requirement | dramione

0.09

october 19, 1996

Late that night, Hermione sat perfectly still in her bed with her Ancient Runes book propped in her lap. The brown haired girl was the only one in her dormitory left awake, reading in her wand light. She sighed, pushing the book into her covers as she let herself sink backwards into the pillows in a very frustrated manner. It was too late to be consumed with so much confusion and stress.

Her brown hair fanned out around her and those deep brown eyes travelled around the room, searching for answers. Everything, aside from what was right next to her wand, was dim and answerless. She sat up again, closing the massive textbook. She slid off of her white covers, bare feet hitting the cold floor beneath. She hauled her textbook over to the small overflowing bookshelf to the left of her wardrobe. She set the book in its place, regretful that reading had not helped ease her mind. She began to turn, but before she would take another step, something caught her eye.

A corner of the Marauders Map was just barely sticking out of her Arithmancy textbook. Slow and curiously, she approached the book shelf again. She carefully pulled the parchment from it's hiding spot, flipping the corners of the paper in her fingers as she trailed back to her bed. She borrowed the map from Harry for learning purposes, of course, she wanted a better look at the secret passage ways throughout the castle. But now, late at night, different thoughts had crept into her mind.

She wondered where Harry was, if he had finished his lesson with Dumbledore and what they had done tonight. She wondered what Snape was up to; was he throwing more students out of his office? Most of all, she wondered what Draco was doing. 

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

She touched her wand, still illuminated, to the rough parchment. As the words left her mouth, black ink began to crawl over the tattered page. Corridors and classrooms formed, followed by common rooms and the great hall.

The Slytherin common room was the first to catch her eye. She studied the common space and the stairs up the the dormitories. Hermione pictured Harry's father and friends, under his invisibility cloak, sneaking into each house to map their common rooms. The thought made Hermione smile. Six floors above Slytherin, a pair of foot prints were drawing across the map.

The name itself, scrawled in dark ink with penmanship the distantly resembled Harry's, was enough to bring a blush to Hermione's cheeks. Draco Malfoy. He was wandering through the seventh floor corridors, walking away from the entrance to the Gryffindor common room. Hermione's heart  beat faster.

As if she was compelled to him, she slipped away from her covers once more. She tucked her toes into the night slippers that sat under her bed and took off down the staircase with only her wand and the map. She was dressed in a thin white long sleeve top and old grey pyjama bottoms that hung off her body and were a bit too long.

When Hermione landed in the common room, she glanced down at the map. Draco had moved even further away, down a separate corridor. The girl could tell, by his foot prints on the map, that he was moving quickly. She pictured his long legs taking long strides and wondered where those legs were taking him.

The entrance to Gryffindor opened and, without a second thought, she left the warm red glow of her common room and entered the silent corridor. The entirety of Hogwarts was darker than the night. The darkness enveloped Hermione, so thick and unknown that it threatened to swallow her wand light and leave her alone, in the dark. She let out a breath, glancing down at the map. Draco was walking slower now, clinging closely to one of the corridor walls. He was a good distance away from her, including a left down the hall and a right turn into the side corridor.