QLFC, Prophet Competition. Round designed by Emiliya Wolfe. Every character in Harry Potter has a signature spell, or a memorable moment in which they use it. But why do they have such an affinity with that particular incantation? Your task this round is to write a character fic inspired by the use of each person's spell.

Team: Appleby Arrows
CHASER 1: Hermione—Alohomora
(picture): i. pinimg originals/7a/22/a7/7a22a722efc3af1004eea6e15f7640ec. jpg
(colour): aquamarine
(scenario): escaping from an impossible situation

word count: 1417

Thanks to the lovely Sophy for beta'ing :)

A/N mix of movie-verse and book-verse.

Hermione's first thought was that something smelled amazing. It was a beguiling, almost divine scent, and it made her forget where she was. It invaded her nostrils and wrapped around her mind like a rogue wave would submerge a stumbling rock in the middle of the ocean.

With an abrupt yank, that scent diverted her attention from the drawer labeled 'Potions,' where the file containing any and every information about Amortentia was.

She liked to think of her mind as a huge archive where everything had its place and there was a place for everything, and she loved it because it was perfect, organized, neat, without any frill. Against the right wall was the filing cabinet—a big, elegant one; Hermione pictured it made of a dark wood—in the middle of the room were glass cases for memories that she wanted easy access to; and on the left wall, a few trunks and chests with locks and seals on them were neatly stocked to guard her secrets and trap her fears.

Yes, she loved her archive.

But that scent—oh, how divine, she thought as it made her weak in the knees—had just messed up her precious filing cabinet whose drawers were now opening pointlessly and without her consent. She felt control slipping away, and her grip on the edge of the table tightened.

"It's supposed to smell differently to each one of us, according to what attracts us—" Her voice reached her ears like in a dream; it was muffled and distant. Then, against her better judgment, she heard herself saying, "—and I can smell—"

Her most rational part—the small part of her archive still working—screamed at her to keep her mouth closed, that revealing what she could smell was off-topic, but her mind was saturated with that sweet, enticing scent, and mother-of-pearl filled her eyes, the spiraling steam hypnotizing her.

It smelled like… like…

Home.

Her father mowing the lawn and never forgetting to save some flowers—the most colored and scented—for her.

Her mother teaching her how to read.

Her parents introducing her to her first grown-up toothpaste when she was seven years old. "Hermione, we have something for you," they had said, handing her a tube of toothpaste. It was white and blue—aquamarine.

"But I already have one." She had taken it anyway, even if she had been confused.

"We know, honey—"

"—but this is a grown-up one. At first, it'll taste like salt—"

"Salt?" Hermione had asked, tilting her head.

Her dad had nodded. "But in the end, you'll notice that its taste and scent are without equals. We understand that not everyone can use it and it takes courage, but we're sure you can do it. And trust us, it's worth it."

It had been.

Hermione still remembered how proud she had been when she had used it for the first time and had felt that mint flavor taking over her mouth; she had passed the test.

Fresh cut grass, new parchment, and spearmint toothpaste overlapped now in her nostrils—each smell righting for dominance and reminding her of home.

It was the easiest, most logical and expected link, and Hermione sighed in relief, basking in the knowledge that she could still be in charge of her own archive and the opening of anything it contained.

She had not truly realized how much she liked it until the first time she had successfully cast her first Unlocking Charm. After that, each time she had used Alohomora had been a rush of adrenaline mixed with the taste of the unknown and a subtle sense of freedom and even power, the need to discover what laid behind the door urgent and strong.

It had always been like that: when she was little, it was a box or a drawer; when she had been old enough to read, it was always some book she felt the urge to open.

It was no secret that her favorite place was the library, no secret that she absolutely loved any new essay she had to write and the thrill she got from it—filling her archive with always new information while at the same time showing how smart she was.

An insignificant memory popped up in front of her eyes, uncalled.

"What? Potions, too?" Ron said, dropping his head on the table. "But we've just finished Professor McGonagall's essay."

She sighed and was about to scold him for his laziness when he raised his head and a sweet whiff reached her nose.

New parchment and something else, something she couldn't quite find a place to in her archive yet, but she'd come to recognize as simply Ron.

Hermione could smell it now as clearly as she had back then. She just hadn't noticed that it was this mesmerizing, this sweet.

The seals on most of the trunks in her archive snapped open, and she knew there would be no escaping.

Fresh cut grass, new parchment, and spearmint toothpaste overlapped in her nostrils—each one reminding her of home, but for once, her rational part had failed her; what seemed the most logical link was not the right one. Those smells—so meaningful, so ensnaring—that seemed to deprive her of any other thought, worries, or plan, had replaced them with memories that, she realized, pointed all towards one person.

Knock knock.

"Enter," Hermione said absentmindedly, without even looking up from her book. She was lying on her bed in the room she shared with Ginny and she didn't expect any visitor except Ginny herself.

"Err… Sorry, Hermione, but..." an embarrassed male voice said.

"Hey, Ron!" she greeted, surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to return you this," he said, opening his hand to reveal her tube of toothpaste.

"Why did you have it?" Her tone was harsher than intended.

"Oh." He blushed. "I-I had finished mine and asked Ginny to borrow hers, and she gave me this one. I didn't mean to take yours, I swear. She told me it was yours after I had already used it and—"

Hermione smiled. "It's all right then. I hadn't even noticed," she said as she put the tube back in her toiletry bag. "Well, thank you, I suppose."

He blushed even more and turned to leave.

"Didn't it bother you?"

"What?"

"My toothpaste—it's salty."

"Oh, no. I liked it actually—spearmint—it's been refreshing. And I'm kind of used to things like that; after Fred and George put chili pepper in my toothpaste when I was little, nothing bothers me anymore."

He smiled and she laughed, her nose faintly catching the spearmint scent coming from his mouth.

Hermione was dangerously close to the cauldron now and she knew she was likely to do something terribly wrong if a louder giggle had not reached her ears and an odd warmth had not spread on her cheeks and contributed to bringing her back to the Potions Classroom.

With a secret sigh of relief, she tried to pretend that none of those memories resurfaced because of the Amortentia.

Yet she could still feel them, screaming from where she had locked them. They kicked and screamed like little Mandrakes, threatening to kill her and demanding to be freed and exit that tiny, hidden chest that, she realized now, had little to do with her archive.

She had always loved it—her archive—because it was huge, elegant, neat, without useless frills.

Yet…

Yet…

And yet, she thought as her grip on her Potions book tightened, there actually was one little frill.

The chest that was now slamming and jumping was nothing like the rest of her archive. It was tiny, almost invisible at first glance, but it stood out because it was red—a certain shade of red that faded into orange—and smelled like mint and new parchment. And if it could be examined more closed, one could notice many dots on the top of it. Dots that looked like freckles.

But Hermione would never admit it to anyone. She would never admit that those memories, trapped in the tiniest and most unreachable chest, were steadily updated and that she peeked at them more often than even she realized. No, she would never tell anyone that her archive was less than perfect and neat.

Late at night, though, when she'd fall asleep thinking of a certain red-head, she got over all the trunks and chests, reached the tiny chest on which she had placed an Extension Charm, and she opened it, her heart fluttering, her voice quivering, eager to look over its treasures.

"Alohomora."

Written for TGS, Build the Burrow. Prompt: Write about a character covering up a big secret