Diem Mortis | Dramione

Ten.

Hermione ran like wind, her feet thrashing against the stone the way titans thrashed in their thrones.

As she ran, hair billowing in wisps behind her, she told herself that they deserved it. They wouldn't be badly hurt, mostly just bruised, annoyed and confused. She knew they would be ashamed to have been stunned by Hermione herself, someone they viewed as weak. Ultimately, they had been embarrassed by the girl they had so badly wanted to torment, all for revenge for her involvement in the trials.

She stopped running when she reached the fourth floor, falling back against a wall to bring breath back to her lungs. The corridors were still empty, most students frolicking in the autumn rain or sitting in classrooms, and she let herself catch her breath in the silence.

When the rattling of blood in her skull ebbed away, she began to walk, headed for nowhere in particular. She had days' worth of studying to catch up on and she knew her fourteen-year-old self would be stressed beyond belief, but she could not find the energy to do it. So instead, she walked towards the window, the same one that overlooked the black lake.

It was still early, the sun still at its peak in the sky, bellowed behind thick dark rain clouds, so she knew he wouldn't be there. He had disappeared the moment she had been tripped to the floor; his shadowed frame gone like dust.

So, she sat alone, watching the ripples in the water as the rain fell against it. It was a desolate feeling, simply listening to her own breath and the beating of rain against the old window.

It was then with the tired thoughts in her mind and the blood on her knee, did she hear the patter of familiar feet. With a glance, she saw Draco watching her, half in step but half in tow. He was staring at her, head tilted to the side like a confused crow, his arms holding books with titles that made her thoughts reel.

Blood Curses.

How to create a curse from potions.

Death in all its magical forms.

She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could manage to squeeze out any first syllable he was gone, drifting down the hallway with his head drawn to the floor.

-

She sat there for a while, continuing to watch the simple ripple of the black lake. The creatures were stirring beneath the surface, so she had the flash of a tail or the shimmer of a tentacle to keep her gaze occupied. It was only when the sun began to set did she realise she must have missed her classes, her eyes too forsaken with the outside world to have noticed the time slip past her.

Her younger self would have cried and begged for a time-turner to take her back to the lessons she had missed so she would not fall behind. But she was not her old self anymore, she was nineteen with a curse hanging over her head like the heat of the sun. It was hard for her to worry about such things. They simply didn't matter anymore.

She took herself away from the window when the sky began to turn the colour of marigold flowers and began to walk the halls, considering heading to the library or back to her room.

Her feet took her to the library, moving heavy as lead. It was desolate inside, a mere few souls sitting at tables with quills scratching parchment, or with their noses hidden deep inside books about the magic of greek gods and silly novels about vampires.

There was nowhere to go other than her nook, the curved walls giving her a sense of safety and warmth, though there was no fire burning yet the ash in her stomach.

For a while, she sat there simply staring out of the arched window. She could see distant red bubbles floating in the sky, two most likely belonging to Ginny and Ron as they ducked and flew during their practice, ready for the Quidditch game the next day. But that became tedious after ten minutes, her mind becoming penetrated with the floundering thought of how Ron would die.