Touchstone || Dramione

Chapter VIII: Questions

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JULY 2002 

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"You had your chance to call the shower!" Sera yells from down the hall. "Scourgify yourself or something! I called it first!"

"You sound like a barking fox!" Nott snaps back. "This is your fucking fault, after all!"

Her voice is quite a few octaves higher than normal...

"Language!" Hermione snarls from her doorway and both glare at her. She crosses her arms. "Teddy doesn't need to learn those words."

He scoffs. "The little gremlin isn't even here. He's in town with Andromeda."

Sera punches his arm, scattering mud on the rug. "Don't call him that!"

Nott pushes Sera's shoulder, smearing a handprint through the mud on her skin. "Don't tell me what to do, you bloody beast!"

"Me? A beast? That's rich! Go on and call me a savage! Complete the picture, you intolerant—"

"Piss off." Nott mutters and saunters into his room, slamming the door behind him.

Both girls glance at one another before Hermione hazards the question. "What happened?"

Sera sighs, clearly flustered. "I was out near those old ruins, just looking around. Then, that"—she points at Nott's door with a disgusted snarl—"tried to shove me into the mire! I grabbed him before he could and we both fell in, but there are fucking gators out there!"

Hermione presses her lips at Sera's profanity and Sera shrugs sheepishly.

"Anyway, we..." she pauses and digs the toe of her shoe into the carpet almost shyly before clearing her throat. "We fought. Cast some hexes and all that. Now... he's going to steal the shower from me." Her lip worries between her teeth and something niggles at Hermione's subconscious. "This was all his damn fault, anyway."

Hermione leans in to whisper to her, but is shocked by the sour odor of the swamp. "Merlin! Um... you do need a shower. I don't think a Scourgify could even get that smell out." Then, she adds with a conspiratorial whisper. "You could always petrify him and just shower first."

Sera smirks, but shakes her head. "I might be a delinquent at times, but I never hit anyone in the back."

Hermione smiles, but it melts into a grimace. All of this feels so abnormal. She's sure Nott feels the same. To go from killing and torturing, darkened dungeons and all the stink, to living semi-normal. To arguing over petty things like mud fights and using profanity and who actually made the muffins. Hearing a child's laughter... She closes her eyes.

"No brooding today." Sera's stern voice cuts into her thoughts. "After I shower, we're going to take a walk through the woods. There are a few places I've been wanting to show you."

"I suppose that would be nice." Hermione murmurs. Sera's right.

"Do you think Malfoy would want to come?"

Malfoy...

"I'm not sure."

Sera shrugs. "Either way. I noticed he isn't wearing his leash, anymore. You hide it from him or something?"

Hermione clasps her hands in front of her. "I don't like it on him. The collar is bad enough."

"Yeah." She puckers her cheek in thought. "He tugs at it sometimes—"