She noticed him being curt, but she tried to ignore the sting of disappointment and dove immediately into her part of the text. At first, words simply flew past her–she didn’t quite understand what exactly she was reading, so she had to force her brain to cooperate. She already knew the gist of it–it was a love story, maybe even a cheesy one, probably inspired by Tristan and Isolde, so she tried to note down the unknown words. There were less of them than she expected, only seven or eight; then she was ready to use the dictionary. However, she wasn’t the only one who had this idea, and her fingers brushed against Malfoy’s when they both reached for the same book. It felt like an electrical shock passing through Hermione’s system and she snapped her head up to look at him. His expression was unreadable, but Hermione noticed a storm brewing in the greyness of his irises.