(A/N) Yeah yeah, I know… Start a fanfic, abandon it for half a year, add one chapter, abandon it yet again, and then START A NEW ONE. I'm despicable. But I guess I just sort of lost interest in the other one, and I liked this idea so much. I love Hermione stories, and I just can't believe I never yet came across one that featured her as a triwizard champion.
Well, that leaves me to solve that injustice, I suppose. I might update the other one again at some point though, I got a nearly ready chapter sitting in my laptop. Or I might just focus on this one, we'll see.
Oh, and add the usual disclaimer….
Chapter one – Obvious solution
Hermione peered over the edge of her book. Much as she hated to admit it, she was watching the Weasley twins try to enter the triwizard tournament with a modicum of jealousy. Not that she thought they would succeed, never that. However, she wanted so much to prove that muggleborns were as good as purebloods, and entering the tournament would be a foolproof way to do that. After all, an ancient magical artifact could hardly be tricked into believing the wrong person to be better.
"Ain't gonna work lads!", she yelled in a singsong voice at the twins, in a rather poor impression of an American accent, just as they swallowed their aging potions.
"Like to see you do better, Granger!", they replied in unison as they jumped over the age line. Predictably they were repelled. Hermione thought deeply as the boys gained an impressive beard each.
"Come on Hermione, muggleborns should have some advantage…", she thought to herself. She knew it was true, and she knew what it was. Logic. But how in the world would that help her? Unless… But would they really be THAT stupid? Well, knowing wizardkind, probably.
She looked around. Quite the crowd of professors and students had gathered to see the Weasley twins off. Nice, loads of eyewitnesses, that way she wouldn't be accused of dark magic of some such thing. Calmly she shut her book, stuffed it back in her schoolbag and set the bag aside so that no one would tread on it if panic were to ensue, which she was fairly sure could happen because of what she was about to do.
One last time she glanced at the piece of paper she had already prepared in case she had an epiphany – like she had just had. "Hermione Jean Granger, Hogwarts" it simply stated, in her immaculate handwriting. She arose, went to stand in the middle of the hall and drew her wand. The next two words she'd speak might change her life…
"Wingardium leviosa!"
Silence ensued. The crowd of people seemed to freeze over in its entirety, as countless pairs of eyes followed the progress of the small slip of paper across the age line into the cup. Hermione smiled. Sure, she was just a fourth year, but she was rather smart, so she might just stand a chance.
"I can't believe I'm the only one to have thought of that!", she quietly muttered, not realizing that everyone would hear it due to the utter silence. Her words broke the silence though, and hysteria took over the masses as pretty much every underage student frantically searched for quills and parchment. Wand still out, Hermione quickly accioed her bag. Sure, she wasn't supposed to know the summoning charm yet, but we all know better than to believe that to prevent her from being able to do it.
Bag in hand, she dove into a not-so-secret passageway, hiding before one of the professors could get a hold on her. As she ran off to her little escape place she waited for self-doubt and remorse to hit, surprised when it didn't come. She needed thinking time though, and she knew of but one place where she could get it.
When the twins were released from the hospital wing, they were quite confused. The entire school was in a state of disarray, and they didn't have anything to do with it. They soon got the entire story from Harry though. He quickly brought them up to speed and explained how in the aftermath Hermione had disappeared, Ron had thrown a jealous pity-party, and that Snape was now guarding the goblet, setting fire to pieces of parchment before they could hit the goblet's flames, his greasy hair full of paper airplanes. The twins had no idea what an airplane was, but the mental image of that last bit sounded funny, though they worried about Hermione.
Harry loudly complained that he couldn't find her on the map, which caused them to look at each other and run off. They apparently knew where she was hidden. Harry stared after them and slid a hand through his hair. He would never understand the two of them, was what he thought as he cursed the uncooperative map once again.
Meanwhile, Hermione, lost in thought, suddenly found her vision obscured by large quantities of ginger hair. Frantically she tried to dislodge herself from the triple suffocation attempt the twins seemed to have involved her in which their mother would have defined as a 'hug'.
Vaguely she noticed them yelling something along the lines of "Our new hero!" as her oxygen reserves depleted themselves.
"Wh… Wh… WHAT?!", she spluttered as soon as she regained her breath. "How could you have found me? This place isn't even on the map!"
And it wasn't. She had found this secret room in the library during her first year when she tried to pry an ancient copy of "Hogwarts a History" off a secluded shelf, and the wall suddenly turned around, revealing a cozy place with a fire crackling in the corner and a few couches ready to be sat on. She had been happy to find out that it wasn't on the map when Harry got it, and quite smug that she had beaten the infamous Marauders at something.
"No, indeed…"
"… this place…"
"… is not…"
"… on the map…"
"… which is how…"
"… we found it, because…"
"… you always disappeared…"
"… in the middle of the library…"
"… which we considered rather suspicious."
Hermione had actually lost track of whom said what during that little speech. She narrowed her eyes
"So you just stalked me until you understood how I got in here?"
The twins nervously studied their shoes and grunted noncommittally, suitably ashamed.
"Anything to get the two of you into a library…", she muttered, not really knowing what to say to such a thing. The twins looked quite baffled that this was her reaction, and offered none of their own.
"Those Marauder types probably didn't spend all that much time in the library.", Hermione muttered again. She seemed to mutter more and more that day.
"Smart lads!", Fred commented, whilst George nodded his head vigorously.
"But that's beside the point.", George added. "The point is that you're bloody BLOODY brilliant! I mean, we all knew you were the most brilliant witch of your age, but now we might just think that you equal us, the two most brilliant wizards of our age!"
"Oh, you think so, do you. I rather thought that I surpassed you.", she retorted, as she remembered Sirius, an actual Marauder, offering her and Harry to become honorary Marauders as they waved him off when he flew away on Buckbeak's back. Not that the twins needed to know about that.
"Anyway, Minnie is looking for you!", Fred happily stated.
"O gods, she's going to kill me, or at least expel me or…", Hermione began to rant once she realized that Fred meant McGonagall by that, until he interrupted her.
"Don't fret!", he said.
"No, don't Fred!", George interjected.
"Because she's…", they said together, trailing off like they couldn't believe it themselves.
"Proud of you.", they quietly added.
"And we're too!", they yelled enthusiastically before hugging/suffocating her once more.
"Now don't sulk and come along!", George finally added and hoisted her onto his back before she could protest, carrying her all the way to McGonagall's office, where Hermione was surprised to find out that her stern head of house was utterly delighted.
"Dammit, can't just stun a bloody ghost guard!", a certain Barty Crouch Junior thought to himself. Additional security measures had been placed around the cup because that infernal mudblood girl had found a loophole. The wards he could overcome, but there was now a guard too, and not just any guard, but a ghost guard. Dorky Dumbles, as Barty liked to call Dumbledore, had insisted on a guard, but the teachers had all insisted that nobody had time enough to take care of such a thing.
At this point it no longer surprised Barty that the stupid mudblooded bint had been the one to suggest using the ghosts, for "They had little to do anyway, wouldn't fall asleep and, as an extra benefit, couldn't be stunned or something like that by overly ambitious wannabe contestants, it's no more than logical.", he mentally quoted the chit. He had actually gnashed his teeth together during the meeting where this was decided, because a stunning spell had been his plan exactly for whatever guard would be placed.
That got Barty to have a major headache, and a severe drinking binge, whilst he tried to think of a way to get around the ghost. He wouldn't think of anything before the names were already drawn.
The evening during which the names would be drawn was one with an air of quiet anticipation. Nearly Headless Nick was on guard duty when Hermione crossed the hall to the Gryffindor table.
"All clear, Nick?", she found herself saying, in a bad American accent, yet again. She had visited the States some years previously, and for some reason the habit had stuck with her from when she and her father reenacted dialogues from movies while they were there.
Nick had been even more friendly than usual to her than usual since the spectacle she had created, and now even went as far as to salute her back.
"My humble greetings, fair lady, go bring Gryffindor some honor tonight!"
Hermione grinned at the antics of the house ghost. He seemed to be happy to have a mission, or a 'noble quest' as he had called it when put into position next to the goblet. As ghost guard go, he was definitely one of the better ones, whilst there had been many who tried the job.
The Fat Friar of Hufflepuff had been easily distracted by students coming to chat with him, but he had remedied this on Hermione's advice by floating so that the goblet was in the middle of his voluminous belly. That way nobody could get his hand anywhere near the thing without getting an unpleasant freezing feeling, and it looked pretty cool to have his head full of flames.
The Grey Lady of Ravenclaw had at least been vigilant, but her denigrating gaze had kept everyone but the Claws from entering during her watch.
Last but not least, the Bloody Baron of Slytherin had doubled up with Peeves for a disastrous morning shift, and between the two of them five priceless paintings and one suit of armor had been destroyed, nobody had dared to enter their names, and everyone had fled from the great hall halfway through breakfast.
So yeah, Nick had been a pretty decent guard. Hermione smiled to herself. Anything that brought fame to Gryffindor was a good thing in Nick's book, no wonder he suddenly was so fond of her. All thoughts about the gentle ghost disappeared however, as she sat down for the delicious feast.
Fleur Delacour, Victor Krum, blablablah, it hardly mattered to anyone, they just wanted to know the fate of that little bushy-haired Gryffindor that quietly sat at her table, sandwiched between two redheads, Harry Potter sitting opposite her providing cover from the Slytherin table.
A piece of parchment shot out of the goblet. Dumbledore caught it swiftly.
"Could he perhaps have been a seeker in his younger years?", Hermione idly wondered, until his mouth opened and the air seemed to freeze over as he commenced to speak.
Sure enough, he read the name I guess you guessed already.
"Hermione Jean Granger, would you please come forward, for you are the champion for Hogwarts school."
The Hermione Jean Granger in question happily jumped up, brushed the residual crumbs of her dinner off her skirt and all but skipped over to the little room to the side where she would get instructions.
The rest of the evening passed quickly in a blur of lecherous glances from Krum's part, jealous fits from that infernal Ronald, some more suffocating hugs from the various other Weasley inhabitants of the castle, and a true Gryffindoresque party complete with overly loud music and loads of butterbeer in her honor that lasted late into the night.
