On the other side of the door, Filch was furious, and Tom and Hermione wiped the cold sweat off their foreheads. The Ravenclaw common room was empty at that moment, with only the fireplace still burning.
"Alright, it's getting late, go to bed," Tom kissed Hermione's forehead and watched her enter the dormitory.
He waited for a moment and then stepped out into the dormitory corridor, heading to the six-person family room that was his. It was late, Tom's roommates had already gone to bed, and Tom returned to his own bed, drawing the curtain.
He lay down on the bed and looked at the bracelet on his arm.
The bracelet was woven with their hair and had a slightly rough appearance since Tom had never made a bracelet by hand before. If a man used to polish stones to give them to a girl in the shape of a heart, then he must have polished them very well. If he had to do it again, the bracelet would turn out better, but it would still be good.
He looked at the thin brown and black cord.
[Bracelet (?): A fine bracelet made of hair, surprisingly not very strong]
[Note: This is a pair of bracelets, the other one will appear on the hand of your beloved]
[Note: I want to meet you and live forever. The mountain has no hills, the rivers run dry, the thunder in winter, the rain in summer, the snow in summer, the earth and sky are united, and I dare to be with you!]
"The mountain has no grave, the river runs dry, the thunder in winter shakes, the rain in summer and the snow, the sky and earth are united..." Tom slowly closed his eyes and fell asleep.
Hermione lay on her bed in her bathrobe. The girls' dormitory was still lit even as the clock hands approached twelve. This was because the girls took a long time to shower, especially some of the older ones who stayed in the shower for half an hour and never came out, despite the younger ones' insistence.
This caused several of the girls in Hermione's dormitory to finish showering. Hermione sat on the edge of the bed and folded the black stockings she had just put on. She held them and felt them, sensing they were a bit damp. She leaned forward and wrinkled her nose, then Hermione frowned, balled up the stockings, and threw them into the laundry hamper.
At Hogwarts, young wizards didn't have to worry about changing clothes. They only had to throw their old clothes in the laundry basket, and the new clothes would be returned the next day when they were dry.
A ginger creature leaped onto her bed. It was Crookshanks, forming a big ball at Hermione's feet, and he scratched Hermione's feet with his tail as a greeting.
Just as Hermione was about to lie down and fall asleep, she noticed a little head appearing next to her bed—it was Sue Li. The head appeared so suddenly that Hermione almost kicked her in the face out of fear.
"Hey! How did you spend your holidays?" It was a question she had wanted to ask for a long time, but Hermione arrived late to the opening ceremony, and with Tom on her left and the ghost on her right, it was impossible to run and talk to her!
But to arrive with Tom and eat together, did that mean...? She thought it did, but then Hermione thought that she and Tom always acted together, and she felt less sure.
She was very curious to see how far these two had come!
"Vacation?" Hermione looked perplexed, smiling a bit unnaturally. "Of course, I stayed home and worked on my assignments, of course! Professor Binns and Snape assigned a massive amount of homework..."
"Really? I don't believe it." What the hell did that mean? The amount of homework Sue Li could "write" in half a month, Hermione could do it in a week. And you were home the rest of the time? But I haven't seen you gain weight! If you had stayed home for two months in the summer, you would have turned into a pig, wouldn't you?
"And Yodel?" Sue Li wasn't willing to give up.
"Yodel? I don't know, I don't know where he's been during the summer; I've told you, I've been working on my assignments all summer." Hermione chose to play dumb, after all, if she couldn't handle the pressure here, it wouldn't be long before the whole school found out that she and Tom were dating, and she wasn't prepared for that.
Huh? Sue Li looked at Hermione suspiciously.
Hermione was terrified by her gaze and waved her off with her hand. "What are you looking at? Go to bed! There's still class tomorrow!"
It was a very good excuse, but just as Sue Li was about to leave, she was caught off guard by a small ornament on Hermione's wrist: she saw a dark brown bracelet.
Did it look familiar? she thought, rummaging through her mind, and suddenly she realized: it looked like Tom Yodel was wearing a bracelet tied to his hand at the opening ceremony!
She tried to remember the shape of Yodel's bracelet, she hadn't been as careful in remembering her Potions class recipe, but Sue Li found that she really didn't remember... but it did resemble the one Hermione had...
Wow! Sue Li always suspected when it came to relationships, and this bracelet was basically proof of the relationship between Tom and Hermione! She chuckled to herself.
Still playing dumb, huh? "I've been home every day writing my assignments," "I don't know where Yodel went in the summer," hehe!
But could it be one of those legendary couple adventures of...? You know, secret excitement? Didn't know, didn't know, you were like that, Granger!
She gave Hermione a meaningful look and left.
...
The next morning, Tom and Hermione entered the Great Hall together for breakfast. They saw Draco Malfoy, who was surrounded by a large group of Slytherin students, and he performed a funny act of fainting, which made everyone laugh.
From a distance, Tom heard a Slytherin girl shouting at Harry, "Hey, Potter, the Dementors are here!"
He recognized her as Pansy, who was on the same level as Malfoy.
But it seemed that Malfoy had a vivid memory of Tom's Stunning Spell and only dared to direct his fire at Harry, leaving Tom out of the conversation. Tom wasn't interested in the feud between Harry and Malfoy; he was more interested in the situation at the teachers' table.
He looked up and saw Dumbledore enjoying a cup of treacle tart, the other professors were all present, and Professor Lupin was sitting next to Hagrid, with a similar amount of food on their plates.
Tom and Hermione made their way to the long Ravenclaw table and sat down, while two pieces of parchment appeared in front of them: their class schedules for their third year.