The Last Black (Hermione Granger x Male Reader) Vol.1

CHAPTER TWELVE: March 1995

Hermione hadn't talked to me since the second task. Whenever I passed her on the corridor, or saw her studying in the library, she glared at me in the same way she had done when Fleur had thanked me for returning for her sister. Usually, I would have confronted her and asked why she suddenly had a problem with me, but it was pretty obvious why she was annoyed. Fleur was just a good friend as far as I was concerned, and if me being her friend was what had Hermione in a mood, then I was happy to receive the cold shoulder off of her. She wasn't exactly completely innocent. It was clear that her and Krum had been seeing each other after the Yule Ball, perhaps she'd even been snogging him. It wasn't my problem anyway, not really; Hermione Granger could go off and snog whoever she wanted, it wasn't as though she was my girlfriend or anything.

Thankfully I still had Bridgett to spend time with during our shared lessons, and Fleur was good company when Bridgett was busy. But neither of them was Hermione Granger.

It did sort of bother me that she was being so stand-offish though. She was the best person to do homework with since she didn't talk much whilst studying, and she always carried around a spare inkwell. After a whole two months of not talking, I was really beginning to miss her. That's why I decided to just talk to her one day and get everything in the open.

"Oi!" I shouted up the corridor, "Granger!" Hermione was with two Gryffindor girls in her year who's names I didn't know. The three of them turned around. The two girls who were with her began to smile and bat their eyelashes. Hermione just rolled her eyes and turned to walk away. "Are you ignoring a prefect Granger?" I shouted after her, and she stopped before turning around to face in my direction once more. I had caught the attention of everybody walking along the corridor now, but I didn't care. "Come here," I instructed her, and she sulked towards me as I walked off in the direction of the courtyard. I wasn't about to have this conversation in front of an audience of thirty or so nosey students.

Once I had entered the quiet courtyard, Hermione spoke up. "What do you want Black?" She asked sourly.

"I want to know why you've been avoiding me," I responded sadly. I still didn't know if Fleur was actually the reason she'd been so cold towards me recently; perhaps she just wasn't that interested in me anymore.

"Why do you care?" She argued, "you have Fleur Delacour." I didn't particularly appreciate the way she said Fleur's name.

"Why are you being mean?" I asked, "Fleur's my friend." She frowned at this, as though she suddenly cared. "And if you're going to bring her into this, then might I mention Viktor Krum?" I retorted.

She scowled, "well that's," she struggled, "that's completely different!" I shook my head at her.

"No Hermione, it's not," I told her, "you can't have everything your way, it's a double standard." With that said, I walked away from her back to the Slytherin common room.

I stormed into the dimly lit common room, feeling at home as the green light from the lake shone against the black stone walls. The first person I saw was the person I wanted to speak to the most – Bridgett Burke. She was just kissing Adrian Pucey on the cheek as he stood up and slung his satchel over his shoulder. He nodded his head in acknowledgement of me as he strutted passed and exited through the stones which concealed the common room from the outside.

When I plonked myself down beside Bridgett and let out an audible huff, she turned around to look at me. "What's got you in a bad fettle?" She asked, "can't be exams, you're exempt." Bridgett had been a little bitter about my O.W.Ls exception since she'd found out that I didn't need to do the exams. She'd even gone as far as to say that she wished she had lost our game of rock-paper-scissors so that she'd be the one exempt from examinations.