Terror In the Night
It was double potions and the NEWT level set were attempting to brew their most complex potion yet. Hermione sighed as she ploughed away, trying to brew an emerald energy potion while using the official instructions. Try as she might, she couldn't get the potion to brighten. The fumes from the ten different cauldrons rose into the air and intertwined. Ron cursed and foul smelling black smoke billowed out of his cauldron, causing Slughorn to tut and shake his head.
Harry, who was Slughorn's favourite student, was using an old textbook that had been heavily annotated with better instructions.
"I've done it!" he exclaimed.
"Oh well done, m'boy. Yes, your potion is a dazzling emerald. It's clear you've inherited your mother's talent…"
"All my own work, sir," said Harry.
Hermione shook her head. That Harry. But she mustn't let herself feel resentful, that would be unworthy of her.
Malfoy was snarling and shaking his fist at Harry. What an ugly spectacle of jealousy. She should never get like that. Harry was her friend and she must be loyal to him.
In the Entrance Hall that evening, they happened to come upon Malfoy talking loudly and boastfully and waving what looked like a bright, greenish yellow gem in the air. The light of the late afternoon sun glinted off the little sphere Malfoy held. It looked like a large cat's eye gem. It certainly had a strange eye-like quality. It looked like a bright, chartreux eye with a dark slit for a pupil.
"This gem is the monster eye, a really valuable dark object," said Malfoy. The crowd muttered in some scepticism. "It's true," said Malfoy. "It causes a anyone fixed in its stare to change into a monster."
"Rubbish Malfoy," called Hermione sharply, "stop trying to scare them with your drivel."
Malfoy sneered and turned the gem towards Hermione. "Feel its malign influence, Granger," he said, "it's put a devil in you. Each night, you'll become a raging demon. All it takes is moonlight."
"Stop him," said Ron, uneasily.
"Oh it's garbage. Don't you fall for such superstition, Ron. Come on," said Hermione. They took their places in the Great Hall. Hermione began to carve up her roast beef. "Malfoy is just full of nonsense," she assured them. "The monster eye myth sounds as stupid as the Grim."
Lavender Brown sat down beside Ron and began chatting animatedly to him. Hermione had been jealous at first when he chose Lavender, but she had to accept it. And Lavender was nice, really. She could see why Ron liked her. "Can you believe the rubbish Malfoy comes up with?" said Ron.
Lavender giggled. "He thinks his toy will turn Hermione into a raging monster! Well don't hold your breath waiting for it to happen."
Hermione joined in the laughter.
That night however, Hermione awoke feeling most unwell. She sat up in her four poster. Her nails were too long. She was gripping the duvet and tearing it. Her nails were not this long. She held up her wand. "Lumos," she croaked. Her voice was very harsh and rasping all of a sudden. To her astonishment, her hands were green and shrivelled… What in the name of Merlin?!
She slipped off the bed and hurried to the dormitory mirror. The other girls slumbered on. She held up her wand, and the mirror was suffused in a pool of pale light. She stifled a gasp of shock at the apparition in the mirror. A hideous, green face, with a huge warty nose and chin, bulging eyes and tangled, wiry hair. Her heart thudded hard. She touched the end of her nose. The horrible creature in the mirror did the same, lifting its claw like nail to the tip of its overlong nose. This wasn't happening. It was a nightmare. She felt the shape of her nose and chin. The apparition in the mirror did the same. She could feel that they were long and pointed. She felt sick. She had to get out of here and clear her head.
She hurried down the stairs. The dying embers of the fire still glimmered, but the common room was dark. Hermione stepped over the detritus of crumpled paper, sweet wrappings, used gobstones and old quills that the Gryffindors had left for the house elves to clear up. She left the common room and hurried down deserted passageways until she found Moaning Myrtles old bathroom. It was the last place anyone in their right mind would go, and she was guaranteed some privacy.
She pushed aside the door with its 'out of order' sign. The bathroom was dank and dark and deserted as always. Moaning Myrtle was not here.
Hermione slipped into a cubicle and wept. Eventually she decided she must pull herself together. She took her claw like hands away from her grotesque face and thought hard. Could this be the curse Malfoy had been boasting about? Or was that coincidence? She still could not swallow that Malfoy could have done this to her. But it looked like she had turned into some kind of evil witch. Now Ron would definitely prefer the pretty, blond Lavender…
Resolve hardened within her. If she had been turned into an evil witch she might as well make the best of it. Do what now came naturally. She left the bathroom and made her way down the marble staircase to the Entrance Hall and from there, down the bare stone staircase that led to the dungeons. She had an idea. A way she could get even with Lavender.
Footfalls echoed along the damp passages. She cursed. She would be seen! But then… she would not be recognised. A seventh year prefect was on patrol, his wand held aloft, a light shining from its tip. She leapt at him shrieking. He yelled and stumbled back and ran as away as fast as his legs would carry him.
"You'd better run, my pretty!" she cackled. Well that was sort of fun. Could she get used to being a mean hag? She would not have condoned frightening an innocent boy before, but then, she had not looked frightening before.
Now she stood outside the door to Snape's office. She tapped it with her wand, wondering what security measures Snape would have put in place since his stores had been robbed by the impostor Moody. Her questions were answered when an ugly, misshapen thing made of dark stone appeared to break out of the wall beside the door and raise its knobbly fists. It was a gnoll. A little monster made of rock. It would draw energy used against it unless stopped quickly…
Hermione lifted her wand and sent a powerful blast of energy at the gnoll, completely overwhelming it and reducing it to a pile of rubble. Well she hadn't held back at all. She had just killed it. The previous day she would have said that it was better to avoid killing. Oh well, she had got the job done. She broke open the magical lock on the door and helped herself to the potion ingredients. Then it was back to the bathroom to brew a potion for Lavender.
She had always been very good at potions. She had succeeded in brewing a polyjuice potion in her second year and that was supposed to be NEWT level. Well now she amazed even herself as she mixed the leaves, crocodile tongues and cyclops retinas together, to form a weird, purple paste. She stirred it with her wand, faster and faster, until it became lighter and frothier to the point where it was not longer a liquid, but somewhere between a liquid and a gas. She picked up the concoction in her green, claw like hands and it didn't slip away, but somehow stayed in her grasp. She glided along the corridors to Gryffindor Tower, cackling madly. The Fat Lady was out on a nighttime visit, but the portrait swung aside for her anyway. She glided up the stairs to her dormitory and pushed aside the curtains to Lavender's bed. The girl slumbered peacefully, her pretty face serene, her blond hair surrounding her head on the pillow like a halo.
"Take that my pretty!" said Hermione and poured the concoction over the sleeping girl's face. The Potion was a terrible sleeping sickness draught and now it fell upon Lavender in a purple shower. Suddenly Hermione became aware of the first, faint streaks of dawn on the horizon through the window. She felt overcome with weariness and staggered back onto her bed and blacked out.
When she awoke, the first thing she realised was that her hands were now pink and soft again and her nails a normal length. She felt her face. Normal. She leapt out of bed and peered into the mirror. Her face was normal. She was normal normal normal! It had all been a ghastly dream then. As if she could turn into a wicked witch by night! As if she would want to frighten an innocent boy or… she shuddered at the thought… give Lavender a sleeping sickness.
"Were you and Lavender planning on sleeping in?" asked Parvati, "I can see you've only just got up."
She went over to Lavender's bed. "Come on sleepyhead," she said, flinging the curtains aside. Lavender lay there, not moving. Parvati shook her and she did not respond. She was lying there, as if dead asleep, her mouth hanging slightly open. She was suffused in a dim, sickly purple glow. The glow of the sleeping sickness potion. Hermione felt a surge of horror!