The world changes, the light grows dim, but stories and characters are always there to help illuminate the way.

Keep fighting,
Lance Gainsworth

Her fingertips squeezed the pages, itching to flip through. To devour the story and make sure she wasn't imagining the book in her hands. Her mind swam with questions.

Sucking in a sharp breath, she spun and raced for the door. Running the few paces to Draco's room, she banged on the door, pounding bruises into her fist. No response.

She darted for the stairs, flying down to the library. Throwing the doors open, she found him standing over the long table, leaning onto his fists and staring down at one of the many books lying in a heap.

"Morning," he offered, before she could open her mouth. "One of these runes appears on the cover of Tolbrette's journal. Did you notice that yet?"

She clutched the manuscript between her fingers, breathing hard, and opening and closing her mouth.

"There's coffee there," he said, gesturing flippantly to the side table between the couches. "I wasn't sure if you wanted to work today or not, so I told the elves to hold the extra scones. We can call them—"

"What is this?" she interrupted. She held the Gainsworth manuscript out, shaking it at him like it had bitten her.

He looked up at her for the first time. His gaze traced her body before landing on the pages in her hand. Scratching his jaw absently, he turned to the shelves behind him, searching through the books there with deliberation. She couldn't be sure what was fascinating him so much, as Hermione knew that section to contain information on the dung beetle.

"Nothing, really."

She blinked at him, watching the back of his neck turn pink. She moved to the table and slapped the manuscript down. "It's… It's an unpublished draft. It's not nothing. How did you get it? Why is it… How did you—"

He interrupted her stammering with a shrug, still facing the dung beetle books with rapt interest. "I wrote to Gainsworth. Told him you were a fan."

Hermione moved toward him, begging him to face her. "But why would he—"

Draco turned away, his cheeks spotted pink, and his eyes cast down on a book about dung beetle reproductive behaviors that he took over to their Scourer research table.

"I just… I told him you were a fan. Asked if he had anything he could sign and send for Hermione Granger's birthday."

He flipped through a few texts as she stared at him, her lips parting slowly.

She hadn't read the paper in days. Rationally, she knew it was September, and that her birthday was coming up. Today was her birthday. She had forgotten it. But Draco hadn't.

"I did nothing," he was mumbling. "Just wrote a letter really. You can borrow my owl if you'd like to send a thank you—"

Hermione reached for his shoulders, turned him to her, and rose up on her toes to press her lips to his.