Loving the Lonely

Chapter 12

When three boys come tumbling through the portrait hole, Hermione is seated quietly in her chair. She jerks when they enter, her head shooting up as she's dragged from the words of the book spread over her lap, and she only settles down again when she sees who it is. 

"Afternoon, Hermione," Blaise greets as he gives Theo a final shove towards the wall. Theo springboards off the wall and slams back into Blaise with a sharp bark of laughter that feels too loud for Hermione. "You rushed off so fast after classes that we didn't even get a chance to talk." It's an accusation, and she can see his lingering distrust in her ability to care for her own health is spiking up again. She can't find it in herself to care, though, not after the previous night. 

She'd thought she was getting better, or at least that the nightmares weren't going to be as bad. But this morning--no, it had still been dark and the moon had been too high in the sky for it to have been morning, so night then--she'd woken with a cry and had sat up so fast it made her head spin. Her face had been damp with tears or sweat or perhaps a combination of both, and her clothes had stuck to her skin in a way that had made her feel ill. She had trembled so much she feared the bed would shake right apart beneath her. 

Sleep didn't come again and every dark corner seemed to hold the gray faced of the gray men with their roaming eyes and every howl of wind outside held the whispering voices of her parents. 

Getting out of bed had been no easy task, either. She'd hardly managed to convince her body that it wouldn't shatter the moment her feet touched the floor. In the end, she'd been late to her first class of the day, which hadn't helped her quivering hands and buckling knees in the slightest. 

"I'm pretty tired today," Hermione replies, slower than she'd like as she comes back to the present. "I'm sorry for running out on you, though." She tries so hard to make it seem sincere, but she can't convinces herself, so she doubts she does a good job. She never tries hard enough anyway; She's never good enough. 

"You aren't sick, are you? Are your ribs causing you any pain?" Theo steps closer, hands raising like he wants to reach out and touch her. He freezes when Hermione presses back into her chair, avoiding his touch with absolutely no subtlety. 

Hermione scolds herself for the automatic reaction. It's just that touching isn't good right now for her. Touching means them being too close and them being too close means the possibility of her parent's words coming true and Hermione might hurt them. She doesn't want that, so she can't let them be close, not with her parent's hate so fresh in her mind and her own doubts of her ability to control herself slithering through her head. 

Reasoning it out to herself doesn't lessen the guilt or chase away the look of hurt on Theo's face. 

"I'm fine," she says. Not one of them believe her, but no body seems willing to call her lie out. Well, Draco tilts his head and his eyes flash with a look that says he's holding something back, but he doesn't speak up, so the lie passes by without recognition. "Like I said, I'm just tired. You know I don't always sleep well." It's a whispered reminder, given that only Blaise and Theo know about her sleeping habits, even if their knowledge is limited. 

Draco turns away and drops onto the sofa, acknowledging her desire for a small bit of privacy, but for a moment, Hermione is sure she'd seen him wince in sympathy for her. She wonders if he'd heard her after all. 

"Right," Theo sighs in remembrance. "I'm sorry. Maybe tonight will be better for you?" His suspicion has dropped away, like Hermione knew it would. 

She hopes that tonight will be better, but it surely won't be. Her bad days never end at the twenty-four hour mark. "Definitely," she enthuses anyway, forcing a smile. "It'll be better tonight, I know it."