"You guys are out of your fucking minds." Ron and Harry merely laughed at her declaration. A lot. Like…ripping their guts out laughter. "Oh, great. You guys are high."
Hermione might have been the Brightest Witch of Her Age, but she was also the daughter of "intellectual" Muggles. Her parents, though dentists, occasionally smoked with friends—various pseudo-intellectual types who would every so often get together and engage in light drug use, so as to reclaim a portion of their youth. In an act of rebellion, she had snuck into her parents' stash a few times to see what the fuck the fuss was all about.
She didn't really like it. It burned her throat and the smell was just awful. But she couldn't help but feel mildly jealous at how much Harry and Ron seemed to enjoy their botanical experiment. When she entered their dorm, she did not expect to find Harry and Ron lying on their backs on the floor, rocking back and forth, rubbing their faces and attempting to sing "I Believe in A Thing Called Love" in tandem.
"Where did you even get weed?"
Harry attempted to feign innocence and shrugged, his laughter threatening to resurface.
Ron answered in an overly formal ton, "What weed?"
"The weed you both reek of! It was Dean wasn't it? He sold it to you." Her fellow Muggleborn Gryffindor chum was always bemoaning the lack of an equivalent 'recreational plant' in the wizarding world and bragging about his 'connections.' From what Hermione could smell, it wasn't very good weed they had been smoking. Although she wasn't overly fond of the drug, she could appreciate the difference between pot that had been procured by adults with expendable incomes and that which had been purchased by a sixteen-year-old with his paltry allowance from some seedy kid in a Tesco parking lot.
"Hey don't you mean 'weed of which you both reek'?" Harry responded with a shit-eating grin worthy of the Ferret himself. "Ppppsssshhh!" Both Harry and Ron exploded in teary laughter once again.
"You're both idiots." Hermione muttered, deciding to relocate to Someplace Else. On her way down to the Common Room, she encountered a familiar face on the stairwell. "Dean, any idea why Harry and Ron would eat an entire carton of Chocolate Frogs while making rug angels on the floor of the boys' dorm?"
Dean narrowed his eyes at the brunette witch. The two had always had a sort of friendship based upon their shared Muggle heritage. They ripped on each other's favorite bands and shared knowing glances and eye rolls whenever a classmate displayed an embarrassing ignorance of Muggle references.
"I sold Harry an eighth. Probably something to do with that. Don't tell me they smoked it all already."
"Go look. I'd hazard a guess they did. You know they've never done that before, Dean. Why didn't you tell them not to smoke it all in one sitting?"
"I don't know, Hermione. I've never educated anyone in marijuana safety before. Don't tell me you're mad that I held out on you" he leered.
"I really don't care, but we were all supposed to go to Hogsmeade together today. There's no way they're going anywhere."
"If they smoked that much pot in less than an hour, they need to take a walk."
The two marched back up to the boys' dorm and dragged Harry and Ron, kicking and screaming to the Common Room.
"HEEEEEEEEEEELLLLPPP! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! FUUUUUUCK NOOOOOOOO!" Ron bellowed.
"Shut the fuck up, Ronald! I'm barely touching you. You're actually moving yourself." Hermione snarked.
"Shite! Yeah. I'm an octopus. I can move across the ocean. But not like the deep ocean, just the part with the little fish."
Hermione and Dean shared an eye roll and a smirk over Ron's nonsensical ravings. "Okay, Ronald. How would you like to go to Honeydukes? How does that sound?" Hermione asked in the sort of tone usually reserved for a helpless five-year-old. She really only called him "Ronald" when she was either cross with him or she wanted something from him. It oddly worked under both circumstances.
Both Harry and Ron brightened at this suggestion and ran to the entrance of the Common Room. "Can we stop at the kitchens first? I would kill for a bacon sandwich. With strawberry jam!" Harry suggested.
"You broke my friends, Thomas," Hermione dead-panned.
Honeydukes was an absolute disaster. Harry and Ron had no sense of subtlety. When they weren't rampaging through the store like a couple of drunken Hippogriffs with low blood sugar, they were standing in the corner, wide-eyed and manic, convinced that every single person in Honeydukes knew they were high.
"Of course everyone knows, you dolts! As if the giggling and the prattling weren't enough, you're not exactly whispering!"
It would be so much easier to find Ginny and Dean and just leave Harry and Ron to their own devices. But as much as she didn't fancy the prospect of spending the afternoon listening to Harry and Ron perform what they thought were genius, spot-on impersonations of Snape, but what were in reality just them docking points from Gryffindor in their own slightly deeper voices while eating through Honeydukes bags the size of Hagrid's pumpkins, she couldn't quite bring herself to abandon them. After all, it was February and, considering the fact that they weren't likely to find their way back to Hogwarts without her, they might die of exposure.
They allowed themselves to be led to an abandoned-ish bench in a quiet-ish corner of the town so that they didn't disturb too many people.
"Hermione! Harry! Ron!" a familiar voice rang through the street.
"Ginny! Thank Merlin, a sober face." Hermione beamed at the youngest Weasley, accompanied by Dean.
"I see it hasn't worn off yet," Dean observed.
"Oh this? This is nothing. You should have been here earlier when they both escaped to look for their shoes."
"They lost their shoes?" Ginny inquired.
"No."
"You know, maybe they wouldn't seem so bad if you were stoned too." Ginny suggested. "I mean…I've never smoked pot either."
Dean's eyes widened at his girlfriend. "Seriously! Neither you or Hermione have ever gotten high?"
"I never said that."
Silence.
"You know…I've never really appreciated Acid Pops before…but they're good!" Ron's non-sequitur proclamation prompted a series of vigorous nods from Harry.
"Wait…let me get this straight. Straight 'O', prefect, future Head Girl Hermione Granger has smoked pot?" Dean asked incredulously. "How?"
"I filched it from my parents."
"I'm disinclined to believe you."
"Oh yeah? Well maybe I'm disinclined to want to smoke the skank that you sold these two shit-for-brains, since you obviously don't know the difference between quality and ditchweed!" Hermione huffed.
Dean was taken aback. "Hold on a second! That's premium shit there. I mean…just look at them!"
Harry and Ron were both staring into the distance, unblinking, mouths agape. They obviously hadn't been following the conversation and there was no indication that they realized that Dean and Ginny had joined them. Ron was beginning to drool.
"It was their first time smoking. They smoked a whole dime bag for fuck's sake!"
"Alright, alright. If you're such an expert, why don't you prove it? I've got about an eighth on me right now. We'll see how it affects you."
Images of school assemblies flooded Hermione's memory. Teachers in silly mascots pushing drug-free agendas, assuring the students that they can "just say no" to peer pressure. But she was a seventeen-year-old woman who could make her own decisions. It wasn't even like it was her first time trying it. She recalled how jealous she had been earlier that day at how Harry and Ron seemed so relaxed and care free. She had been working very hard lately. She deserved to act like a teenager for once and do something stupid.
"Sure, whatever." She responded with, what she hoped was an air of casual boredom.
Dean beamed, pulling a bag and some rolling papers out of his jacket. "Let's see if my 'ditchweed' lives up to your expectations."