Hey guys! I am back with a new chapter. I wanted to get another chapter done and up in time as a sort of holiday gift. So I hope you enjoy. Next chapter won't be until after the holidays, or at least, hopefully it will...
~JoyfulTrouble
"Hello? Oi, Hermione, are you in there?" I jumped in my seat, as I came back to reality. I looked over to Ron questioningly, who was looking at me with concern. "You zoned out there, what were you thinking about?"
It's the beginning of Fourth Year, and we had just watched all the first years get sorted. I must have zoned out before Dumbledore started to traditional long speech, because I don't remember any of it at all, and dinner was already served.
"Just thinking about classes tomorrow," I lied. I never got to telling anyone about my condition yet. The only person who knows is Lupin, but that wasn't because I told him: he found out. And I wasn't ready to tell anyone yet. "I'm excited for Charms." I said happily, that one wasn't a lie. I loved charms.
"Hermione, we just got here! Stop thinking about classes and work for once! Let's start now, what do you think about the tournament?" Ron asked as he stabbed one of the chicken breasts with his fork, and flopped it onto his plate.
"What tournament?"
"The Triwazard Tournament." Harry interjected.
"Wait that is this year?" I asked, they both nodded. That meant the two 'high-class schools' with the I-think-I-am-better-than-everyone-else students were coming. "Oh, this is going to be fun. I have to deal with these students making fun of me, now I have to worry about another two schools on top of that." I said, pushing around my salad.
Since 'it' happened in First Year, my appetite change among many other things. I now tended to eat more meats than anything else. I always grabbed some salad, but I would always only manage to eat half of it before I got sick of it.
At the beginning, I had a lot of trouble dealing with my… condition. I still have trouble with it. But it is more of an annoying routine than anything else. The first two weeks, nothing out of the ordinary happened, and hope seeped into my skin, and into my heart, that maybe, just maybe there was a chance that the Lycanthropy didn't pass onto me. That there was this glitch in my reality and somehow I would be normal. That nothing would happen. But that was before the full moon, and I learned that it was stupid to get my hopes up.
On the day of the full moon, I instantly felt different. I felt on edge, and my skin unnaturally warm. My eyes constantly went in and out of focus, and my appetite grew. I knew the signs, and that I was indeed become a werewolf.
That night, I believe it was slightly before eight, I went outside to the forest. To say that I was scared would have been an understatement. I didn't know what to do, how it would happen; I knew nothing. I was going into this blind. Sure, there is books that describe the process, but none say how painful it is. All I knew was that there would indeed be pain.
It was about nine o'clock that I started to change, and it was worse than I expected.
All of my bones felt like they were being broken at once, my stomach felt like it was being ripped open, my skin felt like it was on fire, and my head felt like it was about to explode. To make it simple, I felt like I was dying. Just when I thought I was going to pass out from the pain, everything stopped.
The next thing I remember after that was waking up beside the lake, naked. My hair was a mess (more than usual), I was covered in dirt, and I had smudges of blood across my chest and hands. It took months for me to get over the fact that I had killed an innocent animal.
It was because of that animal that I decided to search for somewhere else to go for the full moons. On my free time I would go search for anything that would hold up the wolf. It was merely days before the full moon that I found the shrieking shack. It was perfect, I could stay there on the full moons, nothing would get hurt, and I would also be away from prying eyes.
Since finding the shack, once a month I would find myself making my way there, and doing my routine. My routine consisted of four things: One, Lock all the doors, and for safety reasons, the Locking Charm, Colloportus. Two, put my clothes into a bag, and into the top drawer of the dressers beside the door. Three, put a silencing charm around the shack. Just the case that in all likelihood, the wolf was going to howl. And four, if I managed to sneak some, put the meats in the center of the room. I must have been doing something right these last few years, because nothing bad has happened. Well, with the wolf anyways.
"So, when are the other schools supposed to be coming anyways?" I asked. Ron gave me a smirk, probably liking the fact that he caught me for once not listening to the Headmaster. It was Harry who answered,
"Dumbledore said they were to arrive on Friday."
"Friday!?" I exclaimed, "But that is only in three days!"
"Well there is a Tournament happening, so they probably don't want to waste any time. I mean, I wouldn't." Ron said. I couldn't help but let out a laugh.
"If anyone was to bring up the way you do homework, I would say you waste your time a lot." With that remark, Harry joined in and laughed as well. Ron went back to eating his dinner, a slight blush on his cheeks, and avoiding any more conversation.
It was Thursday and I was in Potions Class working on crushing the Moonstone to a powder for the Love Potion we were making. A lot of the Gryffindor's hated Potions Class, personally I didn't hate it; what I hated was the teacher: Professor Snape. He was always trying to get the Gryffindor's in trouble. That's why I always felt smug when he could never find something wrong with my potions.
What was strange – and slightly humours – was the fact that this potions class we were sharing it with Huffelpuffs, instead of Slytherins. The humorous aspect of it was that Ron had a thing for one of the guys in Huffelpuff, Charlie Otterborn. For anyone who had eyes, you could tell that Ron had a major crush on him. For example, looking over at Ron, he wasn't even paying attention to his potion at all, he was almost at the point of drooling over Charlie, which just happened to have dropped his Peppermint leaf and bent over to pick it up. It was so obvious, I don't even know why Ron insists he stays in the closet.
"Ron, you might want to be a little less obvious, before the whole school knows" I whispered, with a knowing smile. Ron snapped out of his stupor, and looks at me with an evil glare. Sometimes it was so easy to get under Ron's skin. I can't recall a time when we didn't have this kind of friendship. We would always make fun of each other, and the other would try to counter in with their own remark, until one of us reached a sort of checkmate. It was a game that both of them enjoyed.
"I could say the same to you Hermione." Ron whispered back, now evil look turned into and evil, knowing smile. My smile fell, and my eyes widened slightly. I- He- Wait, what?
"What are you talking about?" I asked nervously, followed by an even more nervous sounding laugh.
"You're not to discreet yourself you know." He said, now with the world's biggest smug grin on his face. I didn't answer him back, I just simple went to finishing my potion, trying to forget his words. Trying to stop the blush that was tinting my cheeks red and giving me away.
But I couldn't help thinking to myself, touché.
