to grab a bite. You are not leaving yet? ' 'No.' 'Keep an eye on my books, would you please? ' she asks, picking up her satchel. 'Fine. I can watch over your bag too if you wish, ' he adds, eyeing her shoulder pulled back by the weight. 'Oh, this? It’s fine, I can make it weightless. Don’t worry.' She leaves the Library posthaste. Sitting in the Great Hall over a plate of cold Shepherd’s pie, Hermione can’t take her mind off this strange studying session they are having today. After Draco’s improvised confession, they’ve barely seen each other. Of course, she still had to handle dozens of hexing assaults on him, but they’ve thinned with time. Besides, nothing even remotely as barbaric as that branding party in the restroom has happened in over a month. Draco hasn’t approached her in any way, and, frankly speaking, she totally forgot that he is… That he feels what he feels for her. Now that she vividly remembers it, a weird kind of curiosity inhabits her mind. How could she have never noticed? Is he that good at concealing everything he feels? While in the Library, he hasn’t glanced at her even once, he hasn’t… Hermione freezes, she even stops chewing her pie. Draco hasn’t bothered her at all. Studying with someone has always been like juggling twenty things at once for her. A certain reputation has made her a magnet for questions, requests, and pleas. It’s not only Ron and Harry who tried to be shamelessly dependable on her in terms of studying — Hermione had to carry her whole House, including some of the older students. Even several Ravenclaws preferred to consult her rather than fellow housemates. Which continues to this day, and that’s not to mention the questions she receives as the Head Girl. All of that gratifies her immensely, of course, but drains her energy all the same. She can count the days when she’s able to study in peace on her fingers… And they are mostly nights, to be honest. So today may very well be the first time she has sat in the Library face to face with a classmate who was most likely working on the same essay, and wasn’t compelled to sort out their paper. Moreover, it has been him who helped her, even if it was only a single incantation. All in all, studying with Draco Malfoy has been… oddly seamless. The next day, she occupies the same small nook and delves into Basilius Valentinus’s opus magnum — Duodecim Claves. This twelve-volume treatise is unanimously considered a must-read for everyone interested in Alchemy, yet almost nobody honestly reads it in full. Even Hermione hasn’t. She’s only read a Muggle edition of the thing, and it’s like reading a summary of a novel. She is dragging through Latin in the volume on the Second Key, when Draco appears. 'Hello, Granger. You mind? ' She doesn’t, and they sit in silence until there is no one in the Library but them. It goes on day after day. They just sit there, read, scribble, thumb through the old dusty pages — they study. A couple of times Draco borrows her books, and once she notices a tome in his pile that she hadn’t even thought of using in this essay — Hinduistic Halations: an Avid Assessment of Astras. A particular astra weapon in Hinduism with powers very cognate to those of the Philosopher’s Stone isn’t often considered in the discourse, but it’s definitely worth mentioning, so, after a brief battle with her pride, Hermione asks to borrow Avid Assessment. This bizarre scholarly kinship continues even after Hallowe’en, when their History papers are due. Hermione proceeds with a bunch of tangled Arithmancy problems, and Draco, as far as she can tell, is doing some personal alchemic research. The entire first week of November they spend in this easy silence. Once or twice he arrives before her, but most times she gets there first, and after a while she unfailingly hears, 'Hello, Granger. You mind? ' She can’t tell whether that’s simple politeness or he honestly expects her to shoo him off one day, but this phrase is now a password of sorts. Hermione doesn’t know and would never ask why he comes. She has tried to suspect him in using this as an excuse for spending time with her, but he really wouldn’t even glance at her except for their short interactions. On the second week of November, he skips their study session for the first time since they started. Hermione spends three hours expecting to hear the usual password before she finally admits that he isn’t coming. A spree of panic surges in her heart at the realisation: is he alive? Could it be that one of the hexes finally reached its target? But she sees him at dinner later, and he looks the same as always. Hermione has to reassure herself that she doesn’t have any reason to be miffed with him. They’ve never agreed on meeting in the Library, it just happened consistently for the past month. Whether or not he is otherwise engaged isn’t her business. They are not friends. The days come and go, and she still studies alone. Draco has stopped coming completely. At the end of the week, Hermione decides to ditch the secluded corner they occupied and return to her favourite spot. The day is sunny, and it would be a shame to stay crammed in a dark and stuffy nook… She doesn’t even get to set her desk when she gets ambushed by Roger Malone and his avalanche of questions on Muggle habits. Apparently, he is writing a paper for Muggle Studies, and of course, who could possibly answer them? Hermione Granger, even though Malone is friends with Justin Finch-Fletchey, who is also a Muggleborn. The rest of the day Hermione spends basking in the sun and damning her stupid decision to choose a working place where she can be found by anyone beside her best ever studying partner Draco Malfoy. Mere days from December, she stumbles upon Draco in the Common room. It’s almost night, and other than him, the room is empty. This is probably the only hour when he gets to set foot here and not receive a hex. He is occupying the sofa in the centre, right in front of the fireplace. She aims for this sofa too, since it’s the warmest place here, and there is enough space for four people, so they can both fit in without bothering each other. She sits down opposite Draco. He raises his eyes at her and practically jumps up on his feet. 'Hello, Granger. Good nig-' 'Draco, sit down.' They are not friends. But they don’t have to be strangers. 'You don’t need to do this, Granger. I’m not a charity case.' He hastily grabs his book and cloak. 'After the war, I grew really quick to lose my temper. You stay willingly or I petrify you, your choice.' Draco freezes as if he’s already petrified. 'My, you are… fierce, Granger, ' he mocks, but still obeys. He sits, legs crossed, and stares at her. It’s unnerving, but she asked him to stay and he stayed, so that’s a start. Hermione opens her book and tries to forget he’s here. 'So? ' says Draco when she is almost through a whole page. 'What? ' 'You were going to lecture me on trusting the world around me and patching it up with my enemies, or.? ' She tears herself away from the books, unable to suppress a sigh. 'I was going to read. And you were already reading. I don’t see why we cannot do this simultaneously in the same space, that’s all. I am not forcing any friendship on you, if that’s what strikes such terror in you. But you don’t have to act like a ghost only because you feel guilty… Maybe then you’ll stop looking like one, honestly.' Oh, man. She still ended up lecturing him, just great. Draco blinks at her several times, as if he is a sci-fi movie robot waiting for his new program to install. Then he opens his book and catches up on his reading. Hermione snorts and does exactly the same. They just sit and read. Here, in a cosy Common room, with no sounds other than a lulling crackle of the fireplace and an occasional rustle of the pages, the feeling of mind-clearing comfort she’d appreciated in their library sessions turns into something almost homely peaceful. As if she is with Ron and Harry, still reading, when they are already asleep with their books on the floor or over their faces. She snorts. How pathetic can she be, if the presence of Draco bloody Malfoy makes her feel at home? When she can hardly keep her eyes open, Hermione slides off the sofa, wishes him a good night, and starts for the stairs. 'Wait, Granger.' Judging by the sounds, he got up from the sofa too. 'What do I do to stop being a ghost? ' She turns to him from the stairs. 'You can start with calling me by my given name instead of a detached “Granger”, I guess.' He scoffs and shakes his head slightly. 'I’m afraid I must decline. It may actually lead to foolish hopes on my side, and I would rather have none at all than see them shattered later.' Crap. She has yet again totally forgotten that Draco is — this is too much to say even in her mind — in love with her. And as if that alone isn’t enough to shock her, he speaks of it so easily! She feels her face growing hot. Praise Merlin, the room is dark and he cannot see her flushed cheeks. 'By the way, when did you start calling me by my name? ' Draco, mercifully, changes the subject back to the matters of address. 'I was quite stunned, really. Potter and Weasley would never.' Hermione furrows her brow, honestly trying to remember. And it dawns on her that this happened long before the end of the war. 'I guess when… You stopped being a character and started being a person, Draco.' He arches a brow at her. Seems like she needs to elaborate. 'I don’t have the exact date for you, but I remember one of the talks with Harry in our Sixth year. You’d started looking so ghastly, that I became worried…' Draco makes a nervous step towards her. 'Worried? About me? ’ Maybe this was a bad idea. Right now, he seems to be getting those foolish hopes he mentioned. 'You looked like a corpse, Draco. Anyone would worry.’ She tries to be as aloof as possible. This is true, right? People tend to worry about those who look half-dead? 'Hardly anyone noticed, ' he scoffs, ruffling his hair, and makes another step. 'See, this is why I’m afraid I’d get hopeful. Don’t do this to me…' Hermione nods, makes a step head-on, and holds out her hand. 'I promise I won’t. No idle hopes. None.' Draco gives her a perplexed look. 'You want to give an Unbreakable Vow on that?! ' he finally barks, absolutely baffled. Hermione blinks. 'No! You plonker, just shake my hand! And try to trust me! You wizards have it so easy, honestly…' she slips into grumbling, and he finally accepts her hand and shakes it lightly. His hand is like snake skin: one expects it to be wet and sticky, but it’s actually dry and coarse. 'See. It’s a promise, ' she softens her grumpy tone and snatches her hand away. He nods. 'Thank you, Granger, and… I trust you. Good night.'