Spring's Surprises

You can't kick me down; I'm already on the ground
No you can't 'cause you couldn't catch me anyhow
Blue skies but the sun isn't coming, no
Today it's I'm under a heavy cloud

Run Away - Avril Lavigne

Spring was generally considered a lovely season. It was warm, but not too hot. There was rain, but not too often, and where muggles would flock to farms to watch newborn lambs stumble around on wobbly legs, the Hogwarts students that liked Hagrid went down to his cabin to see what baby creatures had been born this year. Sometimes he had hippogriffs, sometimes he had a baby unicorn, and sometimes he had other adorable things.

Then again, he sometimes also had baby acromantulas and blast-ended skrewts. But students took the risk and went anyway, crossing their fingers as they made their way down there that the breakfast they'd had earlier wouldn't be the last they ever ate.

For other students, the lake was finally starting to warm up. Swimming quickly became a favourite water activity, along with annoying the giant squid. Quidditch also became a lot more appealing for those people not on teams now that the winds weren't made of ice and frost didn't line the fields in the mornings. Even just spending time outside in general became more pleasant.

Hermione liked spring, but not really because of any of those things. She liked visiting Hagrid, but she preferred going with just Harry and Ron. She didn't really enjoy swimming, and certainly didn't want to do so in the lake. And both Harry and Ron would testify that Quidditch just wasn't her sport. And spending time outside was alright as long as she had a book, but she preferred to do it when there weren't so many other people out there to be a distraction.

But she did like the fact that everyone else suddenly decided that it was a good idea to spend most of their time outside. It meant a quieter library, a quieter common room, and she could walk around some of the smaller, less-well-used corridors without running into even a single person upon occasion. Sometimes she could sit in a quiet part of the castle without hearing anyone, and she could almost imagine she had the entire Hogwarts to herself.

Yes, spring was a lovely season.

It wasn't often that her jaunts around the castle were interrupted. Of course, younger students would sometimes scurry past, and every so often a lost first year would ask for directions, but she couldn't really consider small things like those interruptions.

How would she define an interruption, you might ask? Well, she wasn't entirely sure. But one thing she did know was that a bucketful of water dropping on her from the ceiling definitely counted as an interruption.

"Urgh!" she exclaimed, shivering at the sudden cold. Honestly, it felt more like ice than it did water. She was just glad that she'd already returned her book to the library - as good as she was at drying them with magic, she couldn't quite manage to return them to their original un-drenched state (as she'd found out when Ron "accidentally" dropped his potions text book in the lake).

She looked around and upwards, trying to see who'd thought it would be funny to drop water on her. She had been expecting to see some giggling Slytherin, but the corridor was empty, which was strange. Even peering at thin air very carefully to see if it shimmered a little (the tell-tale sign that someone was using a disillusionment charm) revealed nothing. Waving her wand, she was dry within an instant.

Frowning, she continued walking. It was probably just a prank that she'd triggered by stepping on a certain spot or triggering some sort of sensor, she thought. All the same, she remained alert for any sort of unusual noise - such as snickering or footsteps. It wouldn't do her much good though, as she was to find out.

Whoever it was made no noise as they approached. The next thing that was poured on her was a bucket, not of water - which would have been the preferable option - this time, but of mud. Wet, cold mud. She squealed as she felt the sludge fall on her, at first simply landing on her clothes and sinking into her hair. But then she shuddered at the grossness of it as it began to slither down her back.

She whirled around, wiping it from her forehead to keep it from running into her eyes. "Who's there?" she demanded.

There was no answer, although Hermione thought that there might have been a sound not dissimilar to a muffled giggle. However, it was too hard to hear properly with mud obscuring her hearing, so she couldn't be sure.

She wasn't quite as good at cleaning herself with magic as she was at drying herself, and she would really have preferred to return to Gryffindor Tower and have a shower. But she could hardly track mud throughout the castle - Filch would string her up in the dungeons, whether he was allowed to or not.

So she waved her wand, muttering a charm, and got instantaneous relief as most of the mud disappeared. She'd still need a shower, but at least it was better than what it had been. She glanced behind her once more, just to make sure there was no one following her. She doubted there could be though - the only people who she knew could become invisible were Ron and Harry, when they were under the cloak. And it had better not be them - she'd hex them so they wouldn't be able to sit down properly for a week.

She began walking again, and this time it was only a few paces before something hit her from behind. It wasn't water or mud this time, though - it was undeniably solid.

She yelped, out of surprise more than pain, and whirled around. She was just in time to see a second piece of chalk come whizzing at her, and ducked so that it missed her by the breadth of a hair. But she'd seen the direction the chalk had come from now, and she mentally kicked herself about how slow she'd been. There was only one person she knew who could hover invisible in the air.

"Peeves!" she called angrily. "Show yourself!"

He didn't, but his cackling laugh filled the corridor, bouncing off the stone walls in a spooky manner. "Or what?" he asked provocatively.

"Or I'll hex you!" she called back bravely. She wasn't actually sure that you could hex a poltergeist, but she thought it would be worth a try. She reached into her pocket for her wand.

"Tallantellegra!" she called suddenly, as he opened his mouth to reply. To her dismay, nothing happened.

"Do you think that'll work on old Peevesie?" he asked mockingly. "Think you can beat a poltergeist you can't see?"

"Filch'll come by here any minute," she bluffed, abandoning her attempts to hex Peeves, "and when he sees you harassing a student, he'll go straight to Dumbledore. You should leave for your own good."

She hadn't had a lot of hope that it would work and, sure enough, it didn't. Peeves just began to laugh again, and Hermione slowly started to back away. If she could just get into a more crowded corridor, she thought, then Peeves would be distracted and sooner or later the chaos he'd cause would mean a teacher would come along. The only problem with that theory was that most students were still outside, enjoying the warmth that spring had brought.

"I mean it Peeves," she warned, taking another step backwards.

Perhaps he caught on to what she was trying to do, or perhaps he just got sick of playing around. Either way, Hermione let out a small shriek as he suddenly became visible again and swooped down at her. Even though she'd known he was there, it still gave her a start.

She turned and ran, noting the chalk in one hand and the bucket in the other. She was hoping it was empty, but she couldn't rely on it, and she probably didn't want to know what was in there if it turned out that her hopes were false. She stumbled as a piece of chalk hit her in the back.

Ron and Harry were doing homework in the armchairs of the common room when the portrait swung open to reveal a panting, muddy, disgruntled-looking Hermione. Harry took one look at her expression and chose the safe option, returning his eyes to his parchment. Ron didn't.

"What happened to you?" he asked. "And is that a cockroach in your hair?"

"Probably," Hermione said shrilly. "I imagine there're several of them. Peeves had a bucketful. I'm going to go shower."

"Okay…," Ron said, not quite understanding the full story but not really willing to risk asking.

As Hermione walked away, he distinctly heard her mutter, "I hate spring".

A/N: This is a repost of a story that I wrote for the "Four Season's" competition, where I wrote a story for each of the seasons, with one character changing another character's mind about that season.

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