The Potter Twins and the Innocent Ex-Convict

Chapter Twenty-One: Stress

"You'll never guess what I learned." Melanie grinned with a childish glee, the "I-know-something-you-don't-know" very clear on her face.

"What did you learn?" asked Harry. On either side of the siblings, Hermione and Ron looked up as well.

"Well…"

"Well what?" snapped Hermione after a while. This happened every time one of them had something to say and it drove her nuts.

"Well, I was going to say something right when you interrupted. Anyways, I was talking to Jally yesterday and she was telling me about why house elves are even with wizards in the first place."

Oh? Now Hermione was interested. Maybe this would help her help them get more freedom.

Halting the half-formed plans in her head, she continued to listen to Melanie.

"There was this whole complicated thing that she spent some time explaining and I can't be bothered to say again but, to sum it up, it's to shut up the 'help me' thoughts they always hear from everybody."

After a brief moment of pause, Harry spoke. "What does that even mean?"

"Of course you'd be the one to say that, brother dear." She held up her hands defensively when he opened his mouth and said, "I'm kidding. Basically, it's just that house elves hear complaints from people, more specifically, from wizards and witches. That's really gotta suck, especially when there're those kids who just constantly whine about things in their minds and out loud."

This time, it was Ron who asked, "How does serving us and possibly getting mistreated help them with this?"

"When they're bonded with one person or one family or something, they only hear the thoughts and complaints from that one person or those people. It's a lot better, according to most of the house elves here anyways." She kept her eyes locked with Hermione's as she said, "That's why they're weirded out by Dobby at times and also why most of them don't want to be free."

Sure that her face was bright red, Hermione looked down. Those socks of hers had been an absolutely terrible idea now that she knew the truth behind it.

It was fairly obvious that the other three were trying to look anywhere but at her. That might've been in their best interests to not accidentally make her feel guilty but all she could think was that they were silently mocking her.

She ignored the burning in her cheeks and her throat, instead revising her plans. Maybe she wouldn't focus on freeing elves but instead on how to get them better treatment.

Yeah, that's better, she thought. Although she'd probably never be able to pick up knitting needles without a huge shudder of embarrassment, it was better than she learned what she was doing wrong.

~.~.~.~.~

It was just argument after argument with that boy! Hermione just couldn't get a break.

Every time she turned the corner, she could feel blue eyes following her with a glare. It was unnerving, slightly frightening, but mostly just annoying.

Sure, she felt bad that she didn't go to his birthday party but that had been a while ago. He hadn't even asked him to go, so why was he asking so sore about it? Plain ridiculous was what she saw him as right now.

As if it wasn't already bad enough, Divination was also extremely awkward since she was alone in a corner now. The room was ridiculously stuffy, fumes and whatnot drifting around in a higher abundance than the oxygen. Usually, it would just make her feel suffocated and claustrophobic. Now that she was in a perpetual argument, however, it made her feel ten times closer to Ron even if they were on opposite sides of the room (which she refused to call a class since they learned nothing).

Despite her hatred of the "subject", she was unarguably fascinated by it. Everything about magic was fascinating, even the most useless things.

Pearly white crystal balls were on every desk in the room. It was subject they'd been told that they wouldn't be starting until next term (and that bit of information had been about as reliable as anything they learned). Still, it meant that palmistry was over, a small mercy.

As most other days, Professor Trelawney made her dramatic entrance. Hermione tried to ignore this whenever it happened but the only voice speaking within a room was hard not to listen to.

She snickered and shook her head in dismay, something that almost everybody in their class saw and heard. Her attitude seemed to be contagious. Once they actually started gazing into the crystal balls, there was stifled giggling and scoffs.

"Would anyone like me to help them interpret the shadowy portents within their Orb?" asked Professor Trelawney, casting her airy voice around the class quite effectively.

"I don't need help," Ron stage-whispered. "It's obvious what this means. There's going to be loads of fog tonight."

Around him, the Gryffindors roared with laughter. There was a sequence loud, and dangerous-sounding, rattles from the orbs being disturbed on the desk as Seamus banged his hand onto it. Shy Neville was laughing too, a wide grin on his face in the place of his usual nervous frown.

"Now, really!" Professor Trelawney said as everybody turned to that direction. Some of the more zealous fans of this "class" were looking outraged and scandalized as if they had personally been offended. "you are disturbing the clairvoyant vibrations!" She approached their table and peered into the crystal ball nearest to Neville.

Hermione frowned. She better not be making some stupid accusation to scare him half to death.

"There is something here!" she whispered in a voice that demanded silence. Unlike other teachers, the giggles continued as she talked. "Something moving… but what is it?"

The silence dragged on for longer than necessary before she continued, Neville now as pale as Nearly Headless Nick. "I see a lion dragging a snake through the grass, spilling blood everywhere. My dear, this is certainly an unfortunate omen."

"Hey," said Dean, "maybe this means that we'll end up winning the next Quidditch game, right?"

Laughter and chaos consumed them again, louder than ever. Some of the Divination fanatics were laughing as well and cheering for the victory against the Slytherins. Neville was smiling now.

"Do not be so doubtful of future events!" Her lips were pursed now and her voice had lost the "disconnected-from-reality" tone. "Just yesterday I was speaking to the other class; they had already started with these crystals balls. It shows the ignorance of you all if you laugh. In fact, they had a similar reaction when I saw, plain and clear, inside one of the Orbs a Grim stalking towards-"

"Oh, for goodness' sake!" said Hermione, knowing full well who she had "interpreted" that for. "Not that ridiculous Grim again!"

Unlike their ridiculous teacher, her statement did result in quiet. They were probably staring at her, wondering what was wrong with the perfect student.

What was wrong with her? She was stressed and she was tired, not just tired in the sleep-deprived sense but also tired of being led on in this (frankly) useless "class". They expected her to be the perfect student. To her, being a perfect student meant being willing to question anything, even their teacher, and wanting to understand things.

Professor Trelawney looked her intently. "I am sorry to say that from the moment you have arrived in this class my dear, it has been apparent that you do not have what the noble art of Divination requires. Indeed, I don't remember ever meeting a student whose mind was so hopelessly mundance."

"Oooh," chorused a group of Gryffindors.

She didn't bother to look if Ron was one of them (he probably was, in her mind). She didn't bother to look at who any of them were. Instead, she blinked a few times before saying, "Fine!"

It took her longer than she would've like to cram Unfogging the Future into her bag, stuffed full as it was. "Fine!" She swung her bag over her shoulder, nearly pulling her off balance. "I give up! I'm leaving!"

Behind her, she could feel the eyes following. Thankfully, her dramatic exit was not ruined by her tripping or anything of the sort. She kicked the trapdoor open, feeling a little rebellious and a lot angry, and climbed down the ladder.

She stomped down halls and up stairs until she got to the Ravenclaw entrance. The riddle ("What has four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?") she answered with enough anger that she sensed concern and confusion from the riddle-asker. Ignoring that, she walked in, past the few people sitting on sofas and couches.

Once Hermione was lying down, she allowed herself to be properly angry. There were enough mumbled words that many would've considered her insane. Red crescents in her palms were evidence of her anger.

After a while, she calmed and thought things through. Embarrassment replaced her anger.

The situation could've been handled much better. It would've ended up making her the bigger person if she'd been calm about the whole situation rather than yelling and leaving. Still, she didn't break anything (except maybe the door) and she hadn't directly insulted their professor.

One less "class" meant less work for her and more time for her to do the other work she had. Mentally, she rearranged her schedule while trying to get the taunting "Oooh" out of her mind.

~.~.~.~.~

The Easter holidays were not at all relaxing. More than ever, the library was being crowded with people and emptied of books, the exact opposite of what Hermione wanted. Some of the students (third, fifth, and seventh years in particular) were nearing a nervous collapse.

"Calling this a holiday?" was a complaint (a whine, really) that could often be heard.

"The exams are ages away!" denied plenty of students.

But nobody, not even the higher years, had as much to do as Hermione. They may have taken harder subjects, but she was taking almost all options available to her. She had to drag herself around Hogwarts, blinking wearily the whole way.

Through this, only two people were constantly there to support her: Melanie and, surprisingly, Luna Lovegood. The former, however, was a Hufflepuff and was encouraged to stay within her own Common Room (with the whole Sirius Black issue). The latter, however, had no limitations to that. In fact, it was her offhand, calm comments that kept Hermione sane.

The Quidditch teams were also feeling the strain, something that she noticed because of Harry. Although they didn't talk as often anymore (since he was doing for Ron what Melanie was for her), Hermione wasn't ignorant. The bags under his eyes were almost as bad as hers.

An odd development resulting from this was that Draco started following Melanie more and, consequently, Hermione. The blond boy seemed to be feeling highly envious of Harry since they were the two Seekers for the Slytherin team. Nowadays, it seemed that all people on the Quidditch team could see was how amazing Harry was. He had been called "The-Boy-Who-Lived-To-Play-Quidditch" more than once, something that Hermione found slightly insensitive of how he actually got that "title".

It was this that made the House rivalries worse. Over time, the rift between them might've healed even without Hermione and Ron making up. Because of these upcoming games, however, people had taken to tripping and hexing each other in the corridors, making no place safe.

Hogwarts was supposed to be a, somewhat, peaceful school where children learned magic. Instead, they were using those unique talents against each other.

Hermione felt slightly sickened at that (whenever she had the time to feel and not work). How could wizards call Muggles names and think of them as inferior when this happened in one of the safest magical places?

~.~.~.~.~

Days passed surprisingly quickly, changing into weeks. By then, they were all starting to feel the exam atmosphere.

Hermione was drowning under papers and work that she had to finish for various classes. She had a seemingly permanent headache which worsened whenever she tried to think about what her exam schedule would be like.

Hearing other people complain about how much work they had infuriated her. It was a slightly irrational reaction, but she couldn't help it.

She sighed loudly and rubbed her tired eyes before looking back down at her books. A few very strong pats made her head spin, an unfortunate side effect to Melanie's preferred condescending action.

"Don't worry," said the redhead. "You'll do fine."

"Yeah, of course I will," Hermione mumbled back.

Their other companion, a certain blond Slytherin, huffed. "Granger, don't be stupid. Even though I don't like it, it's obvious that you're the top student of the third years. That says a lot considering how many of us had a head start on you."

"See?" said Melanie with a grin. "We've got a slimy snake agreeing too!"

"Bossy badger."

"You know you need me to remind you to study, so no harping on me for my nagging." She reached over, actually flicking Draco's ear, before grinning and saying, "Back to work!"

Never in a million years would Hermione have guessed that these two would be her friends. If somebody had told her in her first year that most of her third would be spent with a Slytherin and a Hufflepuff with a habit of setting things on fire, she would've sent that person to the hospital wing.

It was insane (and annoying when her parchment turned to ashes), but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

"Alright, you two," said Hermione, pinning both of their hands back to the table. "No more fooling around, got it? I still have this essay to finish and I bet you aren't carrying a light load of work either."

As one, the two waved their other hands dismissively. "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Urgh… I'll go into a writing spree soon… Hopefully? XD

Thanks to everybody who's still reading and sticking with me despite my slow updates! Hope you all continue to enjoy this… thing...

I'm totally not late at all… Hahaha… I'm sure I'm on time somewhere. Maybe? (Perhaps Narnia) Well, either way, this counts as a February chapter. ^-^

Also, the thing about house elves is something that I think I made up although I might've read it somewhere before and forgotten that I read it. If the latter is the case, I'M SO SORRY BUT MY MEMORY'S SOOO BAD.

~ScaleneGalleons~