Hermione just didn't understand it. What kind of delusional, superstitious, crackpot people believed in Friday the 13th? She rolled her eyes and bit back her comments as she passed Seamus and Dean whispering their evil plots of pranks for the coming Friday. If those two were planning things, she didn't want to be anywhere near Fred and George; she could only imagine what those two troublemakers would pull.
Hermione quietly slipped into her dorm, hoping to avoid any contact with the other Gryffindors that were preparing for a prank and scare filled Friday the 13th. She spent a few hours working on her homework and studying before she passed out on top of her covers.
Silence met her when she woke on Thursday the 12th, which brought with it a moment of confusion. She wiped the sleep from her eyes and looked around the room to find empty beds. Her heart leapt into her throat as she checked her watch that she had forgotten to take off of her wrist.
Hermione gasped as she saw the time. She had already missed breakfast and if she wanted to get to, she paused to think, potions on time she wouldn't have time for a shower. Frantically she gathered her things and ran out of the dorm and common room. She was halfway to the dungeons when she noticed that she forgot to throw her robes on over her clothes. Swearing, so unlike Hermione, she ran back to get her robes.
Sprinting down the hall, again, she began chanting, "Late, late, late. Merlin, I am so late."
She tried to stop at the door to the potions classroom, but her brakes didn't wan to cooperate. She managed to slow slightly, so when she hit the door she only make a small 'thunk'ing noise.
"Owww," she moaned softly and was sorely tempted to hit her head on the door repeatedly when she heard Snape's angry footsteps coming towards the door.
"Granger," Snape roared as he opened the door. "Either you are here when class starts or you don't come at all!" He turned on his heel and his robes billowed as he made his way back to the front of the class.
Hermione gently closed the door and found her seat, wondering why Snape would hate lions so when he could sound just like one. She had just settled when she heard that silky soft tone that made everyone in the class cringe.
"That's detention for you, Miss Granger. See me in my office tonight after dinner."
"Yes, Sir," she gulped. She dug in her bag, looking for her quill to take notes. She barely swallowed the desperate groan as she came up empty.
"Harry," she said as softly as she could, "do you have an extra quill?"
Her friend looked at her with wide eyes and slack jawed. He obviously couldn't believe that she forgot something so important for class. He shook his head with an apologetic look before turning back to his chicken scratched notes.
"Miss Granger," came that silky tone again. "Is there a problem?"
"I seem to have misplaced my quill," she squeaked as he towered over her.
"You are late to class and can't be bothered to bring the necessities? Leave my class. You will make the potion and do lines in detention."
Hermione gathered her things together, trying not to wet her pants as he stood over her, watching her every move menacingly.
"And Miss Granger," he called as she got to the door. "Do try to be prepared from now on."
Unable to find her vocal chords, she merely nodded sheepishly. Deciding that today just wasn't her day, she headed straight for the Charms classroom (after returning to the common room to get a few quills to shove in her bag) to be sure she was there and ready.
The look on Professor Flitwick's face when Hermione confidently raised her hand then answered his question incorrectly was adding salt to an open wound for the poor girl. She was sure that she had gotten it right. Her shoulders hunched as she leafed through her text, looking for the answer and how she could have missed it.
She didn't understand what happened. She had never had any kind of food allergies before, but there she sat on the end of a hospital bed, face puffed to there, rasping to get air into her lungs, being looked over by Madame Pomfrey. Her nose turned up as she nearly gagged on one potion after another. If the morning hadn't been bad enough, lunch had been disastrous.
Breathing a sigh of relief, happy to be filling her lungs without problems, she headed towards Ancient Runes. Things couldn't possibly get worse, Hermione was completely confident. But she was wrong. Digging into her sack, she was frantic to find that she didn't have her homework scroll. She wished the floor would open and swallow her as she had to explain why should couldn't serve detention that night. Two detentions, two days in a row, and her first detentions (that weren't with the help of Harry or Ron) at that.
Hermione honestly had no clue how it happened. One minute she was walking (dejectedly) up the stairs and the next something large and grotesque was springing at her. A shrill screech followed her as she fell backwards down the stairs. She grunted as she made her final landing and passed out.
"You were having such a bad day, we thought that a fun prank would cheer you up," Fred said just as she was waking up in the hospital wing sometime after ingesting more disgusting potions.
"Gee, Mione, we really are sorry," George said as the two double teamed her with puppy eyes.
"I know you didn't mean for me to break my tail bone," she reassured them, wincing. Of all the bones to break on a fall down the stairs, breaking her butt bone was just adding insult to injury. "I am so ready for this day to be over. I can't believe it. I've got two detentions waiting for me, I answered Flitwick's question wrong, this is my second trip to the hospital wing today-if you can imagine, no homework for Runes, and I've gone and missed all of Transfiguration."
Fred and George made faces as she went down her list. The poor girl just needed a break, and not the kind she had gotten on her trip down the stairs.
"If that's not enough, I've got detention with Snape after dinner."
That night as she stumbled into the common room, tired, sore, and a complete mess from the potion explosion that Snape wouldn't allowed to be magically cleaned from the girl, she was perturbed to find more huddled masses whispering dastardly plans and hammering out last minute details for the next day's pranks. She slowly hobbled to the coffee table and struggled, with Harry's help, to stand on it. Her tail bone may have been healed but it was still quite tender.
"Attention, please, everyone! I have an announcement to make. I've seen you whispering plans, I've heard mutters of scary pranks for the perfect day of Friday the 13th. Well, I've come to learn that it is not Friday the 13th that should be feared or deemed a superstitious holiday. It is really Thursday the 12th that is the most evil day of the month. Thank you."
With that, she slipped down, went to the girls showers, took a nice long shower and went to bed. She vowed to herself just as she was falling asleep that when the next Thursday the 12th rolled around, she would pull her blankets over her head and ignore everything going on in the outside world.