"Hermione, dear, it's time."
Hermione looked up from the blank piece of parchment in front of her to the door where her mother stood, looking rather apprehensive. She must think I'm going to yell at her, she thought.
Sighing, she stood up and crumpled the parchment into a neat ball, depositing it into the waste bin under her desk as she shouldered her bag. Her trunk and the rest of her school things were in the living room, waiting for her.
It wasn't so hard to understand why her mother was walking on eggshells around her lately. Hermione had, in fact, yelled at everyone the night before, telling them all to shove off and leave her alone for once, before locking herself in her room and refusing to come out.
Deciding it was best to pretend that the previous few weeks hadn't happened at all - and oh, how she wished they hadn't! - she wrapped her mother in a hug and planted a kiss on her cheek.
"I love you, Mum," she murmured. Her mother hugged her back with a fierceness the younger girl hadn't expected. She sniffed suspiciously and quickly took Hermione's bag from her before hurrying down the stairs to the living room.
Her father was standing in front of the fireplace when they entered the room. He had a rather similar expression to the one her mother wore moments ago, and Hermione sighed.
"Dad," she began.
"No worries, Pumpkin," he said gruffly, enveloping her into a tight hug. Hermione breathed in the scent of him, taking great comfort from her father's arms.
"Well, it looks like you're all set, dear…Trunk, bag, Crookshanks…all sorted?" As usual, her mother was bustling around, busying herself with getting things ready that had already been readied two hours ago. Hermione suspected it was because her mum wasn't really the sentimental type, and this parting carried a bit more emotion with it that the usual off-to-school goodbye.
After all, it wasn't every day your only daughter's boyfriend was murdered two weeks before the term began.
Hermione thought back to the day of the funeral before she could stop herself. She had barely known anyone there; it was mostly Viktor's family and friends from Durmstrang that attended. Harry and Ron hadn't even been allowed to come, as the family was trying to keep the press from infiltrating, and as such only a few select people outside the family had been allowed in.
She stopped short right there. If she started thinking about it again, she wouldn't be able to stop. She hadn't even cried since that fateful day when she'd heard the news; not even at the funeral did she shed a tear. Some would think her terribly hard-hearted, but she knew that if she cried that first tear, the tears wouldn't stop coming. So she had vowed not to cry again for Viktor. He wouldn't have liked to know she was blubbering her eyes out instead of carrying on living.
It was just so hard, though, to carry on living. Everything seemed so empty.
"Are you ready? Have you got the…Flute Powder?" her father asked uncertainly. Hermione laughed, possibly for the first time in the past three weeks.
"Floo powder, Dad," she corrected him.
"Oh, well; that does make more sense, then," he chuckled. "Have you got it?"
Hermione held up the small bag that Dumbledore had owled to her earlier that week. "All set."
"All right then, have a good term, dear," her mother said, patting Hermione on the shoulder.
"You can come home anytime you like, Pumpkin, you know that?" her dad said hopefully. Hermione knew he wasn't ready to see her go back just yet.
"I'll be back for Christmas," she replied firmly. "But I'll write every week, Dads, I promise."
She turned to the fireplace. Smiling, she thought of how Dumbledore had arranged for their house to be connected to the Floo Network for that afternoon, allowing her to Floo to his office. She had missed the Hogwarts Express because of the funeral; this thought caused her smile to disappear again.
Hermione opened the small bag and took a small handful of the shiny powder in her hand. Then she stepped into the fireplace, ensuring that her trunk and Crookshanks' carrier were wedged in with her. Then she waved to her parents with her free hand and threw the Floo Powder down, causing green flames to leap up around her. They felt pleasantly warm.
"Dumbledore's office, Hogwarts!" she said clearly, and immediately the sight of her waving parents was gone in a blur as she began to spin rapidly in the grate. She kept her elbows tucked in close to her sides and her eyes closed, remembering Harry telling her about traveling this way. Soon she felt herself slowing down and she opened her eyes just in time to see Dumbledore's smiling face as he grabbed her arm to steady her as she stumbled out of the fireplace.
"Are you all right, Miss Granger?" he asked, helping her to brush the soot out of her hair, his eyes twinkling. "I trust you had an enjoyable journey?"
Hermione just coughed in reply.
"Excellent, excellent," Dumbledore replied, levitating her trunk and Crookshanks out of the grate and over by his desk. "If I could have a quick word with you before I send you off to your dormitory?" he added, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk. Hermione sat down, still sputtering, and waited. She knew what he was going to say before he even said it.
"Miss Granger," he continued, sitting down in his chair behind his desk and folding his long slender hands in front of him. "I can't begin to imagine what you've been through these past few weeks, but I assure you, I can sympathize with losing someone you love. If you ever need someone to talk to, just know that I am here, and so are the other faculty," he finished, spreading his arms wide. Hermione nodded, but in reality, she felt like she might be sick if she didn't get out of there immediately. She didn't want to talk about it.
"Thank you, Professor," she said, hoping her tone sounded genuine. Dumbledore just smiled and gestured to the door, and she knew she was free to go.
"You may leave your things, if you like, and I'll have someone bring them up later," he said as she rose from her seat. Hermione nodded, taking her bag and heading for the door. When she reached the hallway, she broke into a run, and she didn't stop until she reached the Fat Lady's portrait. Too late she remembered she didn't know the new password.
"Can't you just let me in?" she asked helplessly. The Fat Lady just shook her head.
"If I let you in, I'd have to start letting anyone in," she replied haughtily.
"Oooh, well why don't you just go…get…painted!" Hermione said in a huff, stalking off to the Great Hall instead, leaving the Fat Lady in shocked silence behind her.
She hadn't really wanted to go to the Great Hall; she knew it was dinnertime and most of the students would be there. It wasn't that she didn't want to see her friends so much as she didn't want to see the looks of pity on their faces when she saw them.
Her fears weren't unfounded, for as soon as she walked in, the buzz of chatter that usually filled the Great Hall stopped abruptly for a moment, then started up again so quickly that one wouldn't have noticed anything unusual if they hadn't been paying close attention. She could feel it, though. The stares of almost every pair of eyes were on her as she crossed to the Gryffindor table.
Deciding it was best to just pretend everything was normal, she sat down between Ron and Harry and started ladling peas onto her plate before anyone could say anything.
"Hermione!" Ron exclaimed, startled by her sudden appearance. Apparently, he was the one person who hadn't seen her walk in. "When did you get here?"
"Just now," she said calmly. "How was your holiday, Harry?"
"Oh, you know, the usual," Harry said, his voice unsure and apprehensive. Hermione sighed and dropped the ladle back into the bowl of peas and glared around at everyone at the table.
"If you're all quite through with acting like a group of frightened first-years, I'd like to go on with normal life. Yes, something horrible has happened, but it doesn't mean that you have to handle me with kid gloves. I'm still me."
The atmosphere lightened a bit, and Hermione went back to serving herself dinner. Harry spoke first.
"We know, Hermione," he said gently, so gently that it caused her to look up at him full in the face. His green eyes were full of understanding. Then Hermione remembered the end of last year, and how Harry had been through this when he saw Cedric murdered.
"I'm sorry," she murmured, suddenly studying her plate as if it were a complicated Arithmancy problem.
"You don't have anything to apologize for," he replied, putting an arm around her comfortingly. Ron cleared his throat.
"We're here for ya, Hermione," he said gruffly, patting her shoulder in an awkward sort of way that was still much appreciated by Hermione. Suddenly, she was hugging first Harry, then Ron, the latter of the two seeming shocked yet pleased by her show of affection. His face and neck turned a bright red to match his Gryffindor Prefect's badge.
Hermione didn't notice, but instead tucked into her dinner with renewed enthusiasm.
Later, in her dormitory, Lavender Brown, who was never known for having extreme tact, was busy questioning Hermione about her summer holidays.
"So how did it happen?" she asked in a hushed voice. Hermione sighed and decided she had better just get it over with, otherwise the other girl wasn't going to leave her alone.
"He was killed by a—" she stopped short, realizing she'd almost said Death Eater. She cast around for a moment, and then continued, "—by a dark wizard during a duel." There. That wasn't a lie. And at least now she wouldn't have to hear Lavender's opinion on Voldemort's return. The other girl gasped.
"So it's true then? My mum heard from one of her friends that it was something like that," she was silent for a moment, but it didn't last. "You were dating him, right?"
Hermione sighed again. "Yes, Lavender, we were dating. We kept in touch after he went back home, and I even went to visit him over the summer hols be—before…" she couldn't finish. Lavender made a sound that was probably supposed to be sympathetic. It wasn't. It annoyed Hermione to no end. She pulled on her pajamas and climbed into bed. She wished the silly girl would get the message and shut up already and let her get some peace.
"I don't know how you were able to eat at dinner," Lavender went on, successfully crushing Hermione's hopes of getting to bed early. Hermione leaned on her elbow and stared at Lavender incredulously.
"What do you mean?"
"If something like that had happened to me, I wouldn't be able to eat a bite, I'm sure of it," Lavender said emphatically. Hermione rolled her eyes.
"I don't see any reason to starve myself, Lavender. It won't bring Viktor back." And with that, she pulled the curtains of her bed closed with such a force that even Lavender Brown understood that their conversation was over.
The next day was better. Sort of. Hermione discovered herself slightly behind in her schoolwork because she'd missed a full week of classes. She couldn't have that.
As she had a free afternoon, she practically sprinted to the library to do some extra studying. Almost every table was full, but that wasn't very unusual. She skirted around the edge of the library and back to a secluded table hidden in the stacks, her favorite one. But as she turned the corner around the last bookshelf, she was surprised to see it was already occupied.
"Oh, sorry," she mumbled, turning away quickly.
"Whatever, Granger, I was just leaving," Malfoy drawled, gathering his things together quickly and standing. He nodded his head toward the now-empty table. "All yours."
Then he was gone.
Hermione's head was reeling. Had Draco Malfoy just been civil to her? No comment about her parentage? No snide remark about her being dirty and beneath him? What the hell was that all about?
She decided not to think about it right now. All she wanted to think about was Transfiguration and Arithmancy and Charms. And so she did.
When Hermione returned to the common room that night, after reciting the new password haughtily to the Fat Lady (mimbulus mimbltonia), she found Harry and Ron huddled beside the fire, talking animatedly in hushed tones.
"Oi! Hermione!" Ron called to her as she scrambled through the portrait hole. She made her way across the room and settled into her favorite squishy armchair, dropping her bag on the floor at her side.
"I'm not even going to ask how this armchair happens to be vacant, Ronald, I'm just going to assume that you did not just physically remove a first year from it," she said as she leaned back and closed her eyes. Even for her, the studying session she'd just put herself through in the library was a tiring one.
Ron turned slightly pink, but said nothing. Harry spoke next.
"Hermione, something's going on at Hogwarts."
Hermione sighed. "When is something not going on at Hogwarts?"
"I'm serious. You missed quite a bit while—" Harry stopped abruptly and cast his eyes down immediately. Hermione groaned.
"It's okay, Harry," she said impatiently. "Well, it isn't okay, but I told you last night at dinner that you don't have to treat me differently be--because of what's happened," she finished, her voice only faltering slightly during her speech. Harry looked relieved.
"All right," he continued. "Well, for starters, you know all about the hearing at the Ministry," Hermione nodded, "but d'you remember me saying something about a witch that looked like a toad? The one who was determined not to believe me?"
"Yes," she answered simply, urging him to continue.
"She's here at Hogwarts," Harry finished grandly. "She had this whole speech at the start of term feast…something about progress being prohibited or something…But that's not all. She's the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, as well."
"And she's evil, Hermione," Ron interjected. Harry nodded enthusiastically.
"She's going around trying to convince everyone that I'm mad, and Voldemort," Ron winced noticeably, "hasn't returned; pretty much the same rubbish they're printing in the Prophet, not to mention whatever else Fudge is telling her to say," he finished.
Hermione's brain was whirring so fast it was becoming difficult for her to sit still.
"What does Dumbledore say?"
"Dunno, really," Ron supplied. "He hasn't said anything against her yet, but I'm sure he can't like her. She's evil," he repeated.
"McGonagall doesn't like her, though," Harry said hopefully. "She told me to watch out for her…I don't think she trusts her."
"Who would?" Ron added. Then he hesitated for a moment, glancing up at Harry out of the corner of his eyes. "Are you going to tell her?"
Harry shook his head almost imperceptibly. Hermione's ears perked up, and she glanced back and forth between the two boys, trying to read their expressions. Ron looked worried, but resigned, and Harry's face was completely unreadable. She sighed.
"Well, if you don't want to tell me, then you don't have to," she said, trying not to sound irritable. "But as for the rest of what you said, it's obvious that Ministry is trying to interfere at Hogwarts, and we'll have to keep a sharp eye on this woman…what was her name again?"
"Umbridge," Harry replied in monotone, and Ron shuddered, much the way he did when Voldemort's name was mentioned. If Hermione hadn't been so annoyed, she would have laughed.
Later, in her dormitory, she was once again sequestered in her four poster with the curtains drawn so she wouldn't have to deal with Lavender. She had her wand lit and a book open on her lap, trying to concentrate on the Charms theory she was reading, but she just couldn't.
Finally, she shut the book with a snap and leaned back onto her pillows. Hot tears were forming at the back of her eyes as her mind reeled in several directions all at once.
She was behind in her schoolwork. The Ministry had sent some horrible woman to interfere at Hogwarts. Malfoy was inexplicably being civil to her, which wasn't exactly horrible, just disconcerting. Voldemort was out there somewhere, planning his next move. And on top of it all, Viktor…
No, Hermione thought defiantly, stopping her train of thought. I mustn't cry.
She deliberately cleared her mind and emptied her head of everything, filling it instead with the twelve uses of dragon blood, and soon she had drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
A/N : So here it is, folks! Thank you to everyone who added me to their favorite stories and favorite authors, and a special thanks to those who added me to their C2's! You guys are great, you know that? I hope you enjoy this new story, which promises to be a bit more angsty than my previous fics. :D
