The World Around Us

Hermione seemed to have been accepted without question into their group of friends. It was odd, after what Shane had said about them being really tight together. She had figured they didn't make new friends at all, but she simply fit in with them, simple as can be.

She felt bad for having to lie to people she cared about - Harry's parents she didn't even know, yet felt a bond with nonetheless - but righteous anger filled her everytime she set eyes on Peter. She learned quickly that he didn't speak much, that Remus was smart, quick witted, quiet and rational all at once - something she didn't know anyone could be; she learned that Sirius was witty, charming and flirty as well as the complete bad boy of the group, while James was always coming up with new plans, boyish and devilish and only balanced by his level-headed, smart, funny and nice girlfriend Lily.

She'd catalogued every aspect of their personalities, determined not to forget anything in case she got home and had a chance to tell Harry and Ron everything. And whenever she thought about this, her heart hammered in fear. What if I never get back? she wondered, trying not to panic. What if I'm stuck here forever, what if I change the future, what if I ruin everything so that I don't even exist?

She had been planning to see Dumbledore after dinner, so when she stopped at Gryffindor tower just before her meal, and opened the sealed letter on the dining table, which read that she and Malfoy were to see him immediately following supper, she couldn't help but feel a little apprehensive. This past version of Dumbledore appeared to know far too much already; she hoped the meeting would explain more.

Bearing this in mind, she hurried through dinner and told Lily she'd meet her in the common room after dinner (she was a Gryffindor, after all). She'd gotten the password from Sirius during their Charms class. When she was finished wolfing down her supper, she rose from the table and glanced across the hall to see Malfoy doing the same. They exited the Great Hall at the same time, heading in the same direction, though if you'd seen it you wouldn't believe they were going to the same place at all. They were on opposite sides of the corridor and didn't speak the entire way there.

When they stood in front of the gargoyle guarding his office, they realized they didn't know the password. Before they could even begin to guess it, it sprang aside to let Dumbledore out. Instead of stepping out, however, he beckoned them in and they entered his study.

"I'm sure you both have quite a few questions," said Dumbledore, smiling at them, "so I decided to allow you to ask some of them."

"Thank you, sir," Hermione said graciously, but Draco just scowled. He did that a lot lately, it seemed.

"What would you like to know?"

"Well, why are we here? When will we get home? Why-" Hermione asked, before she was interrupted.

"Hang on a moment, Miss Granger, one question at a time. For starters, I believe you are here because there is something you need to learn. Fate works in mysterious ways, but usually not without reason," Dumbledore told her, very seriously. "As for when you will get home, we're not sure. Before we can figure that out, we have to figure out how you two arrived here in the first place. Did either of you two do anything out of the ordinary on the particular day you traveled back?"

"Not that I can think of," Hermione said, deciding not to add in about the corridor as Draco said he hadn't gone through it. It seemed pointless to bring it up. "So until we figure this out, we're stuck here? And we're supposed to just hang out here, go to classes, make friends and whatnot... what about when we do go back, if we ever can, and people notice we're gone?"

"I shall inform them that you were only here on a trial basis, and your respective parents decided not to have you stay here," Dumbledore replied, smiling.

"I'm scared," Hermione admitted, ashamed at having Draco hear her being weak. She was stuck in the past, without Ron or Harry, her parents, or anyone she'd known, except the headmaster and her only real enemy, Draco Malfoy.

Malfoy. He'd been surprisingly quiet since they arrived in the headmaster's office. Didn't he have any questions? As though challenging her thoughts, he spoke up at that moment.

"I don't know about Granger, but I don't have any books or supplies," he drawled.

"That will be taken care of as soon as you return to your room," Dumbledore informed them. "If that's all...?"

Not having any more questions, Hermione thanked the Headmaster as she stood up and walked out the door. Not waiting for Malfoy, she walked down the halls towards the Gryffindor Tower. Not hearing footsteps behind her, she assumed he had headed for the dungeons.

When she reached the Fat Lady, she prepared to give her the password. Before she could even open her mouth, James and Sirius came running up behind her, laughing as hard as they could, soaking wet.

"What sort of trouble have you guys been getting yourselves into?" Hermione asked, mock disapproving. She crossed her arms.

"Nothing, of course," they chimed together.

"Honestly, what's so funny?" she said, smiling and dropping her hands.

"We transfigured the Quaffle," James said, finding it difficult to speak for laughing. Water was dripping from his dark hair and Hermione was forcefully reminded again of Harry. It was James that made her miss her friends - she always thought she saw Harry out of the corner of her eye, but it was him. And she just plain missed Ron, no one to make her think he was around.

"We turned it into a rabbit -" began Sirius, doubling up in laughter, "and they were running all around the pitch, trying to catch it when it jumped out of the trunk."

Hermione laughed despite herself. It was a harmless, but funny joke and she found it more than amusing. Her disapproval for rule-breaking was pushed to the back of her mind.

"Come on, I can't wait to see what Lily has to say," she said, ushering them inside the common room after giving the password.

"Lily's going to yell again - oy, I'm scared Padfoot, help me," James said, looking falsely fearful.

"Don't worry, I'm scared too," Sirius replied.

Lily was watching them as the three walked in.

"Lily, I -"

"I saw you from the tower window," she interrupted, motioning to the common room source of natural light. "I saw what you did to those Slytherins."

"We were getting revenge! After that disaster in the Great Hall last week, we needed to get one over them!" Sirius claimed loudly, still laughing.

"All I have to say about this -" the boys leaned back, waiting for the explosion, "is good job! You really got them, they're STILL chasing that damn thing!"

James and Sirius were completely shocked. The bewilderment on their faces was incomparable. Shaking out of their trance, they ran over to the window.

"Oh they are! Look at it!" Sirius crowed. "They can't catch him worth a damn! They haven't even thought of 'accio'!"

James turned to his girlfriend. "So, you're not mad?"

"I thought it was brillant," she grinned, and he grinned back.

Hermione stood back a little, smiling at their prank. She SHOULD be disapproving and she SHOULD be mad, but she wasn't. She wasn't any of the things she was back at home. This was like being in the home you lived in most of your life, yet living with a different family. She felt like a whole different person. And this person happened to be amused with the whole prank.

Deciding she wanted a little alone time to think, she left almost as soon as she arrived at the tower, smiling and promising to see the group at breakfast.

She took her time heading back to her guest rooms, dreading the possible confrontation that could occur - the way anything could occur when Draco Malfoy was her roommate. Wishing she were home, she turned the corner and walked along the corridor in which their room was located. Finding Malfoy sitting at the door again was a surprise; she'd forgotten to give him the password.

"I'm sorry, Malfoy," Hermione apologized sincerely, "the password is 'mermish', okay?"

The extremely angry and ugly look on Malfoy's face from waiting with no entrance to their rooms softened slightly as she told him she was sorry, but in an effort to maintain his cool and collected manner, he said nothing and followed her into the guest room.

He swayed a little as he walked across the room, then tripped and fell over onto the couch. She stared at him for a moment.

"Oh my god, Malfoy, you're drunk!" she exclaimed.

"No, realllly?" he slurred, staring up at her defiantly. He pulled out a small bottle of Firewhisky.

Even the "new" Hermione she had contemplated getting to know here was appalled that a student would be drinking.

"You can't be drinking!" she cried, grabbing for the Firewhisky.

"We're stuck twenty years in the past, and I just happen to have had a bottle stashed in my robes. I'm going to drink it. Why don't you have some?"

"Sorry, but I don't drink," she replied haughtily, turning away from him.

"Fine, your loss then," he told her, grinning. She turned back to face him.

"I really doubt it's a loss."

"You know, even your Gryffindor-ish I'm-better-than-you, know-it-all attitude is cute right now," Draco admitted.

"What?" she asked, surprised.

"Nothing," he muttered, angry with himself for saying anything.

"You think that I'm - what - cute?" she said, disbelieving

“No, I didn't mean it. Nevermind,” Draco said sourly, looking away.

Hermione plopped down on the couch beside him.

“I thought it was nice,” she said softly.

The glacier inside him that kept him so cold and indifferent melted a little. The frozen hopeless feeling trapped in the pit of his stomach everyday was a difficult thing for someone still partly a child to deal with.

He looked at her. “I'm not nice, Granger.”

“I know you aren't, but what you said was,” she told him. Then she laughed lightly. “There's hope in you left.”

“No, there isn't!” he snapped. “stop trying to understand me.”

“Fine, I will,” she said simply.

The abandoned blankets lay folded neatly on the couch-side table, presumably by house-elves. She grabbed her Gryffindor blanket, tossed him his Slytherin one, and wrapped herself up. Comfortable enough, she began to drift off again, though this time she was sure to lean on the opposite arm of the couch as Draco.

Despite this, when she woke up in the middle of the night as she so tended to do in an unfamiliar place, Malfoy was snuggled up against her. He was still wrapped up in his own blanket, but sleeping peacefully along her side - and she was shocked. She had given last night as a fluke, an accident of sorts. Yet here they were again, different sort of way, but same situation.

At first, she didn't know what to do. Push him off? Or go back to sleep? She was disgusted with herself for sleeping on him the night before; this thought made her almost push him immediately. But then a rather Slytherin thought came into her head: what if I were to wake up in the morning just like this, right before he does and yell out? He'd have no proof that it wasn't him who snuggled up to me this time, because it was!

Hermione may have had the ability to think as a Slytherin, but she clearly wasn't one. Instead, her exhausted mind let her fall asleep without action.

---

When Hermione woke again, it was morning and she found herself alone. Malfoy was sitting across the room from her, at the dining table, apparently deep in thought. She considered, briefly, trying to talk to him, but at the look on his face, decided against it.

"Awake, finally?" he asked, looking up at her.

"Yes," she sighed, "and I'm going to go get some breakfast."

He nodded, scowled, and looked down again, studying the table intensely.

Evidently it had been the alcohol that had made him slightly more tolerable the night before. He was as surly and withdrawn as he had been the whole time she'd been stuck with him. Part of her wondered, though, if it was his current home situation and other dangers that made him the way he was. That perhaps if he felt free of his father and the danger of the other Slytherins and the Death Eaters, he might be more tolerable. She didn't expect anything, and in return, he wasn't rude to her. He just didn't talk much at all.

Hermione said again, grabbed her books, and walked out the door. She sat down at breakfast very confused and feeling very vulnerable. She had to ask herself why she always just allowed him to sleep on her, or, allowed herself to sleep on him. She hated him! Really, she honestly did hate him. Well, she hated what he stood for, the way he acted, the way he just... was. She hated his family, his friends, his lifestyle, almost every aspect of his being. That did constitute hate, didn't it?

She shook her head.

"Hey, H, how are you feeling? You look a little dazed," asked Lily concernedly, putting a hand on her arm.

"What? Oh, no, I'm fine. I just didn't sleep all that well last night," she lied, knowing she'd actually slept quite well. It was much better than the loneliness that seemed to encompass her when she was by herself. Her parents hardly knew she was alive, her two best friends barely saw past her ability to correct her homework, and her dorm mates were giggly gossip freaks.

She often felt the odd one out, in life in general, and sought to make up for it with her good grades and above-average intelligence. As her thought trail continued, she smiled remembering the last couple nights, where she'd felt as though there was someone out there. Even if it wasn't the one she was touching, it was like a message to her: you won't always be alone.

It comforted her.