I hope our story has a happier ending

no one has to know

The lights begin to dim, the way they do every night ten minutes before the library closes.

Hermione rubs at her eyes, getting to her feet with a yawn; she's spent most of her time in the library since she got to Hogwarts—especially in the early days, when she didn't have Harry and Ron, and the other girls in her dormitory were too cool for the bookworm.

(A sentiment which abated as soon as she was in with "the chosen one", of course.)

Still, the last few weeks she's reached a new level of intellectual exhaustion. Not that she can afford anything else, with the heir of Slytherin on the loose—as soon as she finishes her homework, she spends the rest of the night researching legends about the founder, about magical beasts, about the architecture of the castle itself.

She'll do anything to protect this place—anything to make it feel like home again.

(it had been nice—feeling safe in a home that was hers, for a little while.)

If that means reading about so many horrible creatures she gives herself nightmares, so many primary documents by blood supremacists she wants to throw up and hide away, so be it.

Unfortunately, it means she hasn't been able to speak to Romeo nearly as much—but then, he understands, because this semester at his boarding school has been particularly brutal as well, her non-dominant hand perpetually ink-stained from diligent scribbles by his left-handed self. And anyway, their friendship doesn't always need words—they could go a minute or a year without speaking, and she knows falling back into the ease of their interaction would be as easy as breathing.

(Though Romeo is asthmatic, so it's probably not a simile he would appreciate.)

She also hasn't been seeing Harry and Ron as much, but Harry has detention tonight anyway, and Ron is likely either tied up in a chess tournament or already asleep.

Making her way to the back shelf, she begins returning the books she'd gathered to their places—Madam Pince had long since given up on having her leave out the piles of books she went through every day as was custom to keep track of library traffic, instead keeping a chalkboard for her and one other voracious reader to update their tallies on at the end of each night.

She turns back around, eyes widening at the sight of Draco Malfoy feet away from her as he slides several tomes on ancient and noble house genealogy into place.

It's not at all unusual to see him here—in fact, every night she can pretty much count on his presence, as well as an assortment of mad-scientist-esque Ravenclaws that varies day to day. Malfoy has many flaws, not the least of which by far are his racism and elitist sense of innate superiority, but she has no doubt he earns his rank as second in their class—and she only just surpasses him.

(She has the best motivation in the world to be on top, though—needs to belong in the wizarding world so desperately, she'll do anything to make sure no one questions her place here, to make sure no one tries to send her back.)

He doesn't make any acidic remarks, though—even now, when no one to reprimand him is anywhere in sight, he merely gives her a cool nod and walks away without the crude and deprecating commentary that characterizes their everyday relationship.

By the time she recovers from the shock of him so near and gets her belongings together, she spies him carefully marking the right half of the tally board—of course he's the other person who reads in high enough volume to have a place of his own on the board. She should've known.

She waits for him to finish before silently adding her own marks on the other half of the slate.

Readjusting the bag on her shoulder, she waves to Madam Pince with a small smile on her way out, groaning at the sight of chalk on her left hand—she doesn't know how she managed to get it all the way over there, really, but her own clumsiness knows no bounds at this point.