Harry fell into step beside her without a word, slipping her bag off her shoulder and carrying it himself.
They passed Malfoy’s desk on the way out.
Hermione didn’t slow down.
She simply met the blond’s gaze, smirked like she knew every filthy thought in his head, and pressed the crumpled note back into his hand as she walked by.
Malfoy’s fingers closed around it automatically.
For once, he had nothing to say.
They were halfway down the corridor before Harry finally cracked.
“All right, out with it.
What did Slytherin’s Prince write that’s got you grinning like the Cheshire Cat?” Hermione let out a low, wicked little laugh.
“I wondered how long it would take you to ask.” She glanced sideways at him, cheeks faintly pink but eyes bright with mischief.
“He asked if I liked kneeling.
Said he planned to have me in that position for him on Saturday night if he drew my name.” Harry’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached.
“And you said?” “I told him he should dig his old Quidditch leggings out of storage,” she replied sweetly, “because it wouldn’t be me on my knees if we were unlucky enough to be paired.
I also mentioned I might just write a Forfeit card requiring every boy on his team to suck each other off if he kept harassing me.” Harry stopped walking.
For a second he could only stare at her.
Then laughter exploded out of him, loud and bright in the empty stone corridor.
“Brilliant, ‘Mione.” She shrugged, trying and failing to look modest as she fluffed her curls.
“Top of the class, you know.” They both dissolved into fresh laughter, the tension cracking open between them.
By the time they started walking again, the conversation had drifted to safer ground—test scores, final essays, the ridiculous “E” Hermione had somehow received in Potions instead of the “O” she’d expected.
Harry let her talk, only half-listening, because something else had shifted in his chest the moment she’d repeated Malfoy’s words.
He’d had a crush on her in third year.
A smaller one in fifth.
He’d never acted on either.
Ron had been in the way then, and later their brief relationship had made everything complicated.
Now Ron and Hermione were just friends again.
She was single.
Free.
And she had grown up.
Harry let his eyes move over her while she complained about her Potions essay.
The bushy hair and oversized teeth were long gone.
She’d filled out—soft curves, a narrow waist, the kind of figure that made a man notice even when he tried not to.
Her skin had that warm golden-pink tone that always looked like she’d spent the day in sunlight.
A light scatter of freckles across her nose.
Eyes the colour of old bronze coins.
When she smiled—really smiled—it was genuine and a little bit dangerous.
He was still attracted to her.
That much was obvious.
But as she kept talking, the practical part of his brain caught up with the wanting.
Hermione Granger was brilliant, ambitious, and independent to the bone.
She didn’t need anyone to lean on.
She conquered plateaus; she didn’t wait for someone to carry her up them.
Ron had once let slip—after too much Firewhisky—that she was aggressive in bed, the kind of girl who knew exactly what she wanted and wasn’t shy about taking it.
Harry wasn’t that person.
He wanted someone who needed him.
Someone who would let him be the strong one sometimes.
Someone who enjoyed slow romance and long, lazy mornings in bed instead of quick, fierce encounters that left marks and questions.
If he drew her name on Saturday, they would be good together for a night.
Maybe even two.
But anything more would end messy.
He’d get attached.
She’d get bored.
Their friendship—the most important one he had—would fracture under the weight of it.
No.
It would be a mistake.
By the time they reached the Hospital Wing doors, Harry had made his peace with the decision.
He handed her bag back and offered a small, genuine smile.
“Get some rest.
I’ll see you at dinner.” Hermione studied him for a second, as if she could read the thoughts he hadn’t spoken.
Then she nodded.
“Thanks, Harry.” He watched her disappear inside, then turned and headed back toward the Defence classroom, wondering—not for the first time—if he would ever find a girl who actually wanted the old-fashioned kind of love he still believed in.
Mid-afternoon sunlight slanted through the high windows of the Great Hall, turning everything gold and warm.
Blaise Zabini sat at the Slytherin table and stared across the room at Ginevra Weasley like she was the only person alive.
She was laughing at something Seamus Finnigan had said, head thrown back, that ridiculous black-tipped strawberry-blonde hair swinging over one shoulder.
Her pink mouth curved in a smile that hit Blaise like a Bludger to the chest.
Finnigan sucked on the end of a Sugar Quill and grinned back at her with the easy familiarity of someone who had already been inside her.
Blaise’s blood went hot.
He knew.
He could see it in the way they looked at each other—intimate, comfortable, knowing.
Potter had taken her virginity.
Finnigan had fucked her after.
And every time Blaise closed his eyes with someone else beneath him, it was her he saw.
Her bronze-gold eyes.
Her freckled skin that smelled like spicy orange and cinnamon.
That full bottom lip he wanted to bite until she cursed his name.
For two years she had ruined him.
Every partner—male, female, whatever—had become Ginny Weasley the second he shut his eyes.
Every orgasm had been her name bitten off behind his teeth.
She had turned him into something pathetic without even trying, and she looked at him like he was something she’d scraped off her shoe because he wore green and silver.
House prejudice.
Generational brainwashing.
Whatever it was, it cut deeper than he wanted to admit.
He was going to end it on Saturday.
Draco had already agreed to rig the Partner draw.
Blaise would get her name.
He would take her into whatever private space the Room of Requirement provided, fuck her until she couldn’t remember her own name, and then he would walk away.
Drop her on that prissy, perfect arse and finally be free of the obsession that had made him weak for far too long.
She would hate him for it.
That was fine.
He already hated himself a little for wanting her this much.
Across the Hall, Ginny glanced in his direction.
Their eyes met for half a second.
Her smile vanished.
The look she gave him was pure disdain—cold, cutting, final.
Blaise’s mouth curved in a slow, dark smile of his own.
Enjoy it while you can, little lioness.
Saturday night, he was going to make her pay for every single time she had made him feel like nothing.
And when it was over, he would finally be able to breathe again.