Hermione spends the day telling herself that whoever will arrive at midnight, it won’t be Draco Malfoy. She even believes herself, mostly, but there is a tiny spark of hope that she can’t extinguish. She imagines what it would be like to see him, touch him, maybe even kiss him. She’s not expecting that to happen or even hoping it will, she’s just imagining, and there’s nothing wrong with that. She has errands to run in Muggle London, and she imagines walking down the street with him, holding his hand, talking and laughing. It’s what they would be doing on a normal day now, if she wasn’t Muggleborn and his family weren’t blood purists, and they weren’t in the middle of a war about that very thing. It will be over soon, she tells herself. They’re going to figure out how to communicate with Draco about the possibility of a Horcrux in the Black family vault, and that will bring them one step closer. It’s been four months since he left Twelve Grimmauld. That’s the longest she’s gone without seeing him since she was eleven. It feels like years.