I Learned Your Pulse

"What are you going to call me when you're mad?"

She watched him try again and again for a facial expression that would hide his real one, knowing she'd seen it anyway, because they were making eye contact. She was frozen, speechless, watching him struggle and feeling worse for every attempt he made to stop.

The corridor was silent.

"Draco, I'm sorry," she said quietly, not wanting her words to carry.

He tried his catch phrase, but it died in his throat. "Filthy Mud... Mud...."

"Don't," she said. "You're not going to get anyone who gives a damn about you if you call them names like that."

He couldn't mask the hurt. "Sometimes... sometimes I think he might... but it hasn't... I haven't..."

"What are you talking about?" Hermione asked.

He gave no reply, but he turned and began walking away.

"Draco," she called after him.

"Whatever happened to 'Malfoy' and 'Ferret'?" he asked bitterly, gaining speed.

"Draco," she tried again, jogging to catch up with him and grabbing his sleeve. He shook her off and set at a quick jog.

"Draco!" she hissed, running around him and in front of him so they were both knocked to the floor when he failed to stop.

His body was warm, she noticed. Surprising, as she'd always categorized him as a cold character. She supposed he wasn't truly reptilian and cold-blooded, but he always seemed to evil.

Not evil, she conceded. Misled.

And then she shoved him off of her and rolled over, getting to her knees.

"Bloody hell, Hermi... Granger, I thought you were supposed to be defending yourself against the Dark Arts, not trying to jump them.

"Shut up, Malfoy," said Hermione jaggedly, angrily brushing off her jeans.

He raised an eyebrow. "Back to Malfoy, are we?"

"Shut up, Ferret."

"What are you going to call me when you're mad?"

The question wasn't in the rising volume their conversation had taken, nor was it harshly spoken. She had to look up to give her answer.

She coudn't.

His eyes were as hypnotizing as before. She couldn't think straight, she couldn't breathe for fear of disrupting the air of the moment, she couldn't speak for fear of dislodging this odd sensation where she actually got a chance to try and understand Draco Malfoy -

And then the eyes broke their connection with hers, leaving her speechless, breathless and deprived of any answer to his question or his person.

"I don't care, don't answer," said Draco in an almost-whisper, rising and stepping away before she could reach for him.

"Draco!" she called once as he rounded the corner that took his mop of platinum hair out of her sight. "You come back here right now and finish this conversation or I'll give you a detention!"

His head poked around the corner. "I dare you," he said, grinning slyly. "I think you'll find yourself serving one as well."

"Fine then," said Hermione, finding it impossible to stop her own grin breaking out. "That'll be twenty points -"

"Thirty -"

"Fourty -"

"Fifty!" Draco crowed with laughter, disappearing once more. Hermione giggled to herself.

The walk to the class seemed almost nonexistent in the aftereffects of the conversation she'd somewhat just had. Accusatory, to insulting, to angry, to stunned, to friendly - he truly was one hell of a thing to understand.

And she would understand him. She had nothing better to do.

And then she was standing in the doorway, looking at a man with sandy hair that was cropped short accompanied by blue eyes so similar to Ron's they almost hurt to look at.

"Miss Granger," said Professor Yasmen pleasantly, smiling a lopsided smile. "Everything is sorted out with Miss Haila?"

She nodded.

"Well, take a seat, Ma'am, and let's re-start the class. Who thinks we can re-do everything we've done in the last half-hour?" he called out through the classroom, his voice easy-going and light.

Hermione looked at his clothing. It was very casual; a wizard's cloak over brown pants and a white long-sleeved tee, with the base of none other than tan trainers.

There were shouts of encouragement and false groans. Hermione guessed everyone liked the teacher already; they were all smiling, as was he. She moved silently next to Harry, smiling too.

"This'll have to be a Speed Lesson, or S.L.," said Professor Yasmen. "Who wants to explain what we've been going over?"

Harry's hand was one of many flung into the air.

"Alright, let's see... Mr. Potter, I don't believe I've called on you yet."

"The question remains whether you'll pick me this time," said Harry, not lowering his hand.

Hermione was appalled by his level of cheek, but the Professor laughed. "You've avoided my trap!" he accused. "Very well, do tell us."

"De-animating an Inferi," said Harry proudly.

The Professor nodded. "Who can tell me how to do that?"

Hermione raised her hand, along with many others, again including Harry. The Professor raised his eyebrows. "You weren't here for the lesson, and you know?" he asked.

"Hermione knows everyhing," said Harry.

Hermione blushed. "Yes, I know," she said.

"Well, go on, tell us," said Yasmen, sitting back on his desk, waiting.

"It's complex, very complex. You disenchant them by repeating 'Oltre Mondi' three times under a fistful of flaming sage you hold over your head with your right hand on the night of the end of the second moon cycle of the three-month periods the year can be split into. Once chanted, you placed the sage on your right foot and focus on a diameter of sixty to seventy-three yards around the point where you are, and then pick up the sage in your left hand, touch the non-burning end to your left ear, and then put the fire out, preferably with a magical method. And all Inferi should become bodies once more, with no animation."

The room was silent. "Did I say it too fast?" she wondered, seeing the looks of disbelief on their faces and misconstruing them as incomprehensibility.

"No," said Yasmen flatteringly. "You said it too perfectly. Fifty points to Gryffindor for knowing a lesson it took half an hour to teach in one minute, probably less."

Hermione blusshed and looked to her feet, until she looked up when Harry began applauding, Yasmen followed, and soon everyone was clapping for her, turning her face so red she thought it would stay that way permanently.

Even Ron was clapping, and when she sent him a grateful smile, he sent a smile back that was uncomfortable but trying not to be. For his effort, she smiled wider, and felt the ice break once more between them; they were, as of right now, friends again, and she felt blood rush all over her body her heart hadn't yet released for fear of dying without the last injection it'd gotten without Ron tending to it carefully.