The Darkwood Wand

Need

Hermione exhaled shakily, blowing cigarette smoke out the half-open window. She was tucked into her bedroom's window seat, wrapped in a quilt and watching the sunset. Romilda was off with Cormac. The trees and mountain peaks looked like black cutouts against a streaked orange-pink sky.

She had retreated there after dinner, needing to be alone. Thoughts of Malfoy had been plaguing her all day. During a particularly dull History of Magic lesson, Hermione found herself imagining other spells the Slytherin could corrupt—the swirl of Tarantallegra, the swish and flick of Leviosa Wingardum. The last spell had made her shiver in her classroom chair. Thank Merlin the castle was so drafty; people were always shivering.

Hermione sighed and let her head fall against the cold glass. She shouldn't indulge such thoughts, this was Malfoy. He was mean and harsh and sneering, and while he might be capable of mimicking actual human behavior to achieve his selfish aims, he wasn't anyone to fantasize about. There had to be other options.

So her evening plans had included drawing up a list of suitable wizards who weren't former Death Eaters and/or gits casting dodgy spells. The result was RAW (Romantic Applicant Waitlist), which ranked the candidates by attractiveness, emotional stability and moral rectitude. She'd also brainstormed a few ways to attract interest, since she (thankfully) couldn't pop into their beds wearing pink knickers.

That depressingly short list was in her hand now: Seamus Finnigan, Hufflepuffs Ernie Macmillan and Justin Finch-Fletchley, and an extremely bright Ravenclaw Seventh Year. After some hesitation Hermione added Blaise Zabini as well. Theodore Nott was out of the question: The man was unbearably smug and there was the whole So-I-Hexed-Your-Father-During-The-War issue.

Hermione rolled up the parchment with a sigh. She didn't feel like strategizing. Instead, the cigarettes' acrid smell and her still-simmering arousal steered her thoughts to a certain large tent, mended and well-used, and furnished like a stuffy, old-fashioned flat.

***

Autumn, The Forest of Dean

Hermione and Harry sat on the sofa in the tent's tiny front room, hungry and frightened. Death Eaters prowled the countryside. Ron was gone. But Harry had lured her out of her bunkbed that evening, not with pleas or arguments, but with cigarettes.

The ciggies were courtesy of Fred and George, who had frequently used the tent after the Quidditch World Cup and had stashed various contraband inside. Hermione had opened a book that day titled Limping Through Life: My Forty Years with Bunions and found a bottle of firewhiskey inside the hollowed-out pages. Harry searched the rest of the books, finding more bottles, then started poking around furniture and shelves. That was how he found the cigarettes, tucked into tins labeled "bunion ointment-24 pack." A mega-box of bunion pads in the bathroom actually contained dirty magazines. Inspired, Harry ransacked a bureau drawer filled with large, weirdly padded socks and discovered a few bits of lingerie at the bottom.

Hermione had rolled her eyes, remarking that abnormal toe joints were nothing to laugh about. She then went to her bunkbed and was indulging in her usual 8 p.m. cry over Ron when the thin smell of smoke drifted into the room.

"HARRY!" she shouted, leaping out of bed. "HARRY JAMES POTTER!"

She stormed into the front room to see Harry stretched out on the sofa, puffing on a cigarette and grinning. Bottles, cigarette packs and colorful lace were piled on the coffee table.

"Harry!" Hermione cried. "Stop that right now! You'll get lung cancer!"

"I should be so lucky."

That shut Hermione up. She sat on the sofa beside him and watched her friend take another drag. "How do you know how to smoke?"