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Hermione giggled and Tom glared back at her.
“Stop that.”
“Well I would but you took all of my trousers and then thought it would be a good idea to drag me through tall grass.”
“You looked ridiculous in them.”
“They were practical!”
“They were ugly.”
“You wouldn’t have been able to see them anyway; you have been walking in front of me for the past hour!”
“If you want to lead I will not stop you.”
“Fine then I will!”
Hermione pushed past him, letting her shoulder bump his in passing. She was almost offended when he did nothing to retaliate except for letting out a little ‘humph’.
She had to admit, she got a sick thrill out of taunting him. He was her equal in every way, but she wasn’t too proud to admit that she was not his. So Hermione liked to test him and the depths of his knowledge, but he was stubbornly close mouthed. The only way she could see just WHAT he could do, was to harass him until he struck back.
Much like his older counterpart, once he started talking he had a hard time stopping… unfortunately he also tended to duel the same way. Spells between the two tended to fly for hours before one of them (usually her) called for a truce for the bathroom, lunch, sleep, class- the list of excuses went on and on. Hermione was pleased to say she could hold her own against the young Voldemort.
Well so far at least, I am sure he is holding back.
Why he was she hadn’t the faintest idea. As of late he had been more passive in their arguments; polite when they were in private and he had no audience to see him do so… he had even stopped dueling with her the past month. No matter what she did he would not give her a response except for an exasperated sigh or a quirked eyebrow.
Hermione wondered if there was someone else.
She shook her head with a sigh. When she put it like that it sounded as if they were a couple on the outs. Even if we were I would have nothing to worry about, Tom usually doesn’t associate with women unless he has to.
His unsociability had been her greatest challenge when she had first come to the past. It had taken the better part of a month to integrate herself into his life, another month to get him to speak to her beyond strained polite conversation, and it had taken a gift of a rare old tome on Christmas to get him to actively seek out her company.
Months and months of forced bonding for nothing.
She thought gloomily. Hermione was surprised he had even remembered the stupid bet they had made that frozen night. She had been even more surprised when he had shown up at her room at three in the morning to settle it.
She had protested until he smiled that smug smile.
“Well then I suppose I win by forfeit… unless you want to prove me wrong.”
Hermione had scolded him for twenty minutes for waking her up before kicking him out, throwing on a shirt and the only skirt she had (he had stolen all of her trousers, leaving her a cheeky little note about what was appropriate wear for women) and stomped after him.
So now here she was, on a chilly March morning, waist deep in tall grass that tickled her bare thighs as she walked.
“Do you even know where we are going?” Tom called out from behind her.
She stopped. Where ARE we going?
“Well if SOMENE hadn’t dragged me out of bed (“Oh don’t be so dramatic I knocked on your door.”) and given me time to prepare (“I gave you an hour and a half.”) then I would know.”
“But you don’t.” It was a statement.
“No Tom I don’t know where we are going.”
“I thought not, we were supposed to have turned left by now.”
Hermione’s cheeks heated. “If you knew we were supposed to turn why didn’t you say anything?” She hissed through clenched teeth.
“I was preoccupied… did you know the grass was lifting your skirt?”
“What!” She yelped and her hands flew to smooth the fabric out. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?” She scolded and tried to stop the blush that threatened to overtake her again.
“I assumed you enjoyed the breeze.”
“You assumed wrong!”
She glared at him; he smirked at her.
“Oh this is getting us nowhere! Why don’t you take us the rest of the way to wherever we are going-”
“The mushroom circles,” he interrupted. “We are going to a grove of perfect mushroom circles to watch fairies dance.”
“-and I will finally be able to say I am right once and for all,” she finished. Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Fairies don’t dance in mushroom circles on the first day of spring or any other day. It’s muggle myth.”
“We will see.” He said with that smug little grin. If she wasn’t so angry she might have taken note of how handsome he was when he smiled. As it was, all she wanted to do was strangle him.
“Let’s just get this over with.”
“As you wish.”
Tom took the lead again and Hermione followed stoically behind him, not letting out a sound despite the light tickle from the grass.
---
“We have been sitting here for an hour. Let’s just go back to the castle.” Hermione grumbled. They had taken residence inside a hunter’s blind Tom had set up. It was crude, but serviceable and so Hermione and Tom had climbed to it (the height not so terrible) and waited.
Unfortunately, the blind was not the most comfortable of places. A branch had been digging into her side for the last twenty minutes, they had startled a bird above them and she had gotten doused in a shower of dew (Tom, the bastard, had avoided the water,) and the mist had given her a horrible chill.
“Not quite yet, and do be quiet your shrieking will scare them off.”
Hermione had to bite her tongue to keep from retorting. “How much longer?” she asked instead.
“Another hour or so.”
Another hour? she thought, appalled I don’t think I could survive this another hour! But she loathed the thought of giving up after going so far.
But I am not going to be spending the rest of my time with this branch digging in to my side. She jerked away from the stick, thrusting herself against Tom as a result of the movement.
“What are you doing?”
“There was a stick in my side, I moved and I am not moving back so you might as well be quiet about it.”
He snorted, she could feel the sharp exhale in her hair he was so close to her. Speaking of close.He was so warm… she made an involuntary movement toward him, his heat a beacon to her cold body.
“Well now Granger if you wanted to be closer to me all you had to do was say so instead of inventing an imaginary stick.”
“Shut up Tom. I’m cold.”
She would have done something about it if wizard magic didn’t scare off fairies… the one thing about the creatures both she and Tom agreed on. That didn’t mean she didn’t bring her wand though, she wasn’t stupid enough to do that.
“Then by all means, leach off of my heat like a giant parasite.”
Hermione was furious. But before she could start in on Tom he threw his hand over her mouth.
“Shhh. Look there,” he whispered.
Hermione did and she would have gaped if not for Tom’s hand. Below them, tiny multicolored lights were floating up from the ground, and a low humming filled the air. Fairies were everywhere, hundreds of them.
Tom slowly removed his hand from her mouth and reached into his pocket. She tensed for a moment before relaxing when he pulled out a pair of binoculars. Wordlessly, he passed them over to her, she took them with a small smile and his lip quirked in response as he pulled out another set for himself and gazed back down at the fairies. She did the same peering down at the tiny faces.
Male and female, old and young, all dressed in various outfits of spider webs, beetles shells, dragonfly wings, fresh leaves, snail shells, blades of grass, and flowers. The colors and craftsmanship that went into the little outfits amazed her. Perhaps they are smarter than people give them credit for.
A small group of the colorful creatures rose into the air and a slow, rhythmic hum filled the area. “Music,” she whispered. One by one the fairies flew into the mushroom circles, pairing up, the lights merging as they spun in tune to the music.
She watched in amazement as the fairies waltzed and danced and pranced and was startled by Tom pressing his shoulder against her. He leaned in close and she shuddered at the feeling of breath on her ear.
“I win.”
Chills worked their way down her spine.
“No,” she breathed.
He chuckled, the sound deep, dark…
“Oh I beg to differ, look below you Hermione, the fairies are dancing. It is the twentieth of March, the first day of spring.”
“How do I know they do this every year? You could have just been lucky.” Her mind was going fuzzy; his breath was still on her ear, hot.
“Hmm, I suppose you do have a point.”
I do?
“Of course I do,” she whispered.
“We will have to do this again then, to confirm. Too make it fair you can choose the location.”
“Yes,” she muttered, not knowing what else to say… his breathing on her was so distracting.
“Then it’s a date.”
She blinked and finally turned to look at him, they were nose to nose, but he could still tell he was smirking. The fairy lights making his eyes sparkle.
“Date?”
“Yes a date- but next spring is a long way off, so if you wish we can do something sooner… to settle our score.”
Her head was spinning. He was asking her out?
“Ok.”
“Ok.”
That was all that needed to be said, so they sat there, foreheads pressed together while the fairy lights flashed around them.