A/N- I would just like to give a special thanks to Master999 who reviewed and pointed out a plot-related mistake in the last chapter. If you read the last chapter shortly after I posted, you read a line about the Weasley's trip to Egypt, which Master999 kindly reminded me happened in book 3, not book 2. I have since gone back and fixed this, so thank you for letting me know!

This chapter takes place during chapter 13 "The Very Secret Diary" of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Disclaimer: Jo Rowling owns Harry Potter. I own a computer and too much time on my hands.


Chapter Four: A Furry Little Problem

"Harry couldn't come," Ron said briskly, tipping a stack of books onto Hermione's nightstand. "Wood's already started practices again. Harry says he's more determined than ever to win the cup this year."

The new term had started just a week before, when the rest of the students came pouring back into the castle, bursting with excitement from the holiday. Ron knew how upset Hermione had been when she realized her whiskers weren't going to go away in time for her to return to classes. As a result, he and Harry were alternately taking turns to copy an extra set of notes for her in their lessons.

"Did you color-code these?" Hermione gasped, fingering through their work.

"Well that's how you like them isn't it?"

"Well...yes. But I didn't expect you to-oh never mind. Thank you, Ron."

He shrugged in what he hoped was an "it was nothing" way. On the contrary, it had actually taken him several hours of extra work to get the notes just the way she liked them. She had better be pleased after I went through all of that, he thought bitterly. Rather then voicing this, however, he simply said, "No problem. Harry refused to listen to Binns, though, even for you. So then I tried, but after five minutes I'd had enough of that to last me for the next five years."

He watched as she turned to the bit of parchment labeled as the History of Magic notes. On the top were carefully written bullet points on one of the goblin rebellions. About one quarter down the page, however, and the notes abruptly came to end, followed up only by scribbled games of knots and crosses and hangman. "But this looks really important!" She said, sounded far too disappointed, in Ron's opinion.

"Yeah I thought the same thing when I beat Harry in that third game," he responded, staring over her shoulder.

"I meant the rebellion, Ron. Honestly if you would just pay more attention you'd realize..."

"Skip the lecture, please, Hermione."

"Fine," she scoffed, returning all her books to the side table and lowering her voice. "Have you got any more leads then? You know, on who the heir is?"

Ron sighed. The truth was, they were about as close to figuring out who was the heir of Slytherin as he was at beating Hermione in the end-of-the-year exams. In other words, nowhere close at all. What upset him even more than this was that it was now definitely not Malfoy. Dreams of Malfoy getting expelled had been the main factor in his agreeing to use Polyjuice Potion in the first place. His apparent lack of knowledge on the subject, therefore, had come as a real blow.

"I'll take that as a no," said Hermione sympathetically, staring at him. "I'm sad it wasn't Malfoy as well, you know. But since it isn't, we've just got to move forward and try to solve it from another angle... It's a shame, really, I'd have loved to have caught Malfoy for something."

She doesn't know the half of it. Although he and Harry had told her at length of their hour in the Slytherin common room, they'd conveniently decided to leave out the bit where Malfoy had admitted he wanted her dead. "I hope it's Granger" had been ringing out around in Ron's ears ever since the polyjuice potion wore off. Before that day, he hadn't even considered Hermione being taken away by the monster.

Yes, she was muggle-born, and the heir of Slytherin was targeting muggle-borns...he must have known all along, in some crevice of his mind, the possibility of something happening to her. The idea however, had never formulated itself in his brain, and now that it was creeping its way in, he didn't like it at all. The past week of classes without Hermione alone had felt strange, but if anything ever happened... The feeling was strongly reminiscent of last year, when he'd thought Harry was going to die trying to save the Sorcerer's Stone. Just the mere thought of losing either one of his best friends completely terrified him.

"Ron are you even listening to me?"

"Huh? Oh, er, sorry."

She shook her head at him. "I was saying that there has to be something we're missing, something we didn't see before. Think, who else at school would want to attack muggle-borns?"

"How am I supposed to know? You're the one who's good at this kind of thing, Hermione." He couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw her blush slightly underneath the prominent layer of fur still covering her face. Though her eyes were slowly returning to their regular shade of brown, and both her whiskers and tail were receding, she still bore several distinctly cat-like features. Ron had made the mistake of laughing about this unfortunate fact on more than one occasion...Hermione still had yet to see the humor in the situation.

"So, erm, how are you feeling?" He asked hesitantly.

Hermione's eyes narrowed almost immediately. "If you're going to make fun of my-"

"I wasn't! Honestly, Hermione, I was only trying to make conversation!"

Their eyes locked upon one another, and for several minutes they simply stared. "Oh. Well, alright then," said Hermione finally. "In that case, I'm fine." There was a sizable pause, then, "I just hate being a cat! I hate missing classes and I hate being covered in fur and I hate trying to sleep with a tail and I hate having to sit around in bed all day waiting for you and Harry to come and visit me!" She said this all very fast, as if she'd been wanting to say it for days but hadn't quite been able to bring herself to do it. Ron noticed with dismay that she looked about ready to burst into tears.

For a second he was horribly reminded of the last time she had cried in front of him, trying to wake him up from McGonagall's giant chess game, and the time before that, before they were friends: Halloween. He didn't do well with criers. Ginny had never been weepy. In fact, the only time he could recall Ginny crying at all was when she was six and George had pushed her off her broomstick. The idea, therefore, of trying to comfort a crying Hermione, was unpleasant at best.

"Um, maybe I should leave...," He mumbled quietly. By now tears were silently following in a steady stream down each of Hermione's cheeks. At his words she wiped them away hurriedly with her hands and pulled her knees up to her chin, looking thoroughly miserable. Bloody hell, he shouldn't have said that. She tells you she waits all day for you to come see her and then you decide to get up and leave! He reprimanded himself. He really was stupid.

"I'm s-sorry," Hermione whispered, turning her tear-streaked face towards him, "I'm being silly. You can g-go if you want to."

Ron wished Harry were there. Harry would have had the sense to pull him up and they'd have left right then and there, informing Hermione that they'd come back to see her the next day, when she had calmed down. But he couldn't leave her now! No, against all his internal wishes, he'd have to stay put. "I only meant...well...Of course I'll stay, I just..." He fell silent, at a loss for words.

Hermione was no longer looking at him, but running her fingers through the fur on her arm. "I just f-feel really u-ugly," she sniffed.

"You're not ugly," He responded immediately. He'd said it without thinking, but after considering what it could imply, immediately wanted to take back the words. "No one thinks you're ugly," He barreled on quickly. "Don't worry, Hermione, Madam Pomfrey will get you back to normal sooner or later."

This apparently wasn't the right thing to say, because Hermione burst into a fresh wave of tears: the exact opposite of what he'd meant his statement to do. "But what if it's l-later?" She wailed.

Ron shrugged. "Then you'll have to walk around as a cat for a while. People would probably think it's really cool, actually...like you were on your way to becoming like McGonagall and turning into a cat whenever you pleased. You'd be the talk of the school, Hermione!"

In a wonderful twist of events, the ends of Hermione's mouth tugged into a smile. "I probably already am the talk of the school," she said sadly. Ron knew she was referring to all the students who had tried to catch a glimpse of her in the hospital wing at the start of term, thinking she'd been petrified. Eventually Madam Pomfrey had pulled up thick blue curtains around her bed to save her the embarrassment, but the damage had already been done. The entire school had gotten word that a second year had turned herself into a human cat.

"They got bored of it after a couple of days," said Ron reassuringly. "Malfoy still finds it ridiculously funny, but he's always been a git."

At that moment, a frazzled looking Madam Pomfrey came hurrying around the curtains, stopping short upon seeing Hermione's blotchy face and Ron sitting next to her bed. "Ah, Mr. Weasley, you're still here," She said, composing herself. "You best be getting back to your dormitory, it's almost curfew. Besides, Ms. Granger needs her rest if she wants to be back to her old self by February." She left a potion on the side table for Hermione and bustled out again.

"February?"

"That's when Madam Pomfrey thinks I'll be normal again," Hermione muttered, looking downcast.

"That's not far away at all, Hermione! Don't worry, Harry and I'll keep taking notes for you. That way you'll still be better than the rest of us when you come back."

She grinned, and he pushed back his chair and stood up. "Ron?" came Hermione's voice.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."


A/N- General reminder that I feed off of reviews! :)