A Witch Out of Time

「 chapter three 」

          Silence ineptly lingered in the evening air. A muscle involuntarily twitched, at the corner of Hermione's left eye, and her throat suddenly became dry. Edmund's initial question sparked a self-conscious flame within her and the latter caused the slip of a heartbeat.

          "I," She initiated before coughing, a palm naturally elevating to cover her mouth, "—I would've thought, by now, you'd know magic isn't real."

          Edmund's freckled cheeks flushed, Hermione's undertone was slightly mocking — but he wasn't wrong. Or was he?

          Remorseful eyes tersely flickered, to the near buildings, as digits rhythmically prodded her thigh to the beat of her pulse. So maybe now Hermione was panicking; he somehow knew, and she could not recall any documentation of a muggle simply 'feeling' magic. Improvisation was her only hope.

          "I suspect you felt a draft."

          Doubt was his first reaction, then logic returned to Edmund's senses. No. He wasn't wrong. First off, he had felt it. He knew he had — and since feelings are produced by the heart, not in the mind, other, more solid indications needed to come in to prove a point: the amused, soft smile that had lingered on the brunette's lips had frozen after his question. Her gaze, evading his so suddenly. The subtle quiver in her voice, almost inaudible, but not to his ears. The nervous thrumming of dainty fingers against her thigh —; his eyes only needed a moment to sum it all up. The hints her body disclosed the truthful answer to his question.

Peter may have been fooled, but not Edmund. He had begun reading his father's detective novels as first-former, and soon had made it a habit to analyse his peers, exposing their whitest lies with sarcastic remarks. He didn't stop at his peers; soon Edmund showed that he thought he knew it all better than his teachers, too. When James Pevensie had gone to war and his mother Helen had promised Lucy that their father would return, Edmund had seen the despair and hopelessness behind her fake smile; one more reason that made his younger self so terribly bitter — and sad.

Hermione was considerably out of her depth. Dishonesty, as much as it was required for her kind, wasn't something she took pleasure in, and only executed such when necessary or harmless. A cheerful frivolity was well within her bounds. Despite Edmund's impartial demeanour, that was her justification for enduring the deceit (no matter how weak her performance may of been) until now.

Edmund stopped walking, abruptly pausing in front of her. Hermione halted; feet sluggishly trudged to a cease. An erring eye scrutinised the activity, prior to raising with little poise to engage with his. Although, somehow, her head remained nervously lowered.

"I'm not — I'm not wrong," The boy murmured, frowning. The pull of his dark eyes made it almost impossible for her to look away and not eventually stare right into them, "Listen — I know magic when I see it. I know that England isn't all there is. Not to long ago I was in another w—"

Edmund paused and glanced aside as a man walked past the pair. A deep breath quitted his nostrils. The pavement was barely the place to talk more about the things he knew to convince Hermione that he was very much privy to the world of magic, that he was trustworthy. An eyebrow gradually elevated, along with the rest of the brunette's figure, as her gaze narrowed. She faintly hummed and followed his eyesight to the passing public.

"Where exactly have you been, Edmund?" Hermione hissed under her breath, once the male passed by; she could easily decipher the remainder of his sentence. Interest was sparked and such overruled her concern and falsification. Her drowsy eyes, again, glanced to a further passerby, which highlighted their demand for privacy.