Shattered Moments
By Rurouni Star

First: mandatory HBP, non-specific jabber.

I finished mine in 5 hours. Which is not as good as one of my friends, who did a 2.5 hour run. All in all – great book. But lots and lots of bombshells. I was gaping by the end.

(And I so hated Hermione's characterization in there, WHYWHATHAPPENEDTOYOURSENSIBILITIESHERMIONE!)

Nothing else to be said. Er, yes.

Second, question-answers:

1) I wouldn't dream of putting Hermione in the tournament. Harry is the one with the blood and all, so it seems stupid to put her in there instead of him. Despite the fact that this is a Hermione-centric series, Harry is still the one fighting Voldemort.

2) I may be making Hermione a little too capable, but I can't stand writing sappy, stupid teens. I happen to be one myself, and while a good deal of us seem to act that way according to the majority of HP fanfiction, I certainly don't. So, yes. Hermione is a little more capable. And in the name of canon, I claim butterfly effect. P

3) The fight is somewhat prevented. Ron may sulk a bit, but I can't write him well because of his irrationality. The real reason the fight didn't happen? I can't get into the head of someone acting so stupid. /Ron bashing Sorry.

4) Donahermurphy: Thank you for the flattery. It'll so get you everywhere. P

5) I see magical power as a matter of part practice, part understanding. Hermione has a natural knack for understanding complicated concepts (the second) and is good at retaining knowledge. She may learn a few spells early, but it's about the same as looking in a book. If she picks them up, it's only because she already has the ability to do so.

Chapter 11 – Preparations

"Worry is a misuse of imagination."
-Dan Zadra

At breakfast on Sunday, the first thing Hermione noticed was that the Durmstrang students had moved from the Gryffindor table, to sit with the Slytherins.

Secondly, she noticed that there was an empty seat, directly between Harry and Ron.

Feeling a little warmth in her heart, she sat down into her niche, and immediately felt better despite it all.

Ron, who seemed to have regained his indignation on Harry's behalf, was scowling at the Durmstrang students.

"They only came over in the first place because Krum saw Harry's scar," he muttered, handing her a slice of buttered toast.

Hermione hadn't known this, but decided it didn't really matter all that much. The short of it seemed to be that she'd misjudged Viktor Krum.

There were more important things, in the long run. For instance-

"I'll be right back," she told Ron. "And don't eat my toast."

Professor Lupin was just coming in the door, looking slightly haggard. The full moon had been only two days prior.

"Hermione," he acknowledged. "What can I do for you?"

She scowled, but not at him. "I was wondering whether you'd sent the news off to your friend yet," she said, intentionally vague.

Lupin frowned. "He hasn't sent me an owl in months," he said. "Once he got it into his head to chase down Peter-"

"Wait, he's what?" said Hermione, surprised.

Lupin sighed. "I'll talk to you after breakfast, in my office," he said.

As Hermione sat back down in her seat, frowning, she noticed her toast was gone.

Ron whistled innocently.

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At first, she didn't see him, despite the fact that he was sitting at his desk. Perhaps it was because he was once again so tired he could barely sit up straight.

Two days after the full moon indeed.

"Sit down," Lupin said. "Have a cup of tea."

Hermione, despite the fact that she'd just had breakfast, did just that.

"Sirius was supposed to come back to stay in London during the school year," Lupin said suddenly. Hermione coughed on her tea, caught slightly off guard. She'd expected him to make a bit of small talk before launching into more serious matters. Perhaps he was simply tired.

"So… he didn't?" she asked cautiously, setting the teacup down.

Lupin sighed. "No, of course not. Think who we're talking about here."

Hermione snorted. "Point taken."

"He was spotted in Albania," her professor continued. "Which, when coupled with what we've learned from Harry, makes me believe he must be trailing Peter, as I mentioned before."

Hermione tried, and failed, to hide her apprehension. "But you don't think he'd really – I mean, he's a hunted wizard, and going after Peter would just put him in more danger – he couldn't exactly go to the local Ministry if something happened-"

"Which means absolutely nothing to him," Lupin finished quietly. He stared down at his own untouched tea pensively.

Hermione let her breath out in a huff. "Well, as soon as you owl him about the Tournament, he'll rather have come back, won't he?" she said peevishly. "If he cares all that much about Harry."

Lupin raised his eyebrows at her. "If you think you can get through to him, then by all means, try. He's been sending back my letters unopened thus far."

Hermione felt her face turn cloudy – a knot had grown in her stomach as Lupin talked.

She'd just sent back her only real link to Sirius. What if he wouldn't accept a different owl?

Worse, what if he did something reckless, as Lupin was obviously fearing?

"I'm going to the owlery," she said. "Someone's got to make him see some reason."

"Don't worry too much," Lupin said tiredly. "He's a grown man. He can take care of himself."

At her raised eyebrow, he cracked a smile. "And also, Harry will be in the news at some point."

That reassured her more.

But she still wrote him a letter, as politely as she could manage while still being furious with him.

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The following week was possibly one of the worst in the history of Hermione's attendance at Hogwarts – right up there with being petrified by a giant snake and tortured by the Cruciatus.

Later, she would reflect that Harry had probably had an even worse week, but she wasn't feeling particularly generous at the time.

The incident in question happened to be in Double Potions, on Friday – this one not cut short at all, as there were no handy delegations to greet. It all started with the Slytherins – like most things did. They'd apparently found someone in their house with the required brains to enchant glowing badges, all with the intent to humiliate Harry. From his expression, she assumed it was working.

With one scathing look at Malfoy, Hermione grabbed Harry's arm and attempted to pull him to his seat.

"Ignore him," she whispered. "He's not worth it."

Malfoy said something she couldn't quite hear, though, and suddenly, Ron was standing up with a snarl and Harry was turning around more quickly than she could stop him.

They were facing him with drawn wands, and Hermione looked once to the ceiling pleadingly before moving to stop them.

Ron shrugged off her hand as she tried to urge him back, and Harry quite blatantly ignored her.

"Go on then, Potter," Malfoy whispered, eyes glinting malevolently. "You may as well get one good hit in before you croak. Survival rate's not that high in the Tournament-"

Hermione straightened, and resisted the urge to pull her own wand. "I imagine you'd be too frightened to enter, even if you were of age," she told him.

Malfoy's eyes flicked to her, and he raised an eyebrow. "I imagine you should stay out of matters you don't understand, Mudblood."

The insult had really lost all meaning to her, so it was quite easy to shrug off – but, as always, Harry and Ron reacted badly, raising their wands-

There was a flash of light – something hissed through the air, slamming her in the jaw before she could shield herself – and a pain began to grow in her mouth.

By the time it all cleared, Malfoy and Harry were standing perfectly unharmed across from each other – but Crabbe and Goyle each sported some very nasty, open boils on their faces, and Hermione…

Hermione could feel her teeth growing.

She let out a gasp, but her upper teeth bit into her bottom lip painfully and she cut it off abruptly. Ron seemed to be the only one to notice – his fists clenched, and he looked between Malfoy and her, as though unwilling to leave Harry alone in his company. The classroom wasn't looking like a very safe place to be, either, as it had now divided into Gryffindors and Slytherins, all twitching as though they were dying to go for their wands.

Thankfully, Parvati moved to take her arm and steer her out the door. Hermione might normally have worried about leaving such a tense atmosphere behind, but she was currently busy being utterly humiliated.

"Why are you outside of class?" snapped a horribly familiar voice, as they rounded the corner.

Hermione looked up to see Snape towering over them menacingly, just coming from some unspecified meeting to start class. She tried, very hard, not to whimper.

"Hermione's got to go to the hospital wing," Parvati said. "She got hit by something Malfoy threw."

Snape looked about to stop them, so Parvati added, "He and Harry got into a duel."

This shut the teacher's mouth, and Hermione, even through her embarrassment, felt like stomping on Parvati's foot. Snape now looked as though Christmas had come early.

"Get out of my sight," he growled quickly – then hurried off toward the door as Parvati began to pull her along again.

"He's awfully predictable," the other girl said pleasantly. "Don't worry, he would've found out anyhow – there's the small matter of Crabbe and Goyle having giant boils on their faces."

Hermione groaned, but it came out as more of a muffled 'mmph'.

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When Hermione got back to the dormitory, she had utterly perfect teeth.

She nearly burst with the need to find Harry and Ron and see if they would notice. But, peculiarly, neither was in the commonroom.

Remembering suddenly that Harry had probably gotten into quite a lot of trouble on her part, Hermione sat down heavily in an overstuffed chair and closed her eyes.

Between him being in the Tournament and trying to defend me and Sirius going after Peter like mad-

The tell-tale throbbing of another tension headache began to surface as she remembered all the reasons she really wasn't supposed to be this happy at the moment.

Well. Not that she was very happy now.

"So?"

Her eyes flew open, and she stumbled out of her seat. George Weasley was walking through the door, looking at her interestedly. It occurred to her that she hadn't had the time to talk to him seriously for a good long while.

Hermione sighed miserably and rubbed at her temples, fully aware that it wasn't going to help her in the slightest. "Harry didn't enter himself," she said. "We really don't know who entered him, for that matter."

George frowned, as though weighing the truthfulness of her statement.

Hermione felt a horrible wrench in her chest, and she found herself holding in tears of frustration. "Since when did I ever lie about anything so important?" she asked him – but it sounded more as though she were begging him at this point. "You know I'm not that petty, George."

He looked over at her, surprised, and she thought that perhaps he looked a little ashamed at himself now.

"Aw, come on," he said, looking a little panicked. "Don't cry, I didn't-"

Hermione felt her features tighten as she stopped herself. "I wasn't going to," she gritted out.

At his overly relieved expression, she wiped a hand down her face. "You're an idiot," she told him. "I'm leaving."

She was already through the door when she heard him say, surprised – "When did you get your teeth fixed, Hermione?"

Strangely, her headache disappeared.

By the time she reached the library, she was smiling very slightly.

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Hermione's worrying didn't exactly decrease over the next few weeks, but the rush of homework, added into the always-problematic timeturner, tended to take up most of her brain-space. Quite apart from what people seemed to think about her, she wasn't very good at keeping everything organized in her head. That was what planners were for.

And she certainly wasn't going to put "Remember to worry about mass-murderer!" anywhere on her list.

No, Sirius didn't owl her back. She was torn over how she ought to feel about this. On the one hand, she really didn't feel like talking to him. But on the other – and much more prominent – side of the coin, she chewed her fingernails down to the bleeding point whenever she had the time to imagine Peter casting the Cruciatus on him

"…not that petty…"

Lord. Maybe she really was, when she thought about it.

In the meantime, she discovered, much to her woe, that Harry had had a very misleading article written about him. Very misleading indeed.

"Why Granger," a nastily familiar voice called across the hall to her one day, "I never knew you and the Potty were so close! I feel horrendous for your children, though – buck teeth and glasses, can't you just imagine it?"

Hermione let her breath out in irritation and tried to ignore Malfoy. It didn't even register until her next turn of the timeturner that he had teased her about Harry, instead of Ron (as was his usual misinterpretation).

Her wonderings were answered, however, when she got to her last period of the day, with Harry and Ron. Ron, scowling, slid her over a colorful-looking Daily Prophet page…

From the moment she saw the name "Rita Skeeter", she felt a horrible sense of foreboding.

"Harry has at last found love at Hogwarts… one Hermione Granger, a stunningly pretty Muggle-born girl who, like Harry, is one of the top students in the school."

Hermione frowned. "Only two out of four," she said, annoyed. "How horrible of her."

"Two out of four?" Ron said.

She decided to take it with some humor. "I'm not in love with Harry, and I've never before been accused of being 'stunning'."

Ron's mouth dropped. "You shouldn't – that is-"

"Oh please," she said, waving a hand. "I'm perfectly mediocre and quite proud of it." That was somewhat of a lie, but then, every girl had to dream.

It seemed to satisfy Ron to some extent, however, because he fell silent for the rest of class.

Time slowed down, for the remainder of the time between then and the first task of the tournament. Hermione spent her extra time in the library, alternately worrying about Sirius (who still had not responded) and trying to decide how best to prepare Harry. The problem, of course, was that they had no idea what the first task was. By the Saturday before the task, the best she had come up with was to go over a long list of spells they'd already learned and practice a few new, generally useful ones, until he was too tired to continue. And then some, if she could manage it.

"Aren't you going to Hogsmeade, though?" Harry asked her when she mentioned this to him.

Hermione scoffed. "You think a bunch of candy is more important than you living through this stupid thing?" she asked him. "Besides, I don't even eat the sugary kind."

She politely ignored his utterly relieved expression and took him to an empty classroom to prepare.

They worked their way steadily through the syllabus from first year up – Hermione skipped the spells she was certain he knew already and the ones that would generally be useless (such as showering and hair-braiding charms). By the time she got up to their current level of knowledge, he was already wearing out.

"Harry," she said sternly as he lackadaisically beckoned at a pillow to float over to him (it ignored him).

"What?" he asked, blinking tiredly.

"It's only seven," she said. "I'll let you go in another thirty minutes or so, but the Summoning charm is really very useful, and if it'll mean the difference-"

Reminded of the dire situation, Harry relented, and gestured more forcefully at a quill on the other side of the room. "Accio quill!" he said.

It raised itself from the table and slowly (but steadily) moved through the air and into his hand.

"That's good," she said, and she meant it. "Let's practice on getting your speed up, though – if there's something charging you, for instance-"

"All right!" Harry said with a shudder. "We'll work on my speed."

By the end of the thirty minutes (which had, somewhere along the way, turned into an hour and a half) Harry was making things zoom around quite easily. Hermione had just decided to see how far she could stretch his newfound determination with another spell when a knock sounded on the door.

"Er – is 'Arry in there?" came Hagrid's scratchy voice, slightly muffled.

Hermione yawned suddenly, despite herself, and walked over to open the door. Hagrid did indeed stand beyond, looking slightly nervous but nonetheless very excited.

"Hagrid?" Harry asked, catching the pillow in his right hand.

"Oh – yer practicin'!" the giant man said, closing the door behind him. "Well I, ah – don't mean ter interrupt-"

"No, no!" Harry said with a hasty look at Hermione. "We were just finishing."

She opened her mouth to protest, at first – but found herself suddenly unable to speak as she saw a tiny, feathered shape suddenly ping into the glass window that hung over the doorway.

"See?" Harry said, moving toward the door. "We can talk somewhere else – er – away from the practice room-"

He turned the doorknob and pushed the door open with a creak – Hermione felt her heart stop as the tiny owl bolted past him, toward her, unnoticed.

Geronimo flung itself into her chest, chattering excitedly, even as the door closed behind Harry with a resounding slam.

He was holding a letter, in a very familiar, elegant script.