AN: Next chapter. Semi on-time, I think. Enjoy and review please!
Thanks to the lovely Littleoldmeeeee for betaing this for me!
Disclaimer: Anything you recognise belongs to J. K. Rowling.
O.o.O.o.O.o.O
Once Hermione, Harry, Ron and Ginny had returned to the Gryffindor common room, (Padma had excused herself to finish some homework. Hermione didn't blame her for not wanting to stick around; she had seen that Neville was fine, and she wasn't as close to Neville as the rest of them were), and were tucked away in a warm little corner, she told them what had happened. Throughout the telling of the story, their faces grew grimmer and grimmer, and when Hermione finally finished with Neville not being able to remember anything beyond asking Hermione to go with him to Hogsmeade the previous? day, Harry's face hardened.
Sensing the direction his thoughts were taking, Hermione said quickly, "oh, Harry, I don't think that there's anything really sinister going on here. It's probably just a student who got caught doing something illicit and panicked. It's not anything do with, well, you know..." she finished lamely, reluctant to mention anything that might trigger any of them. (Even though she did think that there was something sinister going on, there was no need to alarm Harry or any of the others - Merlin knew they were all scarred enough from the events of the past few years not to want, or need, any reminders. None of them had got out of the war unscathed, without their share of nightmares).
Hermione's words seemed to have had the desired effect though, as Harry's face cleared, and Ron and Ginny relaxed from where they had been watching him anxiously - Ginny more so than Ron, as she was the one who had had to deal with the brunt of Harry's panic attacks in the months following the war.
"Yeah, you're probably right. I mean, who would want to hurt Neville? Except for the fact that he was sort of the reason we won, he was the one who gave everyone enough courage to fight back even after you all thought I was dead ̶ "
Ginny laid a hand on Harry's arm, effectively stopping his flood of words. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and opened them again, looking gratefully at Ginny. Hermione let out a relieved breath, catching Ron's equally relieved gaze.
"Don't, Harry. You know we've talked about this," Ginny said, squeezing his arm. It sounded cryptic to Hermione and Ron, but they didn't comment, as it seemed to work.
Harry took a deep breath before speaking again. "Well, then, do you have any way of finding out who did this?"
Hermione hesitated before reluctantly shaking her head.
"No, not at the moment. However, when Neville wakes up, we can ask him again if he remembers anything else. He was a bit panicked when he answered me today. I probably shouldn't have started with the questions right away….." Hermione grinned ruefully, (though she did feel quite guilty) and Ron chuckled, breaking the tense atmosphere.
Harry sighed and looked down, before he shrugged and said, "Well, I guess that's that. At least for now." Ron turned toward him, shoulders stiffening, mouth already open to protest, but catching Harry's eye, his shoulders relaxed and he nodded reluctantly.
Harry visibly sighed with relief, and turned away.
The old Harry would already have been speculating about possible theories, throwing out ideas left, right and centre, but after the war he had been very careful not to get overly involved in anything. He was avoiding his "hero-complex", as Hermione had called it, which she could definitely understand.
The months after the war were hard for all of them, but Harry was the one who tended to act react violently when something triggered him. Hermione was more likely to retreat to a secluded corner with walls of books stacked around her, armed with a cup of tea. She often didn't even read the books, just finding it comforting being surrounded by them. She knew that Ron stared at photos of his family when he felt really down, and when they had still been going out, (she repressed a wince at the thought, still not completely over his betrayal. It had only been a week, after all), she had found a wrinkled and tear-stained photograph of Fred underneath his pillow. She hadn't said anything. Ginny… Well she didn't know what Ginny did. The only time she had seen the stoic girl break down was right after the death of Fred. After that, she was just constantly with Harry. Hermione found it a bit unhealthy, but she supposed helping Harry overcome his problems could be a form of therapy.
Hermione shook her head. Now was really not the time to think about their coping mechanisms. She had a wand and a Map to find.
She looked around to find that while she had been musing, Harry had gotten out his homework, (he was really working hard this year, Hermione was proud of him), and Ginny and Ron had begun a game of chess which Ron, predictably, was winning.
Ginny was surveying the board with a fierce frown, biting her nails, while Ron stared at her grinning, secure in the knowledge that he was going to win.
Disinclined as she was to disturb the relaxed scene, Hermione stirred herself and said, "I should probably go look for Neville's wand, he asked me to before I left the Hospital Wing. Oh, and Harry, I, uh, I kind of lost your Map. Not on purpose," she hastily added when he frowned, "I just left it in the classroom. I had something a bit more important to focus on right at that moment."
Harry frowned unhappily, but he didn't look unduly upset.
"Oh. Well, I guess that's alright then. Just, please be careful, we don't know what happened to Neville, and whatever it is may still be out there somewhere." He bit his lip almost nervously, and added "...and please find my Map. It's, well, you know, it was theirs."
Hermione nodded, though she wasn't sure if "theirs" was referring to his father, Sirius and Remus, or Fred and George, as both groups of people gave the Map a special significance to Harry. "Of course,Harry. Oh, and" Hermione said, suddenly remembering the thought that had been niggling at her in the Hospital Wing, just before Neville had woken up, "do any of you have any idea how Professor McGonagall knew about Neville?"
Ron and Ginny didn't seem to hear her, absorbed as they were in their game, but Harry looked up with a slight frown and said, "She was waving around a piece of paper while she was telling us about Neville. I presumed it was a note Madame Pomfrey had sent."
Hermione frowned. It seemed improbable, but she supposed it was technically possible.
She stood up and waved away Ron and Ginny's concerns, which were similar to Harry's, when they looked up from their chess game long enough to see her leave.
"Relax, I'll be fine. I'm not helpless, you know."
"Yeah, we know, but Neville wasn't either."
She rolled her eyes at Ron. "Well, he was surprised, and wasn't expecting it. I will be."
She left them with a serene smile, but as soon as she had climbed out of the portrait hole, it faded. Whilst she was quite confident that nothing could sneak up on her and catch her unawares, there was still the very real risk that something really sinister was roaming the halls of Hogwarts, whatever she may have said to Harry.
Speaking of possible dangers in Hogwarts, she wondered if Headmistress McGonagall was planning on telling the rest of the populace of Hogwarts what had happened. She hoped so, just to be careful.
On that thought, Hermione decided to postpone the search just a little while longer while she paid a visit to Headmistress McGonagall. She wanted to find out what who had sent the note to McGonagall in anyways. If Harry was right and it was a note that is. She was still not convinced that Madam Pomfrey had sent the note, and if that was so, it might be a clue as to who, or what, had attacked Neville.
She stopped in front of the single gargoyle on the seventh floor, and said loudly and clearly, "Sirius Black." McGonagall had been using people who had fought and died in the war, and people who had been unfairly thrown into Azkaban, such as Sirius, as passwords to her office. The week before had been Remus Lupin. Hermione had a suspicion that Headmistress McGonagall was currently going through all the Marauders one by one - she was waiting for it to be confirmed next week by the password being James Potter. She couldn't help but feel glad that Harry wasn't a Prefect, so that he didn't have to see or hear their names each week, as the passwords were announced in the Prefect room. Ron was smart enough to keep silent about McGonagall's string of passwords, for which Hermione was very thankful. Harry didn't need any more reminders.
The gargoyle jumped out of the way and Hermione stepped onto the spiralling staircase which had appeared. At the top, she paused a moment to hear if she was about to interrupt something, and, hearing nothing, she knocked.
"Come in."
She pushed the door open, and saw Professor McGonagall sitting behind the desk, looking up from a pile of papers on her desk. Seeing Hermione, she smiled tiredly, setting down the papers she had been perusing, and beckoned Hermione closer.
"Miss Granger, you are here about Mr Longbottom, I presume?" McGonagall gestured Hermione to the seat in front of her desk, and offered her a cup of tea.
Hermione nodded and took the proffered seat, waving away the offer of tea. She wasn't going to stay very long. She only wanted to hear about the note and what Professor McGonagall would say about the attack on the student body.
"Yes. I ̶ well, I wanted to ask you, and I know it may sound silly, but ̶ "
"Miss Granger." McGonagall held up a hand to silence Hermione. "I know you are but nineteen years old, but please, do get to the point. I have a lot work to do." McGonagall looked pointedly at the mounds of paper heaped up on her desk, and then back at Hermione, who by this time was flushing slightly.
"Of course Professor. My apologies. Harry said he saw you waving around a note while you were telling them about Neville. Was it from Madame Pomfrey? If it was, are you quite sure that she sent it, Professor?. She's never done something like that before, has she? I just, could I see the note, maybe?"
Headmistress McGonagall frowned slightly, as she listened to Hermione's convoluted explanation, but she nevertheless grabbed a small piece of paper off of her desk and handed it to Hermione, who examined it minutely.
"To be honest Miss Granger, I didn't even think about normal protocol when I got that note. I'm so swamped with all the work and forms that I have to fill out, damages left over from the war etc. that I quite forgot that Madam Pomfrey never does send notes. But, it is signed by her, so I would suggest the best course of action would be to ask her. In fact," McGonagall summoned a piece of paper and a quill, "I'll write a note asking her right now. You can go now Miss Granger, I can take care of this."
Hermione began nodding and standing up, intending on taking her leave, before she suddenly remembered the other reason for her visit.
"Oh, Professor McGonagall, were you planning on telling the rest of the students about the attack?"
Professor McGonagall's shoulders slumped, and she said, "Yes, I suppose I shall have to. An attack on a student, and Hogwarts hadn't even been open a whole year."
Hermione's heart contracted when she saw the bone-deep tiredness on Professor McGonagall's face. It hadn't hit her until that moment how old and tired Professor McGonagall really was. Now, with the added weight of a student attack on top of all the paperwork from the Ministry and bills for the reconstruction of Hogwarts, Hermione could see the deep lines etched into the older woman's face. Lines she could have sworn weren't there before the war. The once proud and strong woman now seemed diminished somehow, as if something vital had been taken away from her, and she was now suffering the consequences.
That only lasted a second however, as Professor McGonagall straightened her back resolutely, and when Hermione looked again, she almost thought she had been imagining it.
Almost.
Coming to a decision quickly, Hermione said, "Professor, I really wouldn't mind helping you with this investigation. I mean, Neville is my friend, after all. And I was going to go back to the classroom where he had been found, and look for his dropped wand in any case." And the Marauder's Map, she added silently, though she was wise enough not to say so out loud.
"Oh, no, Miss Granger. That really won't be necessary. You've done enough 'helping' to last you a lifetime. No, I'll sort this out. But, if you do go looking for Mr Longbottom's wand, do be careful. I'll make an announcement at dinner this evening. Hermione turned to go, but McGonagall called her back, "and, one more thing, please, Miss Granger, don't get too worked up over this. I'm sure it was just a scared student being some place he wasn't meant to be."
Hermione nodded as if in agreement with Professor McGonagall, but her mind was already whirring with ideas to find out whoever, or whatever, had attacked Neville.
Professor McGonagall seemed to realise that, as she simply sighed and waved Hermione out in dismissal.
Out of the Headmistress's office, Hermione made a beeline towards the abandoned classroom where she had found Neville. Once there, she scoured the whole classroom, even going as far as to crawl underneath a few of the desks to see if the wand, or Harry's Map, had rolled there.
The items were nowhere to be found.
Hermione frowned, and straightened up from where she had been squeezing herself underneath a cramped desk. Huffing and patting down her clothes, she looked around the classroom once more before conceding that the wand and Map weren't there.
Whilst she felt a bit panicked at what Harry was going to do when he found out that she had lost his Map, she was more worried about where they could possibly have vanished to.
If they weren't in the classroom, then were on earth were they? They couldn't just have vanished into thin air. Although she knew that Professor McGonagall would greatly prefer it if she just stayed out of the investigation, she also knew that Professor McGonagall was overworked and didn't really think Hermione would just let things be.
With that in mind, Hermione decided to make a quick stop at the Hospital Wing, just to ascertain if Madame Pomfrey had, in fact, written the note. She needed that information to help with the investigation, and besides, she needed to tell Neville that she had failed to locate his wand. And the Map, but she would see Harry later. If she was lucky, she would not have to face him at all.
Of course, luck tended to avoid Hermione Granger.
