Julie Stone was a regular girl; she lived in an orphanage, had some friends, and every now and then would bang her head against the wall due to stress. . . . Normal!
Anyway, all her life Julie never seemed to quite fit in. She loved it, but her life...
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𝒇𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒎𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒆, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒔𝒆𝒓
────── *•. ⚡︎ .•*──────
Harry Potter could really be a pain in the arse when he wanted to. And Hermione was cursing the fact that he took after his father when it came to obsessions. Because if James' infamous obsession for Lily Evans was bad, then Harry's obsession over the Half-Blood Prince was tenfold worse—even more so than his obsession for her cousin, Peroxide Jr, and that's saying a lot.
He wouldn't stop rambling about the Prince, and he was slowly but surely taking Hermione to madness. She would go to lengths to steer the conversation away from the dreadful book, and when she did he started going on about Dragon Malloy being a Death Shitter. Hermione was not pleased and neither was Ron—who, just like her, wanted to slap Harry across the head (something she actually did).
And what made it even worse, was that Harry, though he hated fame and being in the spotlight, also wasn't refusing the praise ol'Sluggy gave him every Potions class, due to his newfound ability in his class. Not that Hermione blamed him, she also didn't refuse the attention—though the old man rather annoyed her. But this was wearing Ron's and Hermione's patience thin.
Throughout the week, Hermione would occasionally slip away, leaving Ron to Harry's rambling or if he was lucky to Harry's normal behavior. She would mostly hang out with her other Gryffindor friends, and focus on her homework—usually being joined by Hannah Abbott, as they would usually go there after Care of Magical Creatures; or Theo, Blaise, and surprisingly Draco. The latter usually never talked, staying to himself as he read or did his homework, never really paying attention to the other three at the table. Blaise and Theo seemed to not mind the blond's companion and actually sympathized with him and for his situation (though they didn't know about the mark or his task, they did have a suspicion). Hermione didn't mind either. She didn't like him, it was neutral ground, but she would help him. After all, Draco was family and he was struggling.
At that moment, Hermione found herself wandering around a deserted corridor in the direction of her detention with Snape—the one Harry had bailed on, due to some business with Dumbledore. Her hands were tucked in the pockets of her leather jacket, the heels of her boots clicking against the stone floor and she hummed as she breathed in the scent of Fred's cologne and gunpowder that she could smell in the sweater he had given her before leaving for school, oversized and falling over her black mini-skirt.
"Hello?"
Hermione spun on her heels, her eyebrows drawing together as she found the corridor behind her empty. No one was there, but she could swear someone had talked. And just when she was about to turn again, thinking the Lively Corpses were playing a joke with her, she stopped in her tracks as she caught sight of a smiling woman in a painting, waving at her.
