From the Point of View of a Mudblood

Chapter 12: The Gift that Saved Her Life

Her day was filled with boring lessons and stolen glances of Draco. Ron and Harry showed up 20 minutes after she had gone to bed and explained what had happened. She was shocked and worried that something was after Harry, but Ron assured her that nothing was going on and that the gate just had a bug for the moment. She decided to believe him and relaxed. These past months had been full of awful events. Ms. Norris was attacked and petrified, and so had Colin Creevey and Justin Finch-Fletchley. Sir Nicholas had seen the creature behind the petrifying but did not get hurt. He is a ghost and cannot die twice. He's pretty shaken up about it though. He hasn't said an audible thin since the attack. So to try to help out, she went to the library alone to try to figure out what was petrifying all of the students.
As she was sitting in the library, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She whipped her head around and looked right at him. She could feel her face get hot and her feet get cold. Her knees were weak again and if she hadn't been sitting, she would have fallen to the ground.
"What are you looking for, Granger? The thing that has attacked all of the mud-" he paused. She glared at him. He clears his throat and sits down. Picking up one of her books, he flipped through the pages as if he had been into that book before. He stopped at a page and pulled something out of his pocket. She didn't notice this. Her nose was deep in a book about the history of magical disasters that happened in England. He tapped her on the shoulder again and handed her the book.
"Page 432 has something, but the page seemed to have been ripped out then replaced. It's been scribbled on and crumpled a bunch. I'll see you later, Granger."
He pecked her cheek and stood up. Watching him walk away, Hermione's cheeks burned with the soft touch of his lips. His very blond hair was flowing freely over his head and his robes were flowing just as freely as his hair.
She opens the book to page 432 and takes the page that Draco was talking about. The basilisk. Spiders fear it. Kills when looked directly into its eyes. But that doesn't explain the petrifying. She looks over the scrawled notes that look slightly familiar. One reads Petrifies when looked at through another object.
That does explain the petrification. She gathers her things and stands up to leave the library. She stops and notices a glistening object. A mirror. And a note that reads Hermione, I hope you can see how beautiful you are, because that's what I see. Draco.
She smiles and leaves the library, placing the note in her robe pocket.
She was walking down the hallway when she drops her books. Picking them up, she hears something. Like a hiss. She decides to use her mirror to watch for the basilisk. Walking backwards around the corner, she peeks through the mirror and down the hall. And that's when she sees it. She freezes and stops breathing. Her feet go cold and her eyes freeze open. Before she falls to the ground, she takes the paper from the book into her hand and drop everything else but the mirror. Then she hits the ground with no feeling in her body. No breath leaving her lips. No emotions pulsing through her mind. And nothing but a quick flash of him to make her panic then not.