Summary: This takes place directly after the sixth book. Instead of going along with Harry, Hermione and Ron decide to return to school. Just go with it, folks. Don't think too hard about how I'm screwing with the main plot of JK Rowling's seventh masterpiece.
Disclaimer: So completely not mine that it's disgusting.
Hermione Granger slept upstairs on the second room to the left, her door strange from the others. All the other doors in the house were painted starch white and had matching golden knobs, polished to perfection and lacking of the normal gummy fingerprints seen in less germ-conscious houses. Her mother had a strange pride when it came to how well-kempt their home was and spent twenty minutes everyday walking around the house to polish door handles and cupboard pull opens with an enthusiastic, flawless grin.
Hermione's door handle was just as shiny and taken care of as all the rest, that was hardly the difference at all. The oddity of Hermione's door was that, instead of being a medical lab ivory, the rich surface of it was made of scrubbed cherry wood, so enigmatic in comparison to the rest of the uniform white that when the window across the hall was open, it caught the sunlight and sucked it all up greedily, positively glowing. It was behind this particular door that Hermione Jane Granger slept, bushy brown hair damp from the prior evening's wash and spread across her purple striped pillow in tangled tendrils.
Her eyes were squeezed shut against the invasive sunlight that spread through her window like a stretching hand, and when it's fingers tickled the tips of her eyelashes, she awoke matter-of-factly, chocolaty eyes calm and comfortable as they stared at a dresser laden with occupied picture frames. It was what she awoke to every morning; moving snapshots of Ron making a number of goofy faces at the camera; Harry grinning insanely as he held up an awful self-drawn portrait; Dobby standing awkwardly under six feet of her own knitted hats…
The list went on, and she searched for that one frame that gave her particular peace of mind: In front of the Weasley fireplace, a tall, sparkling Christmas tree stood, heavily weighed down with round red globes and tinsel that really climbed all over the trees, slithering around boisterously. On top of this fat green pine hung a highly disgruntled garden gnome dressed as a ballerina, whom below lay a number of glossy, mismatched packages that Crookshanks was eying greedily from the comfy position on Ginny's lap.
Harry's eyes were trailing to the long, sleek red hair of Ron's sister, but nobody seemed to notice; Fleur sat off to one side, mouth moving conversationally and golden mane swishing as she tossed it over her vain shoulder, while Bill seemed to be the only one listening to her loud, carrying voice; Mrs. Weasley battled with the volume on the stereo, so absorbed that she was missing the way Arthur eyed her appreciatively; Lupin, who had actually been alone during the real party, sat snugly with a pink-haired happy Tonks in his lap, who had crossed over from a neighboring picture; and then there was Ron, who was busying himself by silently tucking a large poinsettia behind Hermione's blushing ear.
The real Hermione watched them now, smiling sadly to herself. The slightly off-colored Ron from the picture stared into Hermione's equally washed out complexion, but nobody could fail to notice the way that time seemed to stop around them, trapping the two inside an invisible bubble only they could feel. Around them the rest of the group laughed and joked and had a good time, but between Hermione and Ron, something deeper was at work.
Blinking, Hermione Granger's attention turned from the snapshot to the alarm clock, and she realized with a jolt that it had failed to ring this morning. Again. Darting out of bed at once, she began to tug on her jeans under her large nightshirt as her father's voice echoed up the stairs. "Hermione Jane, ten minute warning!" Grumbling obscenely, she checked herself and swapped shirts insanely fast, dragging a brush through her hair and worrying about getting her bloated trunk down the stairs before she remembered that, yes, she could do magic, and yes, she had a wand.
Snatching it off her bedside table, she clumsily flicked it and nonverbally got her trunk to levitate, about to leave the room with her feet half in her shoes before she stopped, turned, and seemed to make up her mind. In three giant steps she was standing over all her pictures, fumbling as she hastily removed her favorite one. Tonks flinched when Hermione's thumb pressed over her face, but the bushy-haired brainiac took no notice; Shoving the picture into her pocket, Hermione took off down the stairs in a clatter of jangling ink bottles and quills.
"Sorry I'm late; I had to get something."