Hermione felt put out for the remainder of the day. Professor Snape's teaching, it seemed, regardless of the subject matter, was not compatible with her persona. The non-verbal spell practice in Defence had gone well enough. She'd succeeded in repelling a jelly-legs jinx from Neville without uttering a word, something that none of her classmates had come close to accomplishing. She'd even seen Snape watching her, and the absence of any recognition tore at her nerves for the rest of the day. Herbology, too, had been dreadful. Madam Sprout had the six-years dealing with the spiky and awful Venomous Tentacula. The plant that she and Ron had been assigned seemed particularly fond of catching Ron by surprise with its vines and partially strangling him before Hermione unenthusiastic-ally used a severing charm to stun it. This happened at least five times throughout the course of the lesson, and each time Ron was seemingly too afraid of it to remember the counter-curse. By the end of the class, on the plant's sixth attempt to suffocate her freckled friend, Hermione was so sick of liberating him from the Tentacula that she self-indulgently let him struggle for an extra few moments before resignedly waving her wand and watching Ron catch his breath with a pained and dramatic flair.
The group sat now in the Great Hall. Ron and Harry both stuffed their faces with kidney pie while Hermione nibbled at a casserole, a charms book splayed open in front of her instead of a plate. She tried to ignore the muffled conversation the pair were struggling to have with mouths full of food (it must've had something to do with Quidditch, though, judging by the way Harry was miming dodging bludgers, while Ron threw the imaginary balls enthusiastically his way).
'When did I get such infantile friends? Are we still in the third year?' Hermione thought to herself, rolling her eyes to the ceiling, as though praying to the enchanted ceiling for some divine intervention to take her away from this childish behavior. Her irritation with the first day of the term grew higher with every passing moment. She glanced up to the staff table, eyeing Professor Snape with an evil glare. He was oblivious, his thin-lipped mouth moving rapidly in the middle of a heated conversation with Professor McGongall, who kept motioning towards the House Cup hourglasses with a resigned look. Gryffindor was in last place, with barely fifty points. She apparently had been staring at him for too long, because out of nowhere came a sharp nudge on the leg.
"Oi, why are you staring at Snape? I don't think he'll give you back those ten points for staring at him like a nutter-"
"Professor Snape, Ron", Hermione corrected, out of habit, "and I wasn't staring. I should've let the Tentacula strangle you!" She huffed, and in an uncharacteristic fit of rage, gathered her books. Ron, who was looking like he'd just received a howler, chanced a side glance at Harry. Harry hesitated, looking from Hermione to his red-headed friend, and then burst into laughter, followed quickly by Ron. Hermione scowled at them and stormed out of the Great Hall, the sounds of their howling laughs following her all the way back to the Gryffindor Common Room.
'What a catastrophe of a first day.' Hermione thought to herself as she climbed the stairs to the girl's dormitories, eager to rest until her Prefect duty began later that evening. The circular room was empty, as to be expected at such an early hour, and that was just fine for Hermione. She heatedly slid shut the draperies around her bed and collapsed beneath the covers, indulging herself with an overly dramatic sigh. Crookshanks followed suit, curling himself into a ball at her feet. She hadn't been meaning to sleep, but was soon overtaken by it, drifting off in the comforting silence of the dormitory.
The sound of snoring woke Hermione abruptly. She glanced through the window by her bed, and judging by the pitch black that met her eyes, she judged it to be past midnight.
'Bollocks. There goes my night.' She thought, not meaning to sleep for this long. Suddenly, with a very audible gasp, she realized she'd slept through her Prefect hall-monitoring shift. Never before had she missed anything. This new revelation tipped the tower of irritation, and Hermione subsequently felt anger bubbling inside of her. Without thinking, she slipped a nightdress and robe on and grabbed her wand. Crookshanks howled and gave an offended 'meow' as she threw the covers off of her bed and left the room. The Common Room was empty, save for Seamus Finnegan, who was sprawled out on a couch by the fire, muttering in a very Irish accent in his sleep. She wingardium-leviosa'd a couple of crumpled pieces of parchment from the bin to hover over his head, and as she stormed out of the portrait hole, dropped them. A very loud grunt echoed through the area, followed by a jumble of obscene Irish slang.
She loved the castle at night. Six years of nightly strolls had given Hermione a certain confidence in strolling the empty halls while the whole place slept. She sometimes thought that the castle was enjoyed the quiet company, as she'd never been discovered or intercepted by Peeves. She quietly paced down the Grand Staircase, which captivatingly shifted to her needs, and upon reaching the first floor, stalked through the portrait gallery, taking care not to awaken any of the sleeping inhabitants of the paintings. She slipped through the entryway to the Viaduct, the huge stone bridge that led to the grounds of Hogwarts. This was her favorite place at night. Once safely outside, she paced for a few more moments on the bridge, before deciding she hadn't been seen and leaned against the railings. The fury that had been pulsing through her the entire day seemed to slowly abate, and Hermione let herself be swallowed up in the beautiful night. She could see the lake rippling, and assumed that the giant squid had just surfaced. The forest's trees occasionally swayed and rumbled as creatures of all types went about their nightly business. The stars were stunning, lighting up the landscape with a magnificent dim glow. The atmosphere calmed her, and forgetting her problems, she drifted into a state of near-sleep, head resting in her palms.
However, no sooner had she'd settled than a deep silky-smooth and unmistakably conceited voice rang through the shadows behind her.
"Well, well. A prefect should know better than to be out of bed at this hour. How many points does this warrant, Miss Granger? 25? 50? Shall we make it 100, just to fulfill my intense desire to see what happens when a house has negative points?"