Underwater Calls

Laura didn’t go to dinner that evening. Instead of joining her two best friends at the Great Hall, she decided that she would spend her first school day in the Library, getting ahead with her Ancient Runes work. It was a class that she had only started for her N.E.W.T’s, and although she was very capable in the subject, she liked to keep ahead of it.
Walking into the Library, she saw that it was virtually empty, and she knew that nearly everyone was down at the Hall, having a feast.
Nearly everyone didn’t include Hermione Granger.
Laura always wondered why the Golden Trio had returned the Hogwarts this year. She knew of many secrets, of many things that no-one should know about, and when she had boarded the train, she was one of the few people who thought that they wouldn’t be on it. But they had been, and although they acted as if nothing was weighing down on them just yet, and carried on with their education, Laura knew that there was something underneath it all.
And she was surer of it as she saw Hermione quietly sobbing as she tried to pretend she was working. Having an internal war with herself, Laura decided to throw caution into the wind and went up to the girl who was trying to wipe her tears away.
“Want a shoulder to cry on?”
Hermoine looked up, focusing on the voice that was speaking to her. She made a little noise in her throat when she saw it was Laura, the girl who she had many times spoken to. But she didn’t know if she could speak about this to her.
“H-hey,” she uttered, and Laura took that as her cue to sit down. Putting her books down onto the oak desk, she folded her arms over on the polished surface and looked at the girl who was trying to slowly but surely compose her state.
“What’s up?” she asked Hermione, watching her carefully. Hermoine closed her eyes, sighing deeply.
“It’s... everything. All the pressure of having to keep up with school work, trying to secretly defeat Voldemort, all the drama and tension between Harry and Ron – its everything finally crashing down. We’re only here till Christmas anyway, after that we won’t be coming back,” she said, the tears gleaming in her eyes again.
“Hermione, I hope you know that you’re one of the strongest people I know,” Laura said, laying a hand on the unsteady one next to her, “You’ve done it till now, haven’t you? You’ve made it alive and you’ve made it safely till now. And you know that it has to crash down in order to get it all up again stronger, right?”
Hermione looked at the Slytherin girl who had intimidated her before, yet was almost like a friend now. She remembered the first time she had spoken to this particular girl in Ancient Runes.
“I believe you. I didn’t ever believe in the reassurance my own best friends gave me, but I believe in yours,” she uttered softly, the doubts in her head sharply disappearing. Laura smiled, before doing something she had never done to any students from any other Houses.
She hugged Hermione Granger.
“I believe in the three of you – and I know that you’ll bring peace to the world we live in. Never forget that, Hermoine Granger.”

When Laura walked into the Common room later that night, she was mildly surprised to find it empty. She then remembered that most of the Slytherins liked to party the first day of term. Running up to her dorm, she changed out of her school robes and into her silk nightie, before grabbing her night robe and heading down to the Common room to do something she absolutely loved doing.
Reading Muggle novels.
She had come across them through her adopted cousin, who was a Muggle-Born. She’d given her a tattered copy of ‘Conspiracy in Death’. And since then, Laura was hooked on the futuristic crime series that Nora Roberts wrote. And as she developed her knowledge on a world that would have been so foreign to her months ago, Laura had discovered more books from her fast becoming favourite author. Right at that moment, she was holding ‘Three Fates’, a book that Isabella had handed to her the night before she’d departed for Hogwarts.
“It’s something that’s not only about love, but about believing in the impossible.”
Isabella’s words played in her mind over and over again, as she read the story that enchanted her.
And that’s how Draco found her, sitting in the sunken armchair, her robe slightly hitched up, showing him toned, sun kissed legs, her head resting against her curled arm, her eyes scanning over the words on a small, paperweight book she held.
And he felt himself fall off the edge. But of what – he had no idea.
Except, in that moment, it terrified him even more than the Mark on his left arm.