Author's note: (is this how you do an author's note properly?) This is my first fanfiction, my first story in general for that matter, so please be kind! Really though, any feedback is welcome, especially if I have grammatical errors. Nothing is so bothersome as misspelled words and misplaced commas, so please let me know. And forgive my run-on sentences :) Once you finish this, do not get too excited to be done, there is more to come! Now that I've talked up my story so much, enjoy and please review if you have anything to say!
Hermione looked up at the clock. Sixteen minutes. Sixteen minutes until class was out. Professor McGonagall was deep into a lecture on the importance of focus when using transfiguration. Hermione had lost her focus on the lecture not long after it had started. When had it started? Time was an irrelevant thing when watching her professor. She was captivating. The power she had over her classroom, the attention she demanded from her students. She certainly still had Hermione's attention, if not in the way she intended.
Hermione's eyes rarely left her professor, except to occasionally glance at the clock, wondering and scolding herself for how long she had spent with her attention on the wrong subject. Her thoughts roamed from the words leaving the woman's lips to the woman herself. She was graceful, elegant, lithe, and poised, with a steely strength and toughness that dared you to mess with her. She wordlessly demanded the utmost respect. She paced in front of her class, exuding intelligence and offering her knowledge and wisdom as she taught with a passion and poise Hermione had not seen quite as pronounced in any other professor. And Hermione took many classes with many professors. Hermione began to lose herself in the movements of the powerful witch before her, the deft twirling and flicking of her wand in her long, nimble fingers, the swish and sweep of her robes as she demonstrated proper technique to her class- all the motions she made never causing a single strand of ebony hair to fall out of her iconic bun. Once she was properly lost, mind completely off anything to do with transfiguration, Hermione looked past the square spectacles, up into her professor's eyes, only to find them staring intently right back into hers.
"Miss Granger?" McGonagall's low voice inquired, somewhat sharply, as though it was not her first time saying it. "I'm quite surprised your hand has not shot up to offer an answer to my question. Perhaps you would like to offer that answer now?"
Hermione's heart began to hammer. What had she asked? Eyes looked at her all across the room, silently perplexed at the girl, known school-wide as the "insufferable know-it-all," and her lack of a reply. Hermione could feel herself blushing as she grew more embarrassed at her temporary (or class-long) lapse of concentration.
"Miss Granger?" McGonagall asked yet again, her usual, steady poker-face conveying the tiniest hint of impatience battling with concern.
Hermione inwardly cursed her strong resistance to distraction for failing her now, in the presence of this woman. She usually had only to try a bit harder to keep her attention on the day's lesson in this class, but her willpower had abandoned her completely for the first time today, leaving her mind free to focus on something even more fascinating to her than transfiguration, which was one of her favorite subjects. "I'm sorry, would you repeat the question?"
"What spell might you use if you wished to bind two things together?" McGonagall inquired crisply, not allowing her frustration to seep into her voice.
Hermione held in a sigh at how simple of a question had allowed her to look like a fool, in front of Professor McGonagall, no less. "Epoximise. You might use epoximise, among other spells, professor."
"That is correct, Miss Granger," McGonagall said, her relief somewhat evident as she realized that her star pupil had not been stumped by her relatively simple question. Although, the girl's apparent lack of concentration was, to say the least, unlike her. This worried McGonagall perhaps more than it should, and she felt she should address this uncharacteristic behavior. "Please see me after class," she added.
Oh great, Hermione thought to herself. So much for answering correctly and getting off the hook. What had taken hold of her attention so? What was wrong with her? Why was she so distracted by her professor? Well, who wouldn't be? She was just a fabulous witch. The epitome of what a witch should, and could, with the proper skill and resolve, be. Anyone would easily be distracted by that, she thought to herself. Anyone. Now she had to see her after class, she had to be chewed out by the person she admired and respected most. This would be fun. Freaking epoximise.