||Now It's Just Us||

Chapter 32

Hermione made a sound of irritation at the back of her throat when she failed to find any information in the third book she was going through. Not finding what she needed in books thoroughly disturbed her. Books were her refuge, and her source of information when all else failed. It was discerning for her to not find anything in the fourteenth book in a row.

She shut the book with a snap and pushed it aside, before pulling another one to herself. She opened Methods of Transportation in the Wizarding World  and skimmed through the index. 

"Find anything yet?" 

Hermione looked up from where she was seated on the bed. Draco was seated on the chair by the window, with his own stack of books beside him. 

"Not yet," she said, her tiredness seeping into her voice.

She glanced out the window and noticed that it was night. Had she really spent nearly seven hours trying to find the smallest reference to the spell he had mentioned?

"Are you hungry?" she asked, placing a bookmark on the page she was on and closing it. 

"Not really, no," he said, "are you?"

"I can't find an appetite," she said. She exhaled and leant back on the bed, running her hands over her face. 

"Do you think we should find a way to get ourselves copies of The Daily Prophet?" Draco asked after a while, "It'll help us stay informed about what's happening at the Ministry."

How had she not thought of that before?

"We should," she agreed, "but how we should is the question."

"We could always summon one," he suggested.

"And it won't be suspicious?" she raised a sceptical eyebrow at him.

"Not if you summon it directly, and besides, it's night," he said, "Professor Snape had taught me."

He raised his stolen wand, "It has the same incantation, but the wand movement is different. It takes time to get it right, I only improved at it over the course of last year."

He performed a few short, jerky movements with his wand while muttering the incantation, and the Prophet appeared in his hands.

"I've got to learn that," Hermione said in awe, "I had read about it, but never given it much thought because why would you need that if you can just normally accio things. Now I know it's useful."

Draco gave her a lopsided grin, then stood up and bowed, "One of my msny talents."

"Of course," she scoffed, "Draco Malfoy, the talented ferret."

"You'll want to refrain from calling me ferret," he laughed. She stuck her tongue out at him, and levitated the paper to herself.

"You didn't even ask," he said incredulously. 

"I don't need to," she answered, giving him a wide, toothy grin. She unfolded the paper to have a look at it. She regretted it almost instantly.

Two large pictures, one of Draco and of herself, were plastered across the top of the front page. She recognised hers as being from the St Mungo's charity ball. The bold heading below it was in a rather large font. The Fiend Reappears:Slip up or Deliberate Move?

Her breath caught in her throat as she read. Harry had assaulted Ron for saying rubbish…team of aurors… they thought she was a criminal. Well, she couldn't really blame anyone, because it very much looked like she had been helping a wanted Wizard. She began regretting her decision of not telling Harry or Ginny about Draco. She had left them to wonder and speculate and worry. If there ever was a moment when she had felt more guilty than she was now, she couldn't remember.