'Miss Granger, once again you have proved yourself incapable of resisting your obsessive compulsion to recite yet another unnecessarily long-winded extract of Confronting the Faceless to the class. You must be pleased.' The soft lilting voice carried easily across the stone room.
She clenched her jaw, but otherwise gave no indication that she could hear the sniggers behind her. The back of her neck grew warm, mercifully hidden from the rest of the world by the tangle of bushy hair.
Defence Against the Dark Arts now conjured many of the same feelings in Hermione as Potions had for Harry and Ron, but for different reasons. The castle was usually warm around this time of the year, but in the dungeons it was positively freezing. The chill seeped through the soles of her shoes, its insidious hands trying to claw their way into the gaps close to the fastening of her cloak, in the spaces the uniform did not quite cover.
Snape- Professor Snape- was a scarily intelligent man, much in the same way Professor Dumbledore was, the real Professor. Not the kindly, indulgent and quite frankly batshit crazy façade he liked to wear as a coat of armour, but in that hard glint in his usually twinkling blue eyes, the steel underlying the friendly grandfather impression he employed when meticulously bending errant ministry officials or professors to his indomitable will.
Snape did not bother with illusions, at least, not in the same way as Dumbledore did. He gave no one else the pretence of control in his presence, and least of all in his lair. The cold was designed to distract, to keep them on edge. His obvious favouritism was probably partially to keep Slytherin feeling warm and fuzzy in one of their only sanctuaries in the school, and to just show that he, unlike the rest of the castle, was not swayed by the fact that Harry had routinely saved their lives an almost embarrassing amount of times. The fact that he would have to do the same or die trying for the rest of Magical Britain at some point in the near future similarly seemed to be beneath his notice.
Ron's face was not so slowly becoming suffused in red, while Harry seethed not so quietly at his side. An awkward combination of practice and resignation were the only things that managed to keep them silent. Padma, on the other hand, was half-shaking with a familiar mixture of terror and humiliation; her hands burned an angry red as Draco smirked at his smoothed his sleek hair.
Professor Snape had insisted on moving the DADA class to the Dungeons after giving up potions, a request probably made infinitely easier by the fact that Professor Slughorn had never moved in. It meant that DADA had developed the haunted, claustrophobic feeling Potions had always carried, as well as the hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck-tingling-Snape-is-going-to-murder-me-sensation (in Neville's immortal words) many thought they had escaped.
Not such a good aura to have hanging around when Snape- Professor Snape- decided to throw them at a bunch of Inferri.
They weren't real- Hermione had embarrassingly had to remind herself of that particular fact an unacceptable number of times, in no way negated by the fact that the rest of the class seemed to have a similar amount of difficulty in remembering that choice fact. Even the good professor would find it hard to justify sending an army of undead things to fight against a 6th year NEWT classroom. But in order to test them (read- for his personal entertainment) he had given the replicas a toned down version of typical Inferri firepower, and Merlin did those things pack a punch.
Hermione liked Padma. She was almost smart enough to keep up with her and she thought quickly on her feet. Unfortunately, her quick mind tended to freeze when overwhelmed with terror.
Malfoy had been cruel, even for him. Slytherins and Ravenclaws tended to get on pretty well, in that Ravenclaws were generally too busy with their heads buried in books to hold grudges against most for too long, but generally- very generally- viewed Gryffindors with the sort of admiring but condescending confusion one gave to a loyal and protective guard dog. Hufflepuffs garnered similar looks- their pack-like, unshakable loyalty seemed perplexing but commendable, especially on the rare occasions when the badgers decided to dig in their heels. For the Slytherins, on the other hand, cleverness seemed to go hand in hand with ambition, for all that they seemed to exude a certain nonchalant, je ne sais quoi, uniforms still perfect, and crease-free even on a Thursday afternoon for the last lesson of the day.
Slytherin House tolerated Ravenclaw for similar reasons- Ravenclaws had a strange- but on further examination, not so strange- tendency to rise to high places in their respective fields, which Slytherin tended to respect. And for all their airs and haughtiness, they certainty worked hard- Hermione had caught glimpses of Malfoy and Zabini in shadowed alcoves of the library throughout her years at Hogwarts, secure in her nook the other students tended to simply leave vacant now, having seen her setting up shop far too many times. Their efforts showed- Ernie, Padma, Zabini, Nott and Malfoy always filled the positions just below her in their year, with Zabini and Nott regularly coming out on top. Blaise occasionally shifted her from her throne in arithmancy, and Harry was undisputedly the DADA king. Hermione loved Harry, but that stain on her OWLS was infuriating. She hadn't known for certain she was continuing it until she saw distractedly caught sight of her own neat scrawl by the option on the parchment- thereafter obstinacy precluded any changes.
Let it not be said Hermione Granger shied from a challenge. And there is was- the traits of their lion, rearing its proud head.
The conformity of the castle to the particular House expectations always made her wonder whether the Sorting Hat was more concerned with nature or nurture. But then there was Harry's better-known decision to choose Gryffindor rather than Slytherin, and her own, far more private, rejection of Ravenclaw.
Hogwarts was meant to have represented a fresh start, a chance to be normal. So she had pushed against her nature, and gone for what she admired in others, what she thought she could replicate. Hufflepuff was statistically the best chance for creating her own secure social circle, but pack mentality didn't come to Hermione naturally, and Hufflepuff was supposedly all for blending in for House unity. She hadn't been sure she could fake it well enough.
But Gryffindor- brave, noble, still loyal, carelessly daring- she suspected she could pull it off. Exceptionally clever Gryffindors were unusual, but not unheard of. Professor Dumbledorr and Professor McGonagall were both well known examples- she would raise eyebrows, but invite little further inquiry. Slytherin had been out, even back then. Ambition didn't make for great friendships, and prejudice was hard enough to ignore without throwing herself face first into it.
Statistically speaking, she was more likely to befriend the next dark lord in Slytherin than in any other House. Doing so would mean as a good friend she would be obliged to plot out the most efficient way for them to take over the Wizarding world. Not conducive for clinging to the remains of her mental health.
Gryffindor it was.
Only- her inquisitive nature had taken over, and in those first months at Hogwarts she had been so unbearably lonely. Harry and Ron, the latter in particular, had been absolute beasts, and even now that she had come to love and respect them, they would still always come first to each other. Their fights over the years had only served to prove the point.
She stilled remembered being a tiny first year, having just mastered the levitation spell (the elegance Professor Flitwick demonstrated in that simple swish and flick, the hunger), books her only company stacked up past her face, christening her nook. Between the books and her unruly hair she had barely been able to see, and she had smacked face into something hard and unyielding.
She had dropped to her knees, stammering apologies, collecting books, and when she looked up, found herself looking at dark hair and grey eyes. Said unyielding object turned out to be a set of admirable abs.
'Hippogriffs, I've broken a little firstie,' the voice rang with amusement, and its owner bent to scoop up the remaining books. 'You are far too tiny to be carting round the entire library. I tend to live in here a lot, so next time, just let me know if you need some help.' It should have been insulting, but the affable tone and genuine good humour took the edge of the vaguely misogynistic words.
White teeth flashed in a grin. 'I'm Cedric.'
Initially, she had simply thought Diggory was the strangest Hufflepuff she had ever met. He didn't precisely stand out as much as the Weasley twins and their tomfoolery, or Percy and his airs, but even then she had heard of his legendary transfiguration and charms work. The fourth year Hufflepuff McGonagall had taken under her wing. It was a strange anomaly, a problem she had to solve. Her little side project, researching unusual members of certain houses, but the House classification system was as ingrained in Wizarding society as the pureblood/ everyone else/ subhuman distinctions, and literature on the topic only underlined that fact, cited those who didn't conform as entirely eccentric.
Eventually she concluded that everyone was a little bit of everything, and it was simply a matter of which part was dominant. She had turned the idea around for a couple of minutes. It worked, even though it was obviously an oversimplification. Choice had worked for her, for Harry, and probably a couple more students they had no idea about. That first conversation with the Sorting had each student had was theirs and theirs alone to disclose.
Loosing Cedric had been a private, tearing pain. He wasn't a friend, not precisely; their meetings had been too unstructured and coincidental for that. But he had always spared one of his sun-bright grins for her, and they had both helped each other research various essays or shared a table, silence but for the rustling of parchment or the scratch of a quill. The tri-wizard tournament had been disturbing collision of their worlds. Harry had faced so much hate that year, and he was her best friend. Harry had come first.
Harry, outside the maze, with Cedric's prone body beside him, Amos Diggory's desperate groans, like a wounding animal. Her relief and horror. Cedric's trauma at You-Know-Who's hands had only served to crystallise her hatred, finely tune it. And Sirius- daring, reckless Sirius, Harry's support mechanism, the prophesy, and knowing Harry would want Ron but need her by his side for that final, cataclysmic battle.
Sleep had become even rarer after that, long nights pouring over old scrolls and dusty tomes, moving like a wraith through the castles walls. Being a prefect helped, of course, gave her an appropriate excuse for being out at strange times, explaining her absences. She became an expert at silencing and muffling spells, infiltrating the restricted section and occasionally giving in to her desire to fantasise about some of the more terrible spells, tapping into the base, rarely acknowledged part of her, gripped by a terrible rage and overpowering grief.
Hermione knew she straddled the House borders much more that was considered normal at Hogwarts- and other borders for that matter. The clever Muggleborn, the respected scary female prefect, the evil Gryffindor, especially after the SNEAK incident. Harry Potter's other best friend. Beneath all the labels, pinned on things extraneous to herself, what was she really?
'Five points from Gryffindor,' Professor Snape continued, regarding her disdainfully beneath his hooked nose. 'And Miss Patil, as Mr Malfoy has so graciously pointed out, your performance was indeed atrocious. Another five from Ravenclaw.'
Hermione kept breathing steadily through her nose, while the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws around her broke into soft but unmistakably angry mutters. DADA, especially when facing mock Inferri, was not the place to lose one's head, no matter how much Snape wanted them to.
'Ignore him,' she instructed Padma softly under her breath. She sent her opponent a perfectly executed jinx and watched the creature disintegrate to dust, which somehow blew towards Malfoy. He sneezed, and his eyes watered.
Hermione was perfectly willing to wait out her enemies until she was ready to inflict maximum damage with little to no personal cost-efficiency at its best.
Ask Umbridge.