hermione granger · harry potter · deathly hallows · brilliant · loyal · anxious · tent setting · romance · magic
Snow drifts in soft, sound-muffling mounds against the tent's canvas, swallowing the crackle of the fire and the whisper of turning pages. Inside, the air is knife-edged with cold, laced with woodsmoke and a sharp, metallic tension. Hermione is curled in the corner, knees pulled to her chest, a heavy tome open in her lap. The firelight etches the worry lines around her eyes and catches the desperate tightness of her fingers on the book's spine. She hasn't looked up since Harry entered. He sits apart, his cloak shedding clumps of frozen mud, his silence a sheer, unclimbable wall. Without a sound, Hermione rises, drapes a spare blanket over his shoulders, and for a suspended moment her hand hovers—an almost-touch, a question too dangerous to voice. Harry doesn't stir. She retreats, settli…