This Is War

Separated By War

Here it goes, another day.

Merlin, what's wrong with her? What's with that sinking feeling that wants to push her down to the ground and make her decay there?

"...is all I'm saying. I mean, yeah, we had a very brief relationship, but he needs to let that go. I did. He just can't assume he's at liberty to sneak into my dormitory whenever he damn pleases."

Hearing Pansy Parkinson's voice enter her eardrums, causing the beginning pulsing-feeling of a headache coming on, Hermione knew there were too many things that were wrong with her. As she looked down at the marble floor, she saw long trousers and fine shoes rather than her stockings and small feet. She was wearing Slytherin robes with the smell of cool mint that wouldn't go away, and she was heading to the Great Hall with two Slytherins rather than Ron and Harry.

And, Merlin forbid, she forgets the fact that she's only coexisting with the snakes without any insults and duels is because she happens to be in the Slytherin Prince's body and they haven't the foggiest that it's really her.

"You need to set him straight," Pansy continued. "Show him how a proper man needs to behave after a break-up."

"How exactly can I help with that?" Rolling his eyes, Blaise Zabini gave Parkinson an annoyed look. "Theo does whatever he pleases, Pansy. And that includes you."

At the tactless pun, Parkinson frowned. "Look, I'm about one shove from murdering him, Blaise. If you want your friend to live for a few more years, I suggest you tell him to back off. You were never like this when you broke things off with Daphne."

"What happened between Daphne and me was different," Blaise snapped, now completely out of patience. "And maybe, Pans, if you quit going along with Nott's advances, he'd stop. You don't exactly seem reluctant to leave him behind when you kick the girls out of the room so you and him can have a few moments alone."

Parkinson witch snorted, but said nothing.

"Seems to me you might be in love with Theo."

As Parkinson's face twisted up in uncontrollable outrage and disgust, Hermione remembered something else that was wrong with her. It was matters of the heart. She felt things she should've not been feeling at all.

Even as she started shaking her borrowed-head, trying to make her brain stop from formulating the thoughts that have had her moping about the castle and the Slytherin dungeons, her problematic issues collided into her full speed as soon as Zabini, Parkinson, and she turned the corner of the corridor and saw a lone figure resting against the entrance wall of the Great Hall.

Someone was waiting for her.

Her borrowed-body felt like it was drenched in iced water. Malfoy's shoulders stiffened, his chest tightened, his heart slowed down, and then Hermione felt like the capacity to speak left his throat as a knot formed and took residence there.

Clearly not having the same problem as she was, the lonely witch waiting in the corridor pushed herself from the wall she was leaning against and took two careful and calculated steps to the three Slytherins. Her face was masked in absolutely nothing, but there was a glow to her brown eyes that could be identified as desperation.

"Malfoy," Hermione Granger had spoken in a low tone. "We need to talk."

Narrowing her eyes as the Mudblood Queen spoke to her friend in an almost ordering tone, Pansy sneered at her. "Draco doesn't talk to the likes of you, Granger. Now move out of the way before we make you."

Hermione Granger's eyes lost their previously undefined look to appear angered. "I—He talks to whoever he fucking pleases, Parkinson. Just because you trail after him like a lost puppy without an owner, and do anything he says, doesn't mean he does the same for you."