Reposted: Feb. 23, 2011

.x.

He smirked at the Gryffindor table and continued eating his meal.

.x.

Over the next two weeks it became glaringly obvious that one Hermione Jane Granger was going out of her way to avoid one Ronald Bilius Weasley while spending as much time as possible with one Draco Abraxas Malfoy. It probably helped that Ron had been given a week's worth of detention by at least 5 different professors (each), so he wouldn't have any free time for the next month or so.

While not as noticeable, she also avoided Lavender Brown and her clique of friends. Apparently Lavender, and thus her friends, had been offended by Hermione's comment, despite it being the truth, about whoring being her job.

Though to be perfectly honest, her time spent with Malfoy wasn't a production of the Weasel's outburst two weeks earlier. It was a simple case of working on their potions assignment and the duties of being a Head.

Such assignments like planning the upcoming Hallowe'en Dance for the students. It was open to everyone, but for everyone under Fourth Year, the dance ended at 9pm. Everyone else was allowed to stay until 1am. Both Heads had to be there for the entire thing.

Currently they are spending their Saturday planning decorations and activities for the students.

"That's a bloody stupid idea Granger! Who, in the nine levels of hell, would want a 'Haunted House' theme when we live in a castle that has its own fucking ghosts!"

"It's not an idea for the theme of the dance Malfoy. Since there will be younger students attending, I think it would fun for them to have to go through a haunted house/area to get to the main dance. Just because the older teens won't like doesn't mean the younger students won't.

"We can magically extended the Great Hall, create a haunted area that everyone has to go through and the end door will open up to the rest of the Hall where we'll have tables, food and drink areas and a dance floor."

The Malfoy heir looked to be considering it, so Hermione threw in another idea.

"We could also make the haunted house in a 'choose-your-own-adventure' style." She got a blank stare for that one. She sighed.

"Before you debunk it for being muggle, let me explain. Some authors will write a story and the characters come to a point where they can make one of two, sometimes three, choices. You, as the reader, pick which option you want them to do. Each option will have a page number, so you flip to the page and the adventure continues."

He seemed intrigued, his curiosity coming to the fore. Excellent, for her anyway.

"If we start the haunted house with 3-4 options that students can choose from and then create a different pathway every so often, they can have their own haunted adventure. No one group will go the exact same way. We can allow a group of students to go in a few minutes at a time.

"If need be, we could even get the younger students coming an hour or so before everyone else. That way there won't be a large line-up of students waiting to get in."

Malfoy looked at her a smirk on his face, "I like it Granger. We could even get some boggarts from the DADA professor to put in secluded rooms. There will have to be a clear window so the boggart can be seen by the students. Some torture chambers could be added too…"

He trailed off in thought and Hermione raised an eyebrow. "We could give the illusion of torture chambers," she told him. "With darkened windows and the sounds leaking through; chains rattling along, we might be able to get some of the ghosts to help us. Like the Bloody Baron for example? Peeve I think would love to help out and scare some students. Maybe even prank them."

She paused to think about what she'd just said. "…We'd have to figure out a way to keep the pranks from damaging their costumes. Do you think we could make it so they feel the effects of the prank but nothing actually touches them? Or should we maybe charm the pranks Peeves is allowed to use so they can't actually touch the students, though they'd still feel the effects…"

Malfoy glanced at her. "You're essentially asking the same question in two ways. Why not have charmed disks or something that they take through the maze and then at the very end, they'll re-appear at the entrance so we don't have to make so many."

Hermione nodded. "Sounds like a plan. Okay, so I'll talk to Professor Flitwick about the charms for protection, and decide on an object to use. If you want to work on those torture chambers? Or if you want, you could decide everything for the haunted house and I'll help you with the spell work to set it up."

Thus the remaining items needing to be finished were quickly divided and they went their separate ways.

.x.

"…So that's the situation Professor. We haven't decided on a particular object to be used, I thought we might possibly use medallions… But what we really need is a way to anchor the charms to the token, which, we hope, will allow the recipients of the prank to feel the effects, like water dropped on them, or goop, but without actually touching the students and ruining their costumes."

She had spent the last hour talking with Professor Flitwick about all their plans and the very great need for a Charms Master in setting everything up.

Flitwick mulled it over before posing a question. "How do you plan on getting these tokens back from the students? Will a prefect be at the end collecting them?"

Hermione had no answer. They hadn't come up with a solution for that as yet.

"Then if I may suggest, what about putting wards at the end of the maze. These wards will recognize the tokens when the students make their way out and essentially disapperate them back to the entrance."

Hermione thought about the idea it made a lot of sense. She nodded in agreement.

"Or," the professor brightened, "We could use Leprechaun Gold. We can charm it to disappear with a few hours."

"Except that we're trying to have a smaller amount of tokens that we can re-use to cut down on charm application."

"Ah." The two of them continued to wrangle out ideas of what to do and how to do it. In fact they continued right up until dinner.

And when Hermione walked into the Great Hall that evening, instead of moving to the Gryffindor table, she made a bee-line for the seat next to Draco Malfoy. Said seat was currently occupied by Mr. Gregory Goyle.

She walked up behind him and tapped his shoulder. He looked up and blinked. Hermione silently asked if she could take his place and Goyle slid over to make room for her. Everyone who could see what was happening was temporarily frozen. Malfoy had been talking with Theodore Nott and Blaise Zambini when Hermione came up and sat down.

Seeing their almost unnoticeable looks of curiosity, he turned around. Hermione glanced up from her dinner. "Don't mind me, I'll wait until you've finished your conversation with Blaise and Theodore." And turned back to her plate and journal in which she was making notes.

Draco blinked. Blaise grinned. Theodore smirked. Draco blinked again. Complete silence held the Slytherin table. Up at the Head table, Snape seemed torn between paling in shock or turning red from having an apoplectic fit.

Hermione didn't glance up once, though she did smile at everyone's reaction. In the somewhat silence, Ron's reaction could be heard fairly clearly. And in reaction to his outburst, several Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs of varying ages stood up and pointed their wands at him. Most surprisingly, the five Slytherin males sitting around her stood up as well.

Hermione hadn't bothered to pay attention to what Ron had said; she had long since developed the ability, sometime around February of her First Year. So when the bodies around her moved to stand, she glanced up from her journal.

Seeing at least 30 people with their wands pointed at a certain red-headed Gryffindor, she gave a soft smile. Gently pulling the two arms beside her down she spoke, "Thank you everyone. But you don't need to do that." Her voice changed from grateful for the actions of those standing up, to a hard voice full of mocking and anger.

"By now, we all know that the youngest male Weasley always speaks without thinking. And unfortunately for us, there is no cure for stupidity. Instead those who indulge in it must be pitied and helped, for they cannot help themselves."

She turned to the young man beside her, "I'll catch up with you later in the Head commons; I've lost my appetite."

Angry glares were tossed at Ron for the rest of the evening meal. The most forceful belonged to his sister Ginny, Harry, Neville and Draco.

.x.

The next morning, fortunately for Ron, was a Sunday and as such, the entire school body was not present when the howler from his mother arrived. Unfortunately for him, most of the Slytherins were down for breakfast; as well as most of the Ravenclaws. Most of the older Gryffindor students were awake as well and a smattering of Hufflepuffs rounded it all off.

Ron saw the red howler flying about the midst of the morning post and laughed at the poor sucker who was about to be shouted at. Apparently his behavior fro the previous night hadn't made a large impression on him. It did for Ginny though, and she'd sent off a letter to their mother later that night. It's probably safe to say it made an impression on her as well.

"RONALD BILLIUS WEASLEY! I CANNOT BELIEVE WHAT YOU DID LAST NIGHT! NOT ONLY LAST NIGHT, BUT TWO WEEKS AGO AS WELL! GINNY TOLD ME EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED. SHE EVEN HAD A TRANSCRIPT OF WHAT YOU SAID TO HERMIONE. I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO ASHAMED OF ANYONE IN MY FAMILY UNTIL NOW!

YOU'VE BROUGHT GREAT DISHONOUR TO OUR FAMILY AND TO WOMEN EVERYWHERE. I TAKE WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT HERMIONE BEING A WHORE PERSONALLY, AND BELIEVE ME YOUNG MAN; I WILL BE REACTING AS IF YOU HAD SAID IT TO MY FACE WHEN YOU COME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS! YOU ARE GROUNDED FOR CHRISTMAS, FOR THE FOLLOWING SUMMER AND THE THREE YEARS AFTER THAT! I DON'T CARE THAT YOU'RE IN YOUR LAST YEAR! YOU CLEARLY NEED TO LEARN SOME MANNERS! IN FACT, I'LL BE SPEAKING TO DUMBLEDORE ABOUT THIS!

PRAY BEFORE WHATEVERY GOD YOU BELIEVE IN RONALD, FOR THE NEXT TIME I SEE YOU, I WILL TAN YOUR HIDE SO HARD YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO SIT DOWN FOR A BLOODY EFFIN' MONTH!"

Ron was trembling and his face a sickly pale colour.

"Probably on the verge on fainting." Malfoy snickered to Blaise. They had a good chuckle about that. Ron on the other hand, was terrified of what his mother would do to him when she saw him. But as Seamus so helpfully pointed out, Christmas was just over two months from now.

"It should give her plenty of time to cool off before you have to live under her roof again."

Ron smiled nervously, slowly gaining his shaken confidence. "Yeah, maybe she'll have forgotten it by then! Besides, what can she do to me now? I'm at Hogwarts, and she has no control over my punishments while I'm here!"

He grinned at his dorm-mates and turned to the delicious food filling the table, digging in once more.

Harry sighed after he heard Ron speak. Ginny smacked her hand against her forehead and Harry lowered his head into his hands while muttering, "Famous last words Ron; famous last words."

So it came as no surprise, for Harry and Ginny at least, when Molly Weasley came storming into the Great Hall that same day, just in time for the evening meal.

As it so happened, right as she thundered into the Hall, lightning licked across the enchanted ceiling and the howling wind could be heard. Those who still had usable survival instincts fought the urge to run and hide from the angry woman.

Anger-sparked brown eyes swept the Gryffindor table until they landed on a figure busy shoveling food into his mouth as fast as possible. A disgusted look crossed Molly's face as she watched her son talking to his friends, food spilling out of his mouth. She quietly walked up behind him and grabbed his ear. Hard.

"OWWWW! Ginny! What the fuck? What the hell did I…" He twisted around to glare at his younger sister and froze when the face he saw was not in fact the one he had expected.

"…Mom…?" Her glare hardened and her lips tightened. She frog-marched him up to the Head table in front of Albus Dumbledore and spoke clearly enough that the entire Hall could hear.

"Albus, I'm here to take my son, Ronald Weasley, out for the remainder of the year."

Albus stood and gravely looked at the mother before him. "On what accounts do you plead for removal of this student from the school?"

Molly glared at her son. "I feel that he is not getting the proper education he should have received early on."

Albus read between the lines and fought back a smile. "I see. A very serious matter indeed then." He stroked his beard in thought. His eyes were twinkling like a strobe light. "When you have deemed Mr. Weasley to have been brought up to par, will you be allowing his return to Hogwarts?"

Mrs. Weasley smiled, understanding what Dumbledore was silently saying. "If he can pass my tests within twelve months from now, he shall be returning as a Hogwarts student. However he may need to re-do his Seventh Year. I fear that he will not be able to simply take his NEWTs upon graduating from my education."

Dumbledore nodded in acknowledgement. "Then, you may take Mr. Weasley now. He his henceforth no longer a student at this school. You may return him when you see fit."

Dumbledore sat back down and resumed eating his dinner while conversing with Pomona about the effect sugared lemon-water might have on the newest Bilubius plant she was growing in one of the experimental greenhouses. She scoffed in exasperation and the meal continued.

Ron was completely frozen. Eyes wide he stared at the space Dumbledore's face had previously occupied. He was jerked out of his trance as his mother pulled him off the elevated dais. Her eyes looked for a brown haired girl and gave her a look. The girl gave a minute nod back. No one noticed. Still completely shell-shocked Ron stumbled along behind his mother. They made their way to the Front Entrance where all of Ron's things had been packed away into his trunk by the house elves.

Levitating the battered trunk, Moll Weasley marched back out of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When they reached the limit of the disapperate ward, she did a side-long apperation to the Weasley home.

It was high time she buckled down and taught her boy they ways of the pureblooded world. Table manners would be the first thing he learned, so help her God.

.x.

With the shutting of the Great Hall door, whispers broke out in rapid gossip. Those who had been down for breakfast shared what had taken place with those who had not yet heard it through the Rumor Mill™.

Soon the whispers grew into excited voices, gossip running amok amongst the students.

Hermione and Ginny shook their head at the folly of it all and turned to Harry and Neville for some, relatively, civilized conversation. And when the conversation turned to quidditch, as it often would, Hermione pleaded exhaustion and made her way back to the Head Tower.

.x.

AN: Regarding what RW said about HG, something along the lines of whoring herself out the whole of Slytherin house and becoming their breeding sow. Which was why the Slytherins jumped in. Their honour (as HG is a muggleborn) was offended and they wanted reparation. Hufflepuffs were defending her honour, Ravenclaws valued her intelligence and Gryffindor thought Ron was being an ass.