Hermione had managed ALL of her other six years at Hogwarts detention free, but now her record had an undeserved spot upon it. Her greasy potion professor, a git of a man, had issued a series of detentions for "Answering questions, before the question was asked." This was completely unjust. She hadn't answered questions before they were asked; she had merely given superfluous answers to the ones asked before. How could she possibly perceive the questions he would ask next?! She didn't even take divination anymore!
Next to that, her birthday was only two days away, and that was the day she would have the longest of her detentions. This was the most horrible thing that could have happened to her. Those two block-headed friends of hers thought that it was funny! FUNNY! They were even audacious enough to laugh about it!
"Hermione...All the trouble starts with one little slip!" Harry choked out, muddled with laughter. "Soon you'll be as bad as Fred and George!" Both he and Ron howled. Hermione had been hoping for a little compassion from the both of them. Perhaps even for them to condone her hate for the man, but they had just been humored and amused. What wonderful camaraderie the three of them had! Hermione stormed from the common room, after they had near caused her to blow a real gasket. She tried to gather her composure, on her way through the halls. Her dignity however was not regained, and she was left with trepidation and dread.
Tonight she had to serve exactly two hours, beginning at seven- thirty. She had no idea what her task would be. Perhaps it would be to scrub dirty cauldrons used for flobbertuber pus. She would have blisters and boils on her hands for weeks. That would be something he could surely note in class. She could hear him now: "Oh Miss Granger, you really should be more cautious with certain ingredients. There are some that can cause you more harm than mere blisters." He would do near anything to trample her pride and make her look like she didn't know what she was doing. He would jump at a chance to make her look like an idiot. His classes were a constant superiority competition between her and him. God was it a unbalanced competition too!
Optimistically speaking, it would definitely prime her for a career in law- both magical and muggle.
Her shoes clattered along the cold stones as she rounded the corner to the final hallway. She felt like she was losing oxygen as she walked closer, like the dread of the detention was making breathing air sparse. Her stomach dropped and she suddenly became very nauseous. What the bloody hell was that smell? She covered her nose with her long robe sleeve and squinted her eyes in disgust. Then she HEARD the reason.
"Why peeves you troublesome little...GIVE THAT BACK TO ME!" She heard Snape's exasperated voice, followed by a loud crash.
Peeves just laughed, and Snape's heavy footsteps made staccato pounds on the floor. Hermione was almost afraid to enter, but she had to hold her breath and do so or else she would be late. She grasped her wand pocket and entered slowly. Snape stood hunched, his palms flat on his potions table and his greasy hair fluttering in his face as he panted hard. Apparently he had been chasing peeves, trying to retrieve...she looked across the room to see peeves holding up a cauldron of something that was emitting green steam.
"God help you, you pesky useless phantom, if you drop that!" He exclaimed as he watched peeves balance the cauldron and fake dropping it. Hermione thought for a minute and just blurted something out:
"Fred and George are building a model of the Quidditch stadium, peeves; you owe them for that time they threw bursting fire packets at you!" Both peeves and Snape looked her way. Hermione pulled out her wand and shouted "Suspendious!" as soon as peeves disappeared through the wall. The floor was covered in purplish brown goo, and Hermione stepped around the outside, onto uncovered cobbles.
Snape straightened out his body, with the utmost pride and without thanking Hermione turned and walked up to his desk. Hermione Lowered the cauldron onto a nearby potions table and made her way to Snape's desk.
"Miss Granger, I'm sure you could possible clean that up using a spell. If not then you will have to do it manually." Snape said, as if he blamed her for the whole incident. GOD WHAT AN UNGRATEFUL BASTARD! Hermione turned and looked at the unappetizing goo all over the floor. She knew a spell to clean it up, and was quite happy she did because she didn't want to touch it.
"Yes sir." She said sharply through her teeth. She raised the tip of her wand and the goo disappeared as well as the smell. Thank god! She then animated the brooms and dustpans to clean. This was ridiculous; Hermione couldn't imagine why Pansy liked these detentions so much, then again she was a Slytherin. She practically begged for them, how odd.
"Finished sir." There was no need to get herself into more detentions.
"Oh well, Miss Granger I would appreciate it if you would sit atop that desk and wait for more instructions. I'll be with you momentarily." Snape said absentmindedly as he checked off more grades on first year papers. Hermione did as she was told. The lab desk was cold on her legs, even through the robe and woolen skirt. Goosebumps rose on her arms and legs, and didn't relax until she had warmed the desk where she was sitting. She dared not move. She waited for about twenty minutes, until Snape shuffled some papers and set the stack aside. "Ahh... An hour and a half left. Just enough time for what I wanted to do." Snape said as he looked upon Hermione with a menacing grin.