the cat cafe ✞ dramione

one; my darling head girl.

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hermione packed away her things as quickly as she could, using an easy spell she learned earlier in her hogwarts years to dry her essays and notes. she still hated how hogwarts couldn't scrap the ink and quills and instead install alternatives like ballpoint pens—which were so much more convenient and less likely to break all the damn time—but there was one time she handed in an essay using such a 'contraption' (as flitwick had called it) and he all marked her down for it. just because she used a ballpoint. because quills broke easily, especially with the way she wrote.

either way, a quick tempus told her she ran over studying and now she needed to rush back to her dorm, change quickly and get to work within the next hour. it wouldn't be so difficult but she needed to walk all the way up to the head's tower, gather all her things, walk down to hogsmeade then apparate to the muggle town she worked in. then she'd have to get the bus because it was the nearest point but still a good half an hour walk away.

to put it simply: she was in a rush.

she slipped her bag onto her shoulder and quickly gave the area a once over before leaving. madam pince nodded at her on the way out and hermione briskly walked through the rowdy corridors as it was four pm, dinner wasn't for another few hours and everyone had time to kill. hermione wished they would study instead (she saw an alarming amount of fifth years doing nothing at all when their exams were only a few months away) but even as head girl, she couldn't force the students to do their work. she could barely convince harry to do his—and he was her best friend.

she shook her head, focussing on reaching her room without any stalling. thinking always made her walk slower and she couldn't afford the luxury right now; her shift started soon and she really needed this job.

"hey, hermione? can you wait a moment please?"

she groaned internally, coming to a slow stop. luna, as lovely as she was, always asked weird questions that took hours to respond to. hermione found her a nice girl, really, but they both had very different opinions and thought processes that it was sometimes hard for them to carry a civil conversation. hermione had a tendency to lose her cool quickly and while she recognised it, she didn't know how to change it. her dad said it was because of her mum as she was the same.

"sure, luna," hermione agreed through gritted teeth. "how can i help you?"

luna wore these awful yellow and pink glasses. they were shaped weirdly, had tiny gold snitches on them and were definitely way too big. yet she wore them all the time and the professors just let her. questioning luna lovegood on her fashion sense was something everyone learned to leave alone because the girl's answers were never the same. it was always because of one imaginary creature making her do things.

"students are starting to hang around in the forbidden forest—next to the thestral habitat, specifically. and it's scaring them off. i just think it's a horrible thing to do as it is their home and we're not even allowed inside the forest unless it's because of a lesson. is there something you can do about that?"

hermione sighed, rubbing her temple. that was also an issue; despite luna's eccentricity, she did bring up valid concerns. so hermione was forced to listen to her even if she rattled on about the most worthless things because what if she needed to actually report something? and then hermione found herself too deep into the conversation to leave, and her short temper would itch and irritate her until she either stormed away or luna finished her piece.

"i'll discuss it with the head boy and we'll see if we can bring it up to dumbledore," hermione said, smiling tightly. she won't be discussing it with anthony—he cared very little for his duties and left her with the brunt of it all. it was just another thing added onto her already long list of things to do. "i have to go now, though. anything else?"