A/N: Please don't hit the screen when you read this. I know some of you are already upset by the goings on in this story and I don't want you to get angry and hit something once you read this.
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. -Plato
It was a week until Neville and Luna worked up the courage to finally speak to Hermione. That encounter nearly gave Hermione a heart attack.
She had been sitting in the library, trying to distract herself with her research when someone tapped her on the shoulder. She looked up and fell out of her chair in surprise.
"Shh!" Madame Pince hissed, glaring at Hermione before slinking off towards a couple of boys who were hunched over a large book.
"Luna," Hermione gasped. "Neville…. Um… hey."
Luna offered Hermione a weak smile and sat down beside her while Neville sat across from them, another half-smile on his pale features.
"Hello, Hermione. How are you?"
Hermione just stared at them for a while, contemplating where this new version of the two had come from. For the past week, she had seen them sulking around, keeping to themselves and whispering secretively to each other. Now they were talking to her.
"Um… I'm fine… how are you?"
"We're great," Luna said, her smile brightening, but it never really reached her sad eyes. "We were actually about to go to dinner and were wondering if you would like to join us?"
Once again, Hermione just stared at them, trying to figure out what had brought around this sudden change of heart. Her eyes flashed over to Neville, who had not said a thing since they had entered the library.
"Neville?" she asked, noticing his far away look. "Is something wrong?"
She caught the pointed look Luna threw at the boy and bit her lip. Neville straightened up and tried to smile again. This time it looked a little better than his first attempt, but not that much better.
"I'm fine, Hermione. Just hungry," he replied.
Hermione nodded slowly, biting her lip.
It's now or never, Hermione, she told her self.
"Can I ask you two a question?"
When she was met with alarmed looks, she raised her hand to stop them.
"I'll only ask once and then I'll let it go… I just need to know…"
Neville met Luna's gaze and nodded.
"Sure. What is it, Hermione?"
She hesitated for a moment before speaking.
"Well… I was just wondering… did either of you see Ron, Ginny or Harry this summer?"
Luna paled a little, but shook her head.
"No, Hermione," she replied in her normal dream-like voice. "Neville spent the summer at my house. My father took him out creature hunting."
"Very fun," Neville lied miserably.
"Oh," Hermione muttered, knowing that she was being lied to. "Well… do you know how they got expelled?"
To this question, Neville flinched visibly and gulped.
"Expelled?"
Hermione nodded, watching them carefully.
"That's what Snape said. He told me that they got expelled… but Harry and Ron would never do anything so serious… and I know your father visits the Ministry, Luna, so I was hoping you would know something…. But I guess I was wrong," she finished lamely, looking down at the books on her desk. Luna sighed and placed a hand on Hermione's shoulder.
"I'm sure they're fine, Hermione," she said with some difficulty. "Don't worry about it."
Hermione glanced over at Luna and noticed the pleading look in her eyes and nodded.
"Okay… let's go to dinner."
For the next few weeks, things went by agonizingly slow and with even more confusing conversations about Harry Potter's and the Weasley's disappearance. The expulsion rumor had spread quickly after Hermione's encounter with McGonagall and Snape, and now she was getting weird looks from several students who were curious to know what she knew. But Hermione let them down by repeatedly telling them that she had no idea what was going on and that the expulsions could not possibly be true.
Her relationship with Neville and Luna was still a tense one, since Neville was constantly trying not to be around Hermione as much as he could help it, while Luna was doing her best to be a good friend to the distressed Head Girl.
Surprisingly, Draco Malfoy had shown up eventually, appearing at breakfast one morning looking like he would rather not be there. He did not even make any comments about the absence of Harry and Ron. It seemed as if he had not even noticed that the Golden Trio was now down to a pathetic one.
One of the things that really made things harder for Hermione was when Gryffindor had to call for Quiddich tryouts. It was hard enough for Gryffindor to find some good players, but when they were forced to replace one of the best Seekers Hogwarts' had ever seen, things got difficult. Several people began bombarding Hermione with angry questions on the whereabouts of Harry Potter, thinking she was just holding out on them. For a few days, Hermione was not the favorite in Gryffindor Tower. To her surprise, Neville actually defended her periodically, telling them exactly where to go and how to get there.
That shut them up.
In the end, Cormac McLaggen became the new Keeper, Dean Thomas was the new Chaser and after literally a hundred tryouts, a fifth year girl by the name of Donna Rockwall got Seeker. She was not on the same level as Harry by any means, but she was fast and she beat the others, so they took her.
Now Hermione sat in Charms class beside Neville, watching in mild horror as Neville's fruit, instead of multiplying, ballooned to the size of a large dog and began secreting a very pungent rancid smell. It took Flitwick forever to get the smell out of the room.
"Practice!" the small professor squeaked as the students left that Thursday afternoon. Hermione patted Neville on the shoulder sympathetically.
"It's okay, Neville. At least yours didn't explode," she said hopefully, thinking of Goyle's shocked face when his banana burst, spraying him and neighboring students with green orange juice. "I still don't know how he got the orange juice out of that charm."
Neville tried to smile, but failed miserably.
"Yeah," he muttered. "And to make the day even worse, I have Transfiguration now."
Hermione glanced down at her watch and then looked down the hall.
"Well, all of my classes are done… I'll see you at dinner?"
Neville nodded silently, heading off with a bunch of Gryffindors who were moving towards the other classrooms. Hermione walked off towards her room, glancing out the windows occasionally to catch a glimpse of the forest as she passed through the corridors. She decided that once she got to her room, she would have to write to Curtis about her time at school. She was almost at her room when she noticed something at the gate of Hogwarts.
Three people were standing that the gate. One, Hermione recognized immediately to be Hagrid, while the other two were much smaller and in the fading light, harder to identify.
Not that she cared at that particular moment. She had been waiting for a long time to talk to Hagrid. He had been the only one she knew would tell her what was going on.
She finally recognized the other two when one of them moved to place a hand on Hagrid's large shoulder; she noticed a wisp of a long beard and frowned. Dumbledore was with him and soon she identified Remus Lupin. Being so far away didn't help her curiosity as she stared at them intently.
Dumbledore seemed to be welcoming Hagrid back while Remus seemed to be trying to head to the castle. Dumbledore stopped the man, shaking his head and raising a hand. Remus shook his head, pointing at the castle so aggressively that Hermione could tell that they were now arguing.
Why were they arguing?
Dumbledore looked like he was trying to explain something to Remus while Hagrid kept glancing over to the school nervously, like he was expecting the object of their conversation to pop up any moment.
Hermione frowned when she saw Lupin's shoulders sag in defeat while Dumbledore placed an arm around the man's shoulder. She could tell that Dumbledore was whispering because Hagrid looked like he was straining to hear something.
Finally, after shaking Hagrid and Dumbledore's hands, Lupin left the grounds, disappearing down the path towards Hogsmeade. Hagrid and Dumbledore walked back up to Hagrid's hut, where Hagrid once again began glancing up to the castle with a nervous look in his eyes. Dumbledore shook his head and Hagrid relaxed a little… but not much. He seemed very upset about something and no amount of persuasion from Dumbledore would help.
After a few minutes, Dumbledore left and Hagrid retreated into his hut, slamming the door shut and turning on the light.
Hermione bit her lip, debating on whether or not it would be the best idea to go down and see him in that moment. If he had been gone for so long, he must have been very far away, meaning he must be exhausted… but then again, Hermione was desperate to have any information that this fact seemed only like a minor detail in her need for information.
Glancing around, she quickly made her way down to the entrance, being extra careful not to run into Dumbledore or any of the other professors she knew would be in on what ever was happening. She slipped out with a bunch of girls who were heading down to Herbology and broke away from them when she was certain she wasn't being watched. She ran as fast as she could with her bag down to Hagrid's hut and after catching a quick breath, she banged her fist against the door.
"Who is it?" Hagrid bellowed, sounding surprised by the knock. He must have thought no one knew he had arrived yet.
"Hagrid it's me! Hermione! Please let me in!" she called back, beating her fist against the door again. There was a crash of silverware and then a string of muttered profanities and other phrases Hermione couldn't really understand before the door was yanked open and Hagrid looked down at Hermione with a smile.
"'Ello, 'Ermione! Fancy seeing you here."
Hermione was surprised at what she saw upon closer look at him. There were scars all over his huge face, and his hands looked like someone had taken a knife to it. His clothes were filthier than normal and had unusual rips at the front and sides, like something had run a lawnmower up and down him. But the most disturbing thing was that he didn't seem to notice any of it. Not even the enormous black eye that was oozing a greenish puss.
"Hagrid, what happened to you?" Hermione gasped, reaching up to touch his arm. "Are you okay?"
Granted, it was not as bad as what she had encountered in their fifth year, his appearance was still concerning.
He winced when he smiled.
"Jus' had a nasty encounter with a hippogriff, 'Ermione. Nothin' to worry about," he said. He seemed to be waiting for her to leave. Hermione was not going to.
"Can I come in? I've been worried about you and I need to speak to you," she whispered.
"'Ermione-"
"Please, Hagrid," Hermione pleaded. "I've been alone since the beginning of summer and I really need to talk to someone. Please."
Hagrid glanced over at the looming castle before stepping out of the way and allowing Hermione in. She sat down and waited impatiently as he cleaned up the glass he had dropped. As he moved around the hut, Hermione noticed that one thing was missing.
"Where's Fang?"
Crash!
Hermione jumped when Hagrid dropped a tea cup, and her eyes narrowed when he began muttering to himself. This was going too far.
For over three months she had been kept in the dark by obvious lies and upsetting motions, but she had had enough. She was not about to let this go on any further until she found out what had happened to Harry, Ron and Ginny.
"Hagrid, tell me what's going on!" she snapped, causing the large gamekeeper to whirl around, which shook the hut. She stood up, tears welling up in her eyes. "Where are they, Hagrid? Please, tell me where they are?"
"'Ermione…" he looked like he wanted to tell her the truth, but instead he shook his head, frowning at her. "All I know is that they were expelled."
Hermione flared up, the angry tears finally spilling out down her cheeks.
"Stop lying to me! Ron, Harry and Ginny would never do something so stupid!" she said, causing him to flinch. "Where have you been, Hagrid?"
"'Ermione, I've just been a bit busy doing some stuff for Dumbledore, you know. I don't know anything."
She wiped at her tears, glaring at the ground.
"So you haven't seen them at all?"
"Not since June."
"Hagrid-"
"Ms. Granger, you always seem to be in places where you're not supposed to be," came the familiar drawl of Severus Snape. Hagrid flinched at the tone while Hermione turned to see the professor standing at the door, eyes on Hagrid.
"Severus," Hagrid muttered. "Albus said you'd come."
"Yet you invited company," Snape replied expressionlessly, his dark eyes moving to Hermione, who was wiping away the rest of her tears. "And managed to make her cry."
"Professor-" Hermione started, but he held up a hand, pointing out the door.
"Ms. Granger, this is the last time I am going to tell you to go away. The next time, I'll give you detention and I'm quite sure Head Girl isn't allowed to have that on her seventh year record, no matter how smart she is," he hissed, causing her to shrink back.
Hermione glanced over her shoulder at Hagrid, who looked half relieved and half angry at Snape's arrival. When he didn't say anything to defend her, she sighed and walked to the door.
"I'll see you later, Hagrid?" she asked hopefully.
Hagrid blinked and then tried to smile encouragingly at her.
"Sure 'Ermione. Come down any time," he said. Hermione glanced up at Snape before leaving. The door slammed behind her and she heard Snape mutter something under his breath, letting her know that she would never be able to hear anything out of the hut. Biting her lip, she hitched up her bag and walked slowly back to the castle through the dark. She hadn't realized that it was starting to get dark quickly and had to remind herself in the future to visit Hagrid earlier. She didn't want to be outside of the castle at night.
Her mind wandered painfully back to Hagrid.
His appearance and odd behavior told her clearly that he knew just as much as everyone else did. He had been so guilty and it almost looked like he actually wanted to tell her what was happening, but he couldn't.
What was so bad that Hermione was being kept in the dark?
"Hermione, there you are!"
Hermione had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn't realized that she had made it back to the castle and had walked into the Great Hall. Lavender was waving her over, which gave her an uneasy feeling until she saw that Neville was sitting with them. Trying to smile, she walked over to them and sat down beside Neville.
"Have you heard, Hermione? Hagrid's back," Dean told her with a bit of happiness in his voice. Though Hagrid wasn't exactly the best teacher in the world, he still had a special place in many people's hearts, mainly the Gryffindors. Hermione tried to act surprised by the information, knowing that she wasn't supposed to have seen his arrival in the first place. She glanced over at Neville, who seemed lost in his own world as he stared down at his dinner.
"Hermione, have you been crying?"
Everyone looked up when Lavender all but screamed out the question, startling a few people near by. When Hermione looked confused, Parvati pointed to her own eyes as examples.
"Your eyes are all red," she explained. Hermione's eyes widened as her hands came up to rub her burning eyes.
"Oh… I… I sniffed some spoiling gurdy root," she muttered, taking a deep breath to calm herself down. "Peeves shoved it in my face."
"Oh."
That was all they said before they began speculating as to why Hagrid had been away for such a long time. She quickly found herself tuning them out as she played around with her food.
"Do you really think that they're dating?"
Hermione looked up at this sudden change in topic.
"Who's dating who?" Neville asked, also thankful for a reason to think about anything else than Hagrid's arrival. Parvati grinned, thankful for some attention.
"Well, from what I heard, Snape and that new professor, Warner, are very close," she told them excitedly, inclining her head to the head table, where Snape had just arrived. He sat down between Dumbledore and Warner. After saying something brief to Dumbledore, he turned his attention to the dark, beautiful professor, who seemed eager to speak to him as well. They whispered to each other in a secretive manner.
"They seem close," Seamus commented.
"I think they look like they're arguing," Lavender added.
"Or they could just be discussing something about school," Hermione muttered, remembering the first week of school and the conversation the two had had when they thought they were alone. It was obvious to her that the two were close, but something told her that they, Snape especially, would prefer if that aspect of their relationship was kept behind closed doors, so to speak.
"Or the could be arguing," Lavender countered in a slightly annoyed fashion. "Probably got into a fight or something."
"You don't know that," Hermione said heatedly.
Lavender fixed Hermione with a rather scathing look.
"Look Hermione, just because they're not screaming and throwing tantrums like you and Ron, does not mean that they aren't arguing," she snapped rudely.
Bad idea.
Hermione's eyes immediately filled with tears and before anyone could say anything, she got up and left the Hall quickly. Neville got up and went after her, Luna following closely behind. Seamus shot a dark look at Lavender, who looked thoroughly ashamed of herself.
"That was nice, Lavender. Very tactful."
"Hermione?"
She looked up from her place on the stairs to see Neville and Luna come around the corner. When they saw her sitting on the cold stairwell, they slowed down and stopped right in front of her.
"Are you okay?" Luna asked carefully, her own face not looking much better than Hermione's.
Hermione sniffed, rubbing her eyes and sighing.
"I'm fine," she muttered. "Just a little emotional, that's all. It's been a hard day."
"Hermione-"
"I'm fine, really," Hermione said, cutting Neville off before he could say another word. "I… I guess I'm going to have to accept the fact that… they were expelled." She spat the word out like a bad taste before burying her face in her arms.
Neville and Luna were at a loss for words. They had thought that Hermione would try harder than that.
"Hermione, did you go see Hagrid?" Luna asked carefully.
"Yes," Hermione mumbled into her arms.
"What did he say?"
"The same bloody thing everyone else around here is saying," she growled through her robes, shocking the two with her language. "The same bloody lie that's being told around this school with the same bloody reaction everyone I thought I knew has been giving me since I arrived here!" she snapped. "Quite frankly, I'm starting to think that you all went to the same prep class."
Their reactions were all she needed to prove her point. They winced at the harshness and truthfulness at her words, but said absolutely nothing to defend themselves. This only irritated Hermione.
"Why don't you two just give up on the charades and just go back to actually being miserable, instead of making yourselves miserable with all of this lying," she said, glaring at the both of them. "Why don't all of you just leave me alone? I don't need constant reminders to tell me that I'm being lied to and I'm not stupid enough to believe that Harry, Ron and Ginny did something bad enough to get themselves expelled, which means that Dumbledore knows about what's going on. I also know that Hagrid has some basic idea of where those three are and that everyone else, primarily you two, McGonagall, Snape and Warner, are keeping me out of the loop by trying to be nice, or in Snape's case, more tolerable than usual. Stop treating me like a child! I understand that something bad has happened and I understand that you aren't telling me for my own good, but just answer one question."
"What?" Neville could not help but ask.
"How can you live with yourselves while you sit there and pretend as if everything is alright?" she asked with a glare before she got up and marched off up the stairs, more tears falling from her eyes.
Tears came to Luna's eyes when she heard a sob escape Hermione's lips before her footsteps died off. The Ravenclaw breathed in sharply before she turned and walked quickly off to her common room. Neville just stood there, hurting more than ever and wishing he were dead.
Hermione was right.
How could they live with themselves?
A/N: Okay, I know some of you are going "What the hell?! Why are you doing this? Why is Hagrid such an idiot and why are Luna and Neville acting so wierd? What's going on? But I must tell you to refrain from guessing because I really don't want to ruin it for people if one of your guesses happens to be right. Don't worry though. Things will reveal itself in the next couple of chapters. Please be patient with me. I know this is an unusual way for me to start a story, but trust me it won't be all talking the next chapter. Things really start to get interesting at Hogwarts.
MyMadness: Believe me, you'll love the next chapter.
Rumpleteaze: I know, I know. I've given all these clues that lead to absolutely nothing, but don't worry. You'll find out what's going on soon, trust me.
ThEnAmEsGiGi: Oh believe me, until around chapter 9 (hint, hint) I was very unsure of what I was going to be explaining. I knew you guys deserved an answer and I knew HErmione was desperate for one, but I couldn't really think of one that would... fill in some of the gaps. I'll just tell you this, be glad I waited this long to tell you, because if I had done it sooner, things would have been... different? This story would have gone in a very different direction. I like the direction it's going in now so please bare with me.
jenny: I don't want to say that Luna's his puppet... I just think that her mental state is just not together so he's stepping up. When is snape not agrivating? :-) I love the new dada teacher also.
ronandmion4ever: Yeah, I don't want Hermione to turn into Harry and go completely insane from lack of contact with her friends. I just think that the fact that she's trying to remain sane is an example of her actually driving herself insane... if that makes sense? I'm not sure that you'll all be going "duh!" but I think you'll understand the behaviors of some of the people. As for them being reunited, I'm not saying anything about that. You'll just have to read and find out (That statement has no underlying meaning, btw) Just read and find out. Curtis I hope will appear again, but that all depends on what Hermione does.
mgmve2008: That will all be explained eventually, just wait patiently. :-)
Wowww: It's a lot more complicated than that and I don't think having HErmione going a-wall and going out to kill Voldemort herself will help things, but you'll understand when you get to that chapter... hopefully. I'm very sure that most of you will only be angrier, which is understandable, so I'm not going to get all defensive about it.
Lina Ben: Thank you.
tamara72: Most of those questions have already been answered because I am like soooo many chapters ahead of my updating schedule. Which means you can times this chapter by two and I've already written past that, so don't worry. All those questions whirling around in your head will eventually get answered.
Chapter Tease:
"We don't know yet. Dumbledore's been in his office with McGonagall and the Minister all day."
"The Minister of Magic?"
"He was called when he got wind of what happened, Hermione," Neville answered. "The Ministry thinks that some of the students need to be expelled."
Not nearly as interesting as you might want it to be, but believe me, once you find out what's going on, you're going to laugh... or just be angrier...
:-)