"...ninety-nine, one hundred!" Hermione sat in the Gryffindor common room, at a table that was somewhat isolated from the rest of the room. Beside her sat her two best friends, Harry Potter, and Ron Weasley, her only friends in fact.
For reasons unknown to either of her two friends, she was meticulously counting out Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans and sorting them into piles of a hundred beans.
To say this confused her friends would be putting it mildly. To Ron, Bertie Botts Beans were only ever used for eating, and while Harry had only been in the wizarding world for a short time, he had the same idea as Ron when it came to the function of Bertie Botts Beans.
Slightly worried for his friend, Harry finally spoke up. "Hermione," he began cautiously, "what exactly are you doing with those beans again?" A simple enough question he thought, all things considered.
Huffing, Hermione answered without looking up from her counting. "I told you," she exasperatedly reminded him. "I'm trying to figure out once and for all if Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans are even worth buying, let alone consuming."
Harry and Ron shared a glance, not really understanding her answer. Out of concern for his best friend, Harry opened his mouth to hesitantly ask again. "But why? What have they ever done to you?"
Abandoning the pile of beans she had just finished counting, Hermione turned her full attention to the two boys. "Because," she started slowly. "I think they're vile candy. I think only the thickest of witches and wizards willingly subject themselves to the flavour roulette, and because I think the entire product is either one big joke, or a malicious attempt to get citizens to eat something that takes like dog droppings!" By the end of her little rant, she was breathing quite heavily, and Harry and Ron wisely decided to let her continue her counting in peace.
After a few minutes, Ron elected to try again. "So what are you doing? What's the point of the counting and the sorting?"
Again without looking up, she responds. "I'm sorting the beans into random piles of one hundred. If I can prove through various tests that the majority of beans in any given random pile of one hundred are undesirable flavours, then I can definitively say that there is an expectation for any random bean to be an undesirable flavour, and therefore a complete waste. I could then go on to relate the price of a box of beans to the number of desirable beans to get the true price of a box. Bad flavours would count against the price, artificially inflating the cost per desirable bean even though you spit the disgusting flavors out most of the time."
Glancing up, she pinned the two of them with a stare that brokered no compromises. "You two will be helping me consume the beans. You'll eat a single bean each, and I'll record if it was a desirable, or undesirable flavour. Rinse, repeat."
Instead of the looks of apprehension that Hermione expected from the two (I mean honestly, who would want to eat those horrible flavours!) Harry and Ron shared twin looks of delight. They certainly didn't expect to be able to eat the candies littered across the table.
Grabbing a bean a piece, the two quickly popped them into their mouths, savouring the (hopefully) tangy deliciousness of a desirable flavour.
Instead, they instantly spit out their candy, and simultaneously looked to Hermione and said, "undesirable". The disgusting flavours didn't seem to dampen their spirits however. The two were just as giddy, if not more so than before they began.
This pattern continued for quite some time. The two boys would try a flavour, Hermione would record the results, and then the boys would try another flavour. It wasn't difficult, and the anticipation of eating another bean was too much fun for the boys.
After an exhaustive series of tests on hundreds of beans, Hermione finally brought the experiment to a close.
Thirteen hundred beans were consumed by Harry and Ron, and they looked to be filled to bursting. But if the matching looks of satisfaction on their faces were any indication, they definitely didn't mind.
Hermione, however, was not so amused. After verifying that her data was indeed correct, she was brought to the stunning conclusion of the study.
Out of the thirteen hundred beans consumed, only a quarter was desirable.
To say she was shocked wouldn't be putting her emotions to justice. It was shocking to finally know the percentage of good beans to bad, but that wasn't what had her so befuddled.
She didn't care.
She had started this little experiment to prove once and for all that Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans were a disgusting product that only the dullest of witches or wizards would buy.
But over the course of her little test, she realized the true value of the beans.
It didn't matter what the flavour was, or what the flavour before it was. What mattered was having someone to eat them with you.
That was probably the most shocking revelation of the night. She had expected for her experiment to be dry and boring. She certainly didn't expect to have so much fun with it. The expressions on the faces of her two friends when they spit out a rancid flavour, or when they savoured a brilliant one made her smile and laugh every time.
It wasn't the candy that was the product, it was the fun that came along with it.
Putting down her quill, Hermione looked up to her two friends, the pair still grinning dumbly and she couldn't help but smile fondly back.
"So what's the verdict, Hermione?" Harry asked. "Is Bertie Botts as bad as you say?"
Hermione took the piece of parchment that contained her data, folded it up, and put it securely in her pocket.
"The results were inconclusive," she said dismissively, trying to hide the fact that she no longer held any animosity towards the candy.
Harry and Ron looked suitably disappointed, feeling bad that Hermione's experiment didn't work out.
"Well, that's no good," said Ron bracingly. "We'll just have to try again tomorrow won't we?"
Hermione felt a genuine smile blossom on her face. "I'd like that," she said. "I'd like that very much."