A/N: Thank you all for the amazing reviews! Here's a nice, long Hermione chapter!!
She was tired. Exhausted, really, but this was worth it. After the display that George had put on earlier (without Fred's help) she was pretty sure that this needed to be done. As she bent over her cauldron, Hermione found the words blurring together on the pages. Never a good sign. She blinked quickly, but the grainy feeling refused to leave her eyes. The dim light in the dorm room was not at all conducive to potion making.
Hermione straightened up and winced as her back cracked. She had been at this far too long. She glanced back at the potion and willed it to be done. She would need it for tomorrow, that was for sure, if she wanted to talk to Fred.
Without looking, she took the last ingredient and threw it into the cauldron, waving her wand over the concoction in order to stir it. Soon, the potion turned yellow, then gold, and then finally a pasty mustard color. Was it supposed to look like that? Hermione looked down at the book again, searching for the section on color description.
"Will appear as a molten gold color," the book predicted, showing a sample of the color underneath the description.
Hermione looked from the book, to her cauldron, and back again. She was so tired, and all she wanted to do was to crawl into the bed that she was currently leaning against and go to sleep. "Close enough," she said with a sigh. She filled her glass and drank the whole thing in four large gulps, forcing herself not to gag at the horrid taste.
She pushed the book and the cauldron up against the wall and wearily climbed into bed, never noticing the note at the bottom of the page.
"Beware not to take in large quantities. Undesirable effects."
When Hermione woke up the next morning, she didn't feel any different as she climbed out of bed and got dressed. She pushed her hair out of her face and headed towards the bathroom. She then brushed her curls as best as she could and tied them back with a ribbon, charming it into place before she let the next girl have her turn.
As she stepped into the dorm room, Hermione noticed Lavender primping in front of the mirror, wearing a horrible ensemble of bright pink under her robes. Before she could even process what she was saying, the words flew out from her lips. "You should really change, Lavender."
Lavender turned, surprised that Hermione was speaking up about fashion…to her. "And what would you know about fashion?" she asked, smiling tightly to indicate that she was trying to tease Hermione.
"I know enough to never be caught in that outfit," Hermione said calmly, grabbing her bag and slinging it over her shoulder.
She left Lavender standing there, looking shocked and appalled.
Hermione traipsed into Transfiguration class ten minutes late, causing the class to murmur in surprise. Professor McGonagall blinked and then managed to say, "Five points from Gryffindor for being late, Miss Granger."
Hermione shrugged. "Okay."
Harry and Ron stared at her, their mouths hanging open. Whispers circulated around the room as Hermione very calmly seated herself down at a desk and met her professor's gaze without so much as a twitch. McGonagall didn't quite know what to say. "W-well," she finally managed, "alright."
Hermione sat back against the backrest of her desk and waited calmly for the Gryffindors to stop looking at her. She crossed her arms and made no move to pull out a page of parchment or her quill as she normally did. Ron continued to stare at her but she ignored him.
Her professor finally regained control of the class and began her lesson. As Hermione listened to McGonagall drone on and on about rules that she already knew, she reached down and slipped her wand out of her bag. Slowly, she slid it onto her lap and then whispered a spell.
"There are certain rules that must be followed when attempting this spell," McGonagall informed the class as she began to write notes on the board behind her with a piece of chalk.
You must be cautious when performing such spells, she wrote.
The chalk flew from her hand and wrote, Must you really grip me so tightly, Minerva?
Minerva McGonagall stared at the board in surprise. The class gasped, and Hermione smirked. Harry, who was sitting across from her and had seen her whispered incantation, simply stared at her in shock. What had happened to his friend?
"Yes, well," said Professor McGonagall, recovering quickly, "I didn't realize that you had a preference. I'll keep that in mind later."
Does your head have enough space for that as well as your daily functions?
The class gasped, and Harry whipped his head around to look at Hermione. There was definitely something wrong with his friend. McGonagall was one of her favorite teachers, and Hermione would never have the nerve to mess around in class, or to say something this degrading to a teacher. Even as he watched, an uncharacteristic smirk spread across Hermione's face, and quickly disappeared. Hermione seemed to sit up straighter for a moment, before something gold flashed across her eyes and the smirk returned.
Yes, there was definitely something terribly wrong with his friend.
McGonagall gripped the chalk tightly and wrote: Good lighting is preferable when performing spells. Better to see by, though not entirely necessary.
The chalk once again escaped her grasp and wrote on its own: Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them lecture.
The class hung between the compulsion to laugh and the shock of the insults backtalking their teacher, and only the insolent scratching of the chalk broke the silence. Professor McGonagall turned around, her face bright red (not a pleasant color compared to its usual pastiness) and ground out, "Who is responsible for this?"
Harry snuck a peek at Hermione, who was busy studying the ceiling above her teacher's head. He needed to find out what was going on with Hermione, and soon, before she destroyed her record and lost her good standing. "I'm afraid Ron and I did it, Professor," he called out, standing up from his desk and speaking before he could give a considerate amount of thought to what he was saying. "We were practicing a spell, and I'm afraid it went a little awry."
Ron looked up at him with wide eyes. "We were?" he asked, in his usual last-to-know tone.
Harry nodded. "We were," he said, slightly forcefully. He glanced at McGonagall, trying to look as bashful and innocent as he could. "Neither one of us are really sure how to stop it though. Perhaps Hermione could help us?" His pointed stressing of her name did not go unnoticed by his friend.
Though her eyes were not quite focused, and Hermione appeared slightly confused, she grinned. "Sure, Harry." Without saying a word, she flicked her wand at the chalk, which was currently writing something not at all suitable for polite company, and it dropped to the floor, shattering into three jagged pieces.
McGonagall glanced between Harry and Hermione, sensing that something was not quite right. "Thank you, Miss Granger," was all she said, pressing her lips together before she could impart two months worth of detention like she so wished she could do. There was obviously something wrong, if Harry Potter's expression was anything to go by. She would wait for the time being and would see how this turned out.
"As I was saying…" she continued.
"What was that stunt you pulled back there?" Harry asked, enraged, as he caught up to Hermione, who was walking straight down the middle of the hallway as though she didn't have a care in the world.
Hermione turned to him and gave him such a look of innocence that he was almost ready to believe whatever was about to come out of her mouth. "I don't know what you're talking about, Harry," she said sweetly.
Harry, ignoring Ron next to him, grabbed Hermione's elbow and swung her around. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, Hermione Granger," he said angrily. "The chalk that you charmed during class. I know it was you."
Hermione appeared oblivious to his anger. "Yes, it was quite brilliant, wasn't it?" she asked him, letting another smirk sweep across her face.
Harry shook his head, amazed, just as Ron gasped out, "It was you?!"
Hermione turned to him and smiled again. "You liked it too? Brilliant!" She turned and began walking again.
Harry, however, caught her and spun her around again. "No, it wasn't brilliant!" he told her, his voice rising and catching the attention of the students in the halls. "It was embarrassing to McGonagall! Hermione, what's gotten into you?"
Hermione tossed her hair over her shoulder and gazed at him for a moment, seeming not to see the students gathering around them. "Why should you care? It was just a bit of fun." She yanked her arm away from Harry's grasp and said, "Excuse me, but I need to get to Potions. Wouldn't want to be late." Her taunting tone struck both of her friends hard, and Harry actually stepped away from her while Ron continued to stare.
By noontime, things were worse. Word had spread around the whole castle about Hermione's new attitude and how she had not only not turned in a Potions essay to Snape, but she had also told him exactly what he could do with the extra time he would now have since he didn't have her paper to grade. Gryffindor was another fifty points lighter, and Hermione had two months of detention added to her workload. "Did you hear what Granger did?" was the most common opening topic that day.
"Between Hermione acting up and Fred not pulling pranks, this school has just been turned upside down," Seamus remarked idly as the Great Hall filled for lunch.
Harry jerked his head up from where he was loading his plate with dried pumpkin slices. "What did you say?" he asked Seamus.
"I said that between Hermione giving her teachers attitude and Fred letting George pull pranks by himself, the school's turned upside down," Seamus repeated with a shrug.
Harry looked down the table to where the twins were sitting, and suddenly, everything made sense. Hermione was acting up to catch Fred's attention, and Fred was trying to mend his ways for Hermione! "No way," he breathed. The prankster and the rule-lover. No one would have guessed that they would begin to fancy each other!
However, Harry knew enough about Hermione to know that though she might have tried to get Fred's attention by pulling some harmless stunt, she would never do what she had been doing today on her own accord. Harry thought and thought about what he should do, and he realized that he needed someone to check Hermione's dorm. He looked around, glad that Hermione had skipped lunch, and his eyes landed on the perfect person.
"Hey, Ginny!" he called.
Ginny slipped up the stairs to the girls' dormitory, peeking around corners just to make sure that no one was there. She hoped that Harry appreciated what she was doing for him. She'd been forced to miss quidditch practice just so that she could be here.
No one in the common room. This was good. She hadn't seen Hermione since lunch, but Ginny had been worried that she might run into the wayward girl in the common room.
She headed towards the stairs, only to see a shadow rapidly approaching her. Someone was coming down the stairs.
"Hey, Fred?" Harry asked as he stood in the locker room pulling his quidditch pads onto his forearms.
Fred looked up from where he was lacing his boots. "Yeah?" he asked, his tone light and curious.
Harry leaned against the locker. "Can I ask you a question?"
Fred gave Harry an amused glance that told him that the Weasley twin had absolutely no idea what he was about to ask. "Sure," he said openly, noticing for the first time that the rest of the team was out of hearing range, and that Harry was speaking softly.
Harry took a deep breath.
Ginny gasped in a breath. There was nowhere to run! There was nowhere to hide! What if it was Hermione? What could she say?
Ginny froze as the shadow moved closer still, growing larger as it came closer. Then suddenly, George appeared in front of her, garbed in his quidditch gear. "Gin?" he asked, concerned as he noticed his sister's white face.
Ginny let out the breath she had been holding. "George!" she cried, relieved.
George nodded. "Yeah, it's me. What are you doing here?"
Ginny glanced around just to make sure that no one had shown up while she had been preoccupied. "I'm looking for something for Harry," she told him.
George frowned. "You're going to miss practice," he told her.
Ginny rolled her eyes. "Yeah, rub it in, won't you," she said dryly. "Unfortunately, this is important." Then, a thought struck her. "George, I need you to tell me the truth. It really is important. Does Fred like Hermione?"
"Do you like Hermione?"
Fred blinked, obviously caught off guard. "Why would you ask that?" he asked Harry, trying to sound casual and nonchalant.
Harry, however, wasn't buying his nonchalance. "I ask because something's happened to Hermione, and I have a feeling that it has something to do with trying to impress you."
Fred glanced up at him. "The thing with McGonagall and Snape?" he asked.
Harry nodded.
"Do you think Hermione's in trouble?" Fred asked quietly, apparently having heard about, as well as noticed, the changes in Hermione.
Harry shrugged. "I think so, but I'm not totally sure. I just need a straight answer, Fred."
Fred looked down at his hands and nodded. That was all the answer Harry needed.
"Yeah, he does," George admitted after Ginny had threatened to hex him. "Why?"
"Harry and I think that something's wrong with Hermione, and we think it might have something to do with her wanting to impress Fred," Ginny told him. She started to explain more when she shook her head. "Go. You'll be late for practice."
George shook his head, confused. "Mental," he muttered as he hurried out of the common room.
Ginny flew up the stairs, taking them two at a time, until she came to the dormitory Hermione shared with Lavender and a few other girls. She softly opened the door, still worried that Hermione might be there. What excuse could she use in case the troublemaking girl was there? "Hi, I'm here to snoop around in your things," didn't seem like quite the right approach.
Fortunately for her, Ginny found the room empty. She shut the door behind herself and placed a locking charm on it. All she needed was for Hermione to find her digging through her drawers. "Now what's gotten into you, Hermione Granger?" she asked the quiet room as she advanced on Hermione's rumpled bed.
Fred and Harry joined the team and were just about to head out to the quidditch pitch when George came running up, slightly out of breath. "Stop!" he called, waving for Angelina to stop walking.
"What?" she asked.
George shook his head. "Practice is canceled."
"What?!" everyone chorused.
George held his hands up. "Don't know why. Dumbledore stopped me on my way here and told me that there isn't going to be practice today. He said to think of it as free time." George shrugged. "Sorry."
Angelina turned to the grumbling group of students. "You heard him," was all she said wearily.
The Gryffindors turned to head back to the locker room to strip off their pads when Harry heard his name being called. He turned, and his jaw nearly dropped down to the ground. There was Hermione striding towards him, and in her hands was a broom.
Books upon books were neatly charmed on top of each other to keep them from toppling. Ginny searched through the stacks, feeling her annoyance increasing with each shift through spare parchment and books that were so foreign to her that they appeared to be in a different language.
"Darn you, Hermione," Ginny grumbled as she impatiently dragged a stack of books and parchment onto the bed, dropping them roughly in her annoyance. Parchment scattered from the force of the drop, and pages fell to the floor on the other side of the bed. With a roll of her eyes, Ginny scrambled over to the other side of the bed and reached down to grab the papers.
It was only then that she noticed the large book and cauldron against the wall.
Harry stared at Hermione in disbelief. "You what?" he asked his friend.
"I want you to teach me how to fly," Hermione said calmly, as though it was the simplest thing in the world.
"B-but you hate flying!" Harry stuttered out.
Hermione frowned. "Hate is a very strong word, Harry," she said calmly. "I like to think of it as detesting." She shrugged. "And just because I detest it doesn't mean that I don't want to try it. So come on." She held the broom in her hands out to him. "Teach me."
Harry hesitantly reached out and took the school broom from Hermione's hands, running his hands over the handle cautiously. With the way Hermione had been acting, he wasn't so sure that this was such a good idea. "Is this because of Fred?" he asked curiously.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Of course not. Now stop over-thinking and teach me."
Ginny crouched over the book, careful not to disrupt the potion or the page Hermione had last turned to. Felix Felicis. A kind of confidence and luck potion. Ginny bent closer and read the instructions, realizing that Hermione must have been making the potion last night.
"Beware not to take in large quantities," it warned in bold type. "Undesirable effects."
Ginny looked from the book to the potion and back, studying the differences. It was only then that she noticed that the difference was in the color of the potion in the book and the potion in front of her. "Will appear as a molten gold color," the book stated. Hermione's, however, was a mustard-ish color.
"Beware: A change in color can affect the potency of the potion. If the color is not exact, your potion will not achieve a level of safety. Straying from the gold color and proper consistency, and/or drinking in large quantities can produce giddiness, reckless, dangerous, and thoughtless behavior instead of the burst of confidence and luck one hoped to achieve with this potion.
Ginny had read enough. Hermione had been up late and she hadn't been paying attention. She'd been trying to give herself a boost of confidence and had instead delivered an unhealthy dose of recklessness. Who knew what she might do?
Ginny jumped up. She had to find Harry!
"Okay, now put your other hand right here," Harry commanded, gently tapping the spot on the handle where Hermione's left hand needed to go.
Hermione rolled her eyes, apparently displeased by the slowness of Harry's lesson, but she obeyed. "Okay," she said, raising her eyebrows in the hopes that Harry would speed things up.
"Now gently kick off the ground," Harry told her, bracing himself in case Hermione needed help. He really wished that Ginny was here now so that she could advise him on what to do. Putting Hermione on a broom didn't really seem to be the greatest idea, but what could he do? She was really insistent today.
Hermione kicked off the ground, and it was only as her left foot scrabbled for the footrest that Harry noticed that the footrest had loosened and had turned sideways. With a mighty pull, he grabbed the handle of the broom and pulled it back down to the ground. "Oof!" Hermione cried out as the impact jarred her legs.
"Hop off for a second," Harry instructed. Hermione did as she was told, handing Harry the broom. With his Firebolt in one hand, he couldn't grip Hermione's broom and fix it, so he handed to Firebolt to her and said, "Hold that for a moment."
She did as he instructed, standing demurely to the side as he bent down and fixed the loose footing. He was still bent over the old broom when he heard a noise behind him. Turning, he found Hermione straddling his broom, her hands already moving towards the points he had shown her for proper broom guidance.
"Hermione, no!" he cried, jumping towards her.
Hermione laughed and moved out of his reach, kicking off the ground at the same time. "Don't worry, Harry!" she called as her feet left the ground. "I'm just practicing!"
The broom shot forward and she screamed, shocked that it went so fast. "Hermione!" Harry called, picking up the old broom and quickly kicking off after her, not even bothering with the loose footing. "No!"
The wind rushed past Hermione's ears, and adrenaline poured through her veins as the broom bucked and sped around the quidditch pitch, responding to every shift in her body. For a moment, she felt terrified, and her hands froze on the handle, but then confidence swelled within her and she grinned, leaning so far to the left that she twisted completely around before righting herself again. She heard someone yelling her name, but the wind carried everything away from her ears.
"Hermione!" Harry yelled, cursing the school broom. It didn't have nearly enough power to overtake to Firebolt. There would be no way for him to catch her, and he didn't see anyone down below. They must have either left or were still in the locker room. He turned his focus back to Hermione, and his heart nearly stopped.
Hermione wasn't exactly sure how to stop. Harry hadn't covered that yet. She had tried aiming the handle towards the ground, but that didn't seem to work. That only sent her on a hair raising dive towards the sandy quidditch pitch. She looked down, wondering if she could get down close enough to the sand and then jump off.
"Hermione!"
The high-pitched scream shocked Hermione out of her thinking, and her head swung to the right only to find Ginny running as fast as she could across the grass. "Hermione! Stop!" she screamed. "Harry!"
Hermione turned back to look in front of her, and gasped. The front of the broom handle slammed into the stadium seats, jarring her body and sending her flying into the wooden supports. Her scream was cut off as one beam rammed into her ribs, knocking her breath, and most of her consciousness, out of her.
And then she was falling.
Hermione was only half conscious as she fell, barely realizing that it was taking her a very long time to connect with the ground, and that people were screaming her name. And then, the ground was rushing up to meet her, and she felt her body fold under the pressure of the sandy earth.
The last thing she noticed was the bright blue sky above her before everything went black.
A/N: Whew! That was a long one. Hope you enjoyed it, and I hope that the scene changes between Ginny and Harry didn't confuse you. I thought that it was the most concise way of telling to story. PLEASE review!! Your reviews mean so much to me!! And thanks a bunch to my anonymous reviewers. You're greatly appreciated too!! :D