The Garment of Concentrated Evil
Chapter One: Harried Hermione
Disclaimer: If I was J.K. Rowling and I owned all the Harry Potter books why in the world do you think I would write Fanfiction about them? Obviously they're not mine.
It was just sitting there, mocking her.
Not that sweaters could mock, of course, but in Hermione's advanced state of insanity the Weasley sweater that seemed to be slung oh so casually across the arm of the sofa seemed to taunt her with ferocity.
This was not the first time that this sweater had done it. For the past week or so, Ron seemed to be in the habit of leaving his sweater just lying around, saddling her with the responsibility of finding the garment of concentrated evil and return it to him. Then, once she had made the trek upstairs and presented it to him, he just grabbed it, muttered a thanks, and threw it into some corner. Then, just when she thought that she would see it no more, the next night, there it was! Slipped over a lamp or hiding under a chair, the accursed jumper seemed to laugh at her futile attempts to keep the common room tidy.
Yesterday Hermione had had enough. When she had found the jumper (tucked in a pile of her books), she grabbed it and ran up the stairs two at a time, before barging into the boys' dormitories and hurling it at Ron, screeching, "Take you bloody jumper, you idiot!" She had just enough time to catch a glimpse of his dumbstruck face before she fled.
'As if he didn't know,' she scoffed. But then, even after last night's wonderful display, the sweater had appeared, sitting on the sofa and smirking for all its wooly worth. Hermione didn't know what to do; she was at her wit's end with the jumper.
"Why must you torment me, you garment of concentrated evil," she whispered softly holding it loosely in her hands. But, apparently, her query wasn't soft enough. She heard guffaws behind her, and turned to see Ron looking at her bemusedly.
"Hermione," he asked between chuckles, "are you talking to my jumper?"
She turned bright red and then started mumbling about the weather, all the while just staring at her shoes and fiddling with her shirt cuff.
"You can tell me, you know, I won't," here he paused to make a few very suspicious sounding coughs, "make fun of you or anything, you know…" he trailed into suppressed laughter while trying to maintain a semblance of sincerity. But Hermione had taken enough. She refused to be laughed at, especially by Ron. She stood up and gathered her books with a righteous air, all the while ignoring Ron who had by now stopped trying to smother his laughter and was practically howling with mirth. She turned smartly on her heel and promptly tripped over the coffee table directly in front of her. This was too much for Ron, who collapsed with tears of merriment leaking out of the corners of his eyes.
Hermione, realizing that she had just lost any chance she had of retaining her dignity, got up and marched up to her room, stopping only to kick Ron rather hard in the shins for starting the whole thing. The sounds of his complaints followed her all the way up to her dormitory, until she viciously slammed the door, effectively muffling all sounds from the common room. As she dropped her books on the floor and prepared to collapse onto her four-poster, she noticed a bit of maroon peeking out from in between her books. She groaned and hid her face in her pillow.
She still had Ron's sweater.