"Put me down! Put me down this instance, you flea-bitten mousetrap!"

Hermione Granger bolted upright in her bed, having been roused from a dead sleep by...voices.

There was someone in her room.

There was someone in her fucking room!

Hermione fumbled for her wand in the darkness, quite ashamed and infuriated that she wasn't able to lay hands on it immediately. Were they not in the middle of a war? Were there not Death Eaters lurking around every corner, waiting for some moronic little twit to misplace her wand? Professor Moody would be mortified. "Constant vigilance!" she fumed under her breath, heaving a sigh of relief when her fingers found smooth wood hiding underneath a pillow.

"Lumos!"

Squinting slightly as the room was bathed in a soft light, Hermione moved from the bed and placed her back firmly against the wall as she took in her surroundings.

"Table...chair...dresser... no one hiding there."

The room was as sparsely decorated as the rest of the house, with the exception of Sirius's childhood bedroom. No one had the stomach to sort through the clutter of memories that belonged to the age of the Marauders, so the room remained untouched, a bizarre shrine that none but Remus could bear to pay homage to. Hermione shuddered, allowing the macabre essence of the house to wash over her. She definitely looked forward to a time when she didn't have to spend her holidays at Grimmauld Place. She suspected Harry quite felt the same way.

Satisfied that she was alone in her room -save for Crookshanks, who was curled into a fluffy ball in the corner- Hermione put her wand away and started to climb back into the bed. "Constant vigilance!" a voice growled in the back of her mind. She froze. Oh, how could she have been so stupid? Drawing her wand and backing away from the bed, she dropped to her knees to check the first place she should have checked... under the bed.

Nothing.

Hermione giggled as she rose to her feet and climbed back into bed. "This is it, Hermione Granger. You've gone 'round the bend. You're absolutely barking." Spending several hours a day around Alastor Moody was obviously not good for one's psyche. She was getting almost as paranoid as the auror himself. "Constant vigilance," she whispered as she closed her eyes and prepared to nod off. "Constant vigilance indeed."

"Would you get your bloody paws out of my back?"

Hermione's eyes flew open and her wand was in her hand before she even registered that she had been reaching for it.

She was not crazy.

She was also not alone.

"I will not tell you again, furball!"

"Do not panic, Hermione. Do not panic."

"Oh don't act like you can't hear me! I know you're half-Kneazle. Your know-it-all little mistress tells anyone who looks remotely interested."

"Know-it-all little mistress? The nerve!" Hermione fumed, constant vigilance leaving her mind as something akin to indignant fury took over. She raised her wand to cast her light once more, but was interrupted by someone throwing a little indignant rant of their own.

"If you lick me I swear I will..."

Hermione's face scrunched up in mild disgust. "Lick?" As quietly as she possibly could, she pushed the covers away from her body and tiptoed out of the bed, listening for the offending voice.

"You know, once I'm my rightful size again your ugly face and the heel of my dragon-hide boot are going to get very friendly."

Hermione scowled. She knew that voice. There was an unusual tone to it, and it sounded rather far away, but she knew that voice. Now what was that voice doing in her room?

A half-hearted growl from the corner of the room Crookshanks was inhabiting grabbed Hermione's attention. His back was turned to her, unusual for her protective familiar, and he appeared to be swiping at something with his abnormally large paw.

"Oh, bugger off!"

Hermione shivered. The voice was coming from somewhere in the vicinity of her beloved cat. Crookshanks growled again and Hermione took a few hurried steps forward.

"Keep it up. You'll wake her again and then she'll wake the whole house up and then we'll both have a lot of explaining to do."

Taking a deep breath, Hermione stepped closer to Crookshanks and took a peek over his shoulder.

All the color drained from her face.

"Too late, Professor."

a/n: So here it is! My first chapter of my first SS/HG! This will probably go way AU, because, quite frankly, there is nowhere else for it to go, lol. That's your fair warning. And this will get very adult, so beware. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: Rowling owns everything.