Hermione's determination not to lower herself to the likes of Peeves or the Weasley twins lasted all of one week, and came to a shattering halt early one Tuesday morning.

Neville had been crying. It was breakfast time, everyone was chatting happily and Neville had been crying. His face was blotched and his eyes were red, even if he tried to hide it with a smile. Hermione carefully eyed up the group of boys around him, frowning softly when they all continued to mess around, flicking cereal at each other and laughing. Harry seemed to be watching Neville too but he didn't say anything, simply eating his food and occasionally smiling as someone talked to him.

It was probably nightmares, Hermione decided. Caused by that horrific Cerberus, and perhaps also by the fact he'd been thrown off a broom and fallen over twenty metres the other day.

Hermione glowered faintly at Ron and Harry again but they ignored her so she turned her glare down at her toast and wondered what she could do. She knew what people said about her (busybody, swot, annoying) even if she did her best to ignore the inaccurate blatherings of simple minded fools. As a result, she knew she couldn't very well walk over there and demand Neville for to tell her what was wrong and how she could help. Everyone would be rude and Neville most likely would be too embarrassed to tell her near that oafish lot. Excluding greetings and the like, Neville hardly spoke to her out of class unless she talked to him first… but he was still nice to her when she did and he did give her a birthday card. Of all the people in this school, Neville was the last one she wanted to see cry.

... So what if I could help in a different way, she wondered, eyes widening as she suddenly thought back to what the Weasley twin said to her back on the train.

"I'm being very nice. Look, you're not about to cry anymore."

Crying. No longer crying! What if she did something to cheer him up? Like the firework but, oh, she didn't have one! What could she-

Her eyes, which were wildly scanning her surroundings for inspiration a moment prior, fell on the fruit bowl placed directly in front of Neville. For once, she didn't think about rules. She didn't think about the teachers at the table, or whether magic was allowed in the great hall. She didn't think about any of that. She pulled out her wand, aimed and whispered:

"Pullulant tarantallegra."

Quick as a whip, Hermione tucked her wand away and glanced around to make sure no one had seen her. No one had. They all seemed to be focusing on food or their own conversations. But not for long.

There was a startled shout, and Neville almost fell off the bench as the apple he was about to eat sprouted spindly little legs and hopped out of his hand. The boys all stopped talking and joined Neville to stare in bewilderment as a banana and pear sprouted legs too and joined the apple on Neville's plate.

There was a moment of silence in the group and Neville looked around, his expression torn between wariness and confusion. Hermione quietly wondered if she had made a mistake.

Then the fruit started to tap dance; the apple and pear in perfect synchronisation while the banana wobbled and clattered to catch up, accidentally knocking over a cup of water. Neville choked on a startled laugh and the boys burst into hysterics.

Hermione listened to that laughter, saw the red, blotchy flush fade from her almost-friend's face, and, from that moment on, she was hooked.

Pranking was fun. Hermione couldn't deny it to herself even though she would if asked. Not that anyone did. No one suspected her to be the sort to delight in mischief. Not in a million years.

Of course, it was only down to good luck that no one saw her that first time. She had been quite foolish in the way she went about it. It was a miracle no one saw her. The next few times she was more subtle, and much more prepared.

She practiced quite hard at whispered casting and had even started researching nonverbal spells (although it looked rather complex and would need a great deal of study and practice). Even if what she was planning on doing wasn't strictly against the rules, she still didn't want to invite trouble.

But oh what plans she devised! That very evening, after the tap dancing fruit, Hermione had penned a letter to her parents with several, rather bizarre requests. First and foremost, she had asked for several bottles of ink, having caught sight of Harry Potter's colour changing ink and becoming quite inspired. She also asked for several boxes of toothpaste, ten jars of long lasting mayonnaise, a pack of multicoloured feathers, a large set of miniature, plastic googily eyes and as many small, cheap alarm clocks as they could find.

Needless to say, her parents were bewildered by the list but her explanation that she was using them for magic and to help her friends was enough of a distraction for them not to question it too much.

("Hermione has friends! I told you she would be fine.")

This whole pranking enterprise had also turned out to be quite educational as well as fun. Hermione had to carefully study how colour changing ink worked and discovered a nifty looking spell called 'Colovaria' to do this, along with a rather complex but practical way to layer the spell with a touch sensitive trigger.

(Neville gave a strangled laugh as he ran his finger down the potions book and neat, colourful writing spiralled out from under his touch:

'Slithery Slimy Snape really ought to wash his hair. I fear we shall all slip on his slime trail. What do you think Neville?'

He yanked his hand away as Professor Snape stalked over, only for the colourful ink to fade away into a barely legible brown, almost impossible to spot against the parchment unless you knew it was there.)

Wingardium leviosa has not yet been taught in charms but Professor Flitwick had been teaching them about the pronunciation and wrist movements. The Standard Book of Spells Grade One had a good model for the levitation spell too. The problem was that Hermione had very little control of the items once the spell was cast and she needed to move them in a specific way. Mobili on the other hand proved very apt in moving a specified item the way she wished, and didn't require an overtly obvious wand motion.

Engorgio could be cast on the items beforehand and Mobilioculi could be cast quite a distance away from behind a statue or tapestry covered awning. Not that she would have got in trouble, she was casting in the corridors outside of lessons after all.

(Harry Potter and Ron Weasley drifted to a stop, staring open mouthed at the once noble and grand suits of armour that lined the way to Transfiguration, which were now all clad in pink feather boas and giant googily eyes. Ron choked on his own spit and Harry had to hit him on the back.)

Switching spells were a must too for the more publicly timed pranks and for once she was getting to use her cauldron outside of the dungeons, even if she wasn't making potions. Of course she couldn't prepare these prank in the library, or in Snape's lessons, but a lucky discovery about a month into school had allowed her the opportunity to crack out the cauldron.

Hermione, amongst many other first year girls, had quickly discovered that using the second floor's girls bathroom as a bathroom was a mistake not worth repeating. The others had discovered this through fountaining toilets, rains of soggy tissue paper and horrible messages written on the bathroom mirrors. Hermione discovered it by stumbling her way in, still teary eyed and queasy from her first attempt at flying, only to look up and see a ghost girl grinning delightedly down at her.

It turned out that Moaning Myrtle liked girls who cried and honestly didn't mind keeping quiet about Hermione's unconventional use of a cauldron in exchange for an occasional conversation and a sympathetic ear. She also offered to watch Hermione test a few of her thoroughly researched potions on herself if she ever got up the nerve to move on from simple cookery.

("Blegh! What the hell?!" Exclaimed Dean Thomas spitting out the bite of donut he'd just taken. Seamus Finnigan leaned over and examined the rejected pudding, picking it up and sniffing it.

"Is that mayonnaise?" He asked incredulously.

Down the table several other Gryffindors were spitting out their puddings, wiping off smears of toothpaste from their chins with disgusted expressions, making those around them burst into laughter.)

So far the trickiest and most dubiously funny prank (for the victims at least) that Hermione had pulled had to have been the alarm clock prank. It had taken a lot of practice and warped clocks to get the duplication and patch-job disillusionment charm to somewhat work together. And even then she had to combine it with her colour changing charm to camouflage it more effectively to the red drapes in the Gryffindor bedrooms. The sticking charm was much more easy to cast, even if she did find the green gluey mucus produced by it rather hard to wash out. In the end, the most challenging part of the whole endeavour was keeping a straight face on Sunday morning as Ron Weasley stormed down the stairs (still clad in his oversized pyjamas and sporting the most ludicrous bed hair) with a face like thunder.

"I'M GONNA KILL THEM! I'M BLOODY WELL GOING TO KILL THEM!"

Hermione frowned over her book, making sure to cover her twitching lips as she watched her classmate storm over to where the Weasley twins had previously been sat by the fire, discussing something in low voices. They were now stood up though, watching their furious brother with shared amusement.

"It was you! You two! Can't you pull your heads from your asses and pull an actually funny prank for once?!"

"Do my ears deceive me, Fred?" Asked the twin on the left, presumably George, in an overly surprised tone. "Is our brother dearest asking to be a part of our jokes?"

"I believe he is, dear George!" Exclaimed the other, who Hermione was now suspecting to be George given how they were emphasising each other's names. "I believe we have just the prank ready and waiting. But first-"

"-Before we get into that frankly messy business-" Fred chimed in with an evil grin.

"-We need to know-"

"- What unfunny prank-"

"-you think we pulled."

Ron, who had started to look a bit apprehensive at Fred's thinly veiled threat, regained his previous level of red- faced fury at a lightning fast speed. "You bloody well know, you prats. You stuck a load of invisible alarm clocks to our beds. We can't shut them off!"

Hermione covered her laugh with a cough and quickly looked back down at her book. The Weasley twins had no such compunctions about laughing and started snorting unashamedly.

"Wasn't us, dear brother," grinned George, slouching over and wrapping an arm around Ron's shoulders, despite his attempts to shrug him off.

"Yes, as if we would be so tame as to stop at alarm clocks," Fred added in, ruffling Ron's already bed ruffled hair.

"But all those pranks lately! The toothpaste biscuits, the suits of amour, the toilet bombs," Ron said, voice rising in incredulity as he shoved off Fred's hand.

"Wasn't us," Fred stated with a shrug.

"Well, the last one was us. The rest though…" George hummed and turned to Fred with a curious look. "You think we've got some friendly competition?"

"I'd say too friendly," said Fred, sitting back down on the sofa and casually crossing his legs. "They've all been kids stuff so far."

"I dunno, I like that alarm trick and knights prank," George argued back, detaching himself from Ron to join Fred on the squashy sofa.

"The knight thing was hardly a prank really, more like an art show," returned Fred, much to Hermione's quiet irritation. That one had taken her ages and she even heard some of the Slytherins laughing about it!

Ron, frustrated to be so suddenly dismissed by his brothers, opened his mouth (presumably to put his foot in it) only to be tugged back by a sleepy looking Harry who'd just emerged downstairs, a copy of 'Hogwarts: a History' in hand.

"We got them Ron, they were on the curtains. Turns out all you have to do is hit them really hard with something heavy and they shut up."

"Like your style Potter," called out Fred before turning back to George and continuing his whispered plotting.

Hermione ducked back down into her book again as Harry and Ron passed her, both barely casting her a second glance as she continued to visibly ignore them, much like she'd been doing ever since the incident of the three headed dog in the nighttime.

"So was it them?" Harry was asking, yawning exhaustedly.

"They said it wasn't but I bet it was. They're such-"

Fortunately, Hermione didn't get to hear what the Weasley twins were, as the two had opened their bedroom door just in time for the second wave of invisible alarm clocks to go off.

It wasn't just Ron who suspected the Weasley twins however. Pretty much the entirety of Gryffindor did, including the head of Gryffindor. Or so Hermione heard.

… Of course, there was no way they were going to get in trouble for Hermione's little jokes. It wasn't like any of them broke Professor Dumbledore's rules. Anyway, she's been really careful not to leave any evidence, pointing to her or anyone else. Which is probably why people pinned it on them.

Hermione tried not to feel guilty. Fred and George seemed to find the whole thing funny after all. The problem was the googily eye prank. Looking back on it, she had been rather over enthusiastic about putting as many of the engorged plastic eyes and feather boas up as possible, and had quite forgotten about the person who would have to take them down.

Filch wasn't happy. Children scattered from his path as he prowled around with a bucket full of plastic eyes and feather scarfs, and a fierce look in his red-rimmed, watery eyes. It didn't help that Fred and George had slipped some overpowered belch powder into Ron's drink at lunch the other day, resulting in a rather embarrassing show that Filch had to clean up with a mop and bucket.

Even from the wary distance that Hermione kept from the school's caretaker, she could see his gnarled hands twist into fists and his bulging eyes twitch at the mere whisper of a prank. And, there weren't many students who didn't hear him loudly proclaim how he was going to string the Weasley twins up in the dungeons by their ankles. Hermione doubted this would actually happen somehow but it still made her nervous on the behalf of the apparently unconcerned redheaded troublemakers. They did half bring it on themselves… but Hermione had brought the other half, and perhaps she should be held accountable for it… but in a way that wouldn't come back to her and result in her getting in trouble.

Perhaps she could create someone to blame for these pranks. A pseudonym or a made up alter ego like all those comic book superhero characters that her old primary school classmates liked so much. But nothing so silly of course. She wasn't going to call herself superwoman or wonder girl or some such nonsense. No, Hermione would have to go for something a bit more classy…

It took her a few days and a few books to decide on her potential calling card. M. She'd go by M. For Moriarty, or the head of MI6 from James Bond, or her parent's nick name for her, or maybe even for Moaning Myrtle. But mainly because M is the opposite of W. She wanted credit for her own pranks thank you very much.

Of course, she'd have to do something quite big and rather inspired to be able to sign it off with a calling card. Her next series of pranks consisted of kind little messages, pillows enchanted to snore and a charmed frog mug for Neville. These weren't really things that screamed M: master prank genius at work. Even the alarm clock prank, which Hermione did feel a little guilty about after seeing Neville yawn throughout Sunday lunch, wasn't that big. She didn't want to hurt anyone though. She wasn't a bully. She just wanted to make people laugh. It made her feel like she was helping somehow, which Hermione liked.

I have to do something big and nice then, she thought to herself as she walked to charms on Halloween. It would also have to be done in a way that Fred and George wouldn't get blamed… something really public while they have an alibi.

And, of course, it would have to be funny.