Hermione Granger's Rage

Hermione's feet had taken her all the way to Gryffindor tower as she fumed. How dare she? Hermione thought, her fists clenching unconsciously, How dare she ask me such things?

What had happened to her? Merlin, what a question. Life happened, she thought bitterly, and she faced the Fat Lady with a scowl on her face. "I don't know the password," she bit out, her shoulders stiff.

The Fat Lady glanced down to look at her and her face, painted though it was, seemed to drain of all color. "Hermione Granger," she whispered, a pudgy hand flying to her bosom, "They told me you died."

"Apparently I did," Hermione said, tilting her head. She hadn't known that portraits could see through glamours. Useful skill, that.

Without another word, the Fat Lady swung open. There was only one occupant of the common room which, thank Merlin and Morgana and their 343 disciples, was just as she remembered it. The hair color was also familiar, but Hermione was immediately on her guard. The redhead looked up, and brown eyes locked with brown.

"Who're you?" he asked suspiciously, and in response, she took out her wand. His eyes locked on the vinewood, and he immediately looked away. "Granger," he said gruffly.

"Which one are you?" Hermione asked, knowing full well "which one" he was and exactly how much that question would hurt him. Sure enough, the twin stiffened. "The unlucky one," he muttered.

"I'm sure Fred thinks that's him," Hermione said, her voice as dry as the desert.

George grit his teeth. "You're a right bitch, you know that?" he said, voice sharp.

"I'm aware," Hermione replied, and tilted her head. "Luna says I'm different from your Hermione."

The redhead glared at her. "Yeah, I can see why she'd think that." But then he looked her over, taking in the short hair, the twitchy fingers, and the sour look on her face, and realization dawned. "Any reason in particular why you're baiting me?" he asked nonchalantly.

It was Hermione's turn to stiffen defensively before she forced herself to relax, to look unconcerned. "I'm pissed and there's a shortage of targets," she said, "and if Professor Riddle never taught here, I doubt there's an official dueling room."

At the word duel, George got a flinty gleam in his eyes. "I haven't dueled in a while," he said leadingly.

"Do you have a room?" Hermione asked, unimpressed.

"I might," said George. "Think you can keep up? I've got years of experience on you."

"And Professor Riddle tutored me himself," she said dryly, "We'll see who comes out on top, yeah?"

George rose from the overstuffed couch slowly, then walked back towards the portrait hole. He gestured for Hermione to follow him, turning his back. There was what looked like dried blood in his hair, a slightly darker crimson than the strands.

"What did you do to your head?" she asked, unimpressed.

"I'm sure you saw," George replied. "Bashed it against the wall after losing a fight with the magical backlash of whatever spell the headmaster pulled out of his wrinkly—"

"I get the picture."

The redhead flashed her a disarmingly nice smile, strained as it was at the edges with stress and grief. "I'm still capable of dueling, so don't think of going easy on me," he said then.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Hermione purred, surprising herself. When had she last been able to just...relax in front of someone? To let herself banter with someone without fearing their judgement? Because she'd changed since she had first met the boys, and when she was feeling particularly self-pitying, she let herself acknowledge the fact that she was scared. Terrified, really, of their judgement. Of what they'd think of her now that she wasn't their precious bookworm anymore, because of course she still acted the part around them. She was starting to think, however, after one too many questioning glances, that she was starting to slip.

You're slipping, she thought to herself. Those two words were what always got her going. They made her do one last push-up, one last dueling routine, and study one more chapter when she was on the edge of exhaustion.

"That wasn't what got you so rattled, though," George pointed out, leading her out of the common room and into the stone corridor.

"Hmm?" she asked, snapping out of her thoughts.

"What Luna said. That's not all that got you rattled, right? What else did our resident barmy seer say to you?"

Hermione tried again to control her impulse to stiffen. "What makes you think she said something else?" she said neutrally, and concentrated on the sound her regulation shoes made on the floor. Regulation, she thought bitterly. The word embodied all that she had been and all that she refused to be.

"I knew our Hermione," George said, looking back over his shoulder at her. "I didn't know her well, that dubious honor goes to others. But she'd always get this look in her eyes when someone said something that bothered her. Really bothered her, you know? And just being compared to someone who's basically a stranger to her wouldn't have been enough to unsettle her. I'm banking on you two being just similar enough."

Hermione snorted. "You're right," she admitted. "She said something else too."

George hummed, but didn't press further. The lack of questions, of prodding, unsettled her. It was the option to just change the subject or to walk in silence that ultimately made her open her mouth.

"She asked what had happened to me," Hermione admitted.

George kept walking. "I wonder," he said quietly, except the sound echoed off the walls, making it audible. "I wonder what peacetime did to you that wartime didn't do to our Hermione."

"What was she like?" she found herself asking, suddenly interested in the life of a girl she had never met and never would meet. Because here, she was dead. Here, she had been stupid enough, reckless enough, to get herself killed. It was a sobering thought.

"Like I said, I didn't know her that well," George shrugged. "But we were in the same house and she was best friends with…" he paused, briefly, before shrugging again. "She was...loud. Loud in all of her opinions and neurotic when she found something she was passionate about. Her fourth year, she founded something called S.P.E.W.. Something about helping house elves, I think? She'd tear strips right off you for making fun of the name, she was so invested. Made these little badges too."

Hermione snorted. "That's utterly ridiculous," she told him. "Did she honestly believe a project with an acronym like that would be taken at all seriously?"

"Yes," George said, and Hermione thought she saw a flicker of a smile over his drawn face. She had sped up to walk beside him without realizing.

"She was wicked smart though," the redhead continued. "Little rule-follower, too, but even she realized keeping...keeping her friends in line was largely impossible. I remember being told about an escapade in second year that had to do with Polyjuice, cats, and leaving Malfoy's minions tied up in a closet? It was all very hush-hush but I know she had something to do with it if it involved Polyjuice."

Hermione found herself chuckling despite herself. "She sounds like she was a lot of fun."

George let out a sigh. "If you weren't on the receiving ends of one of her tirades, sure," he told her. "R-Ron," he stumbled over the name, "swore that she once got so angry that her hair started sparking at the ends. And she punched Malfoy in the face once in third year."

"Draco Malfoy?" Hermione asked then, flabbergasted. "She punched Draco Malfoy in the face? Whatever for?"

George stopped, in the middle of the hallway, and goggled at her before wiping a hand over his face. "Please, please tell me that your world's Draco Malfoy is a bigoted little shit, because if he's some saint there my brain will turn to mush. Mush, Granger, mush."

"Certainly not a saint," Hermione snorted, "Because he's certainly got a massive ego. But he is dating Hannah Abbott."

George actually tripped, stumbling slightly before righting himself quickly. "The Hufflepuff," he deadpanned. "The halfblood Hufflepuff."

"That's the one," Hermione agreed, injecting a modicum of cheer into her voice.

"I'm going to hex you," he growled. "I'm going to hex you so bad."

"Where?" Hermione asked, unimpressed as ever. If he could trip over nothing, she thought to herself, I can beat him easily, legal adult here or no.

"Here," said George, a satisfied smile on his face, as he pulled open a door to what looked like an abandoned classroom. She followed him inside, curiosity piqued.

"Your dueling room, milady," the redhead drawled, sweeping an arm out. She eyes it curiously. The desks had been shoved to the side to make room for a large space in the center and there were damaged training dummies along the wall.

"Not bad," she observed, before flicking her wand to lock and ward the door, as well as add a silencing charm. "We don't want any interruptions," she added, seeing his raised eyebrow.

He nodded and strode to the other end of the admittedly spacious room, taking his own wand out of his holster. "Standard dueling rules?" he asked.

"Which convention?" she shot back, and his lips twitched. "Salem, to make things interesting."

Hermione nodded before conjuring a feather. "When it hits the ground," she said, and let a wild grin overtake her face. Dueling was the one place where she could be free, where there weren't any expectations but the ones she set for herself, and where there was no room for careful facades.

She saw George's eyes track the feather and she dropped into her modified dueling stance. She had never fought his counterpart in her dimension, so she had no idea how he would fight. Might as well let him have the first move, then.

Professor Riddle's voice echoed in her mind as the feather drifted to the ground. "You will not win if you don't know how to effectively counter your opponent, Miss Granger. In fact, I suspect that you will lose rather painfully."

She remembered asking him if there was a difference between not-winning and losing, but that had been a long conversation she did not have the time to relive, because the feather brushed the ground and exploded into light.

Hermione heard George curse as he shielded his eyes and let her grin widen, her own eyes shut tight as she ducked into a roll. She had estimated the distance to the desks when she walked in, and when she reached out with her left hand and felt cheap wood, she knew she had been right.

Rule number one: catch your opponent off guard, she thought gleefully.

With a quick movement, she Disillusioned herself and crouched, hoping that the multiple desk legs would obscure the watery edges of the spell. Her opponent was blinking and rubbing at his eyes with one hand, maintaining a shield charm with the other. "Where'd you go," he muttered.

"Vox fragmentum," she murmured, pointing her vinewood wand to her own throat. "Oh, here, there, everywhere," she said playfully, used to the way the spell distorted her voice until it could be coming from the left, the right, and anywhere in between. The spell worked to multiply the pitch and volume of her voice. It would be vastly more efficient to just scramble his inner ear because she only had one opponent, after all, but she didn't want to shoot spells at him just yet.

George's eyes narrowed. "Conspersa," he muttered, and a cloud of flour burst out of the tip of his wand. It was the same spell McGonagall had used earlier, Hermione realized, and grinned. Hidden as she was in the desks, it wouldn't catch her. But her position did impact her maneuverability, and she needed more time to observe him.

"Ventus," she said, her voice echoing. The flour all blew to the other side of the room.

Hermione made a slashing motion with her wand. "Did you know that airborne flour is highly explosive?" she asked, her tone conversational. George paled, as with a slashing motion, she simultaneously cancelled the voice-changing spell and send a wordless Incendio out of her wand and into the still-hanging cloud. It exploded into flames, the heat reaching Hermione even though she was all the way across the room.

She had to applaud his reflexes, however, as he quickly dove out of the way. Quick, she decided, and versed in typical dueling spells. With prank spells I haven't seen yet probably up his sleeves.

"You play dirty," he called, visibly sending more magic into his Protego. Hermione crept out from underneath the desks and made her way behind him on cat's feet.

"Salem convention, remember?" she whispered in his ear, before dodging the elbow to her ribs and backing up several steps. "Headwitch Mauritania practically endorsed tricky tactics in her speech."

"Glad to know you're a bookworm in every world," George quipped. "Ready to fight for real?"

Hermione cast a quick Augamenti to extinguish the last embers of the flour-fire, which had already nearly burned itself out from lack of fuel on the stone floor. "Sure," she said, and snapped off three spells in quick succession. Stupefy, Confundus, and a tripping hex for good measure. With the ease of long practice, she staggered her aim to increase the chance of one hitting if he dropped his shield. Unfortunately, his Protego held.

Relies on his shield charm, she noted.

George snorted derisively. "I can just stand here and hold my shield indefinitely," he pointed out.

"No, you can't," Hermione said cheerfully as her image blurred out of existence. From her actual position behind and to the left of her opponent, she dispelled her illusion. Professor Riddle, when he agreed to tutor her one on one, had emphasized that part of her dueling style.

"You're not going to be a heavy hitter," Riddle pointed out bluntly, "Not unless you put in far more work than your schedule allows to improve your stamina. No, if you really want to learn how to fight…"

"Yes?" Hermione asked eagerly.

"We're going to have to make sure you play dirty. None of those regulation," derision dripped from his voice, "dueling spells. I'm thinking illusionary spells to distract and confuse your opponents, give you time for your analytical mind to poke holes in their dueling style, and then some high-impact ones to take them out of commission once you have them on the defensive. Or, at least, have them think they're on the defensive."

She had worked on her illusionary spells and transfigurations until she could do them silently, and was working on doing them wandlessly too—but her illusions tended to look...strange...without a wand focusing her intent. So when she had dodged George's instinctive elbow to the ribs, she had thought, ipse replicare, and watched her double skid out from behind him and back.

While George backed up from where her illusion had dispersed, eyes scanning the room warily, Hermione came up from behind and dug the tip of her wand into his throat. "Do you yield?" she asked.

George stiffened, before letting his shield flicker out of existence. "I yield," he sighed, and turned to face her. "How…?" he asked, looking utterly floored.

"My hologram trick can't cast," she told him, smiling slightly.

George's eyes narrowed. "So the fire—"

"Another illusion," she admitted, "Visual, and then an auditory one, plus an over-powered warming charm. And the three spells that 'hit' your shield? You never noticed that the reason it didn't take any energy out of you to hold your Protego was because nothing hit it at all."

George stared at her for a long moment before bursting out laughing. "I take back what I said earlier," he said, smiling for what must be the first time in a while. "You're not half bad, Granger."

"Thanks," she deadpanned, "Means a lot."

All in all, the fight had taken less than ten minutes. "Pretty good, for a fifth year," George teased. "You said Professor Riddle taught you?"

She nodded, and he raised his eyebrows. "That man must be a wicked duelist," he mused.

"One of the best," she confirmed. "Last I heard, he could go toe-to-toe to Dumbledore if the headmaster wasn't fighting to kill. And it's the headmaster, he's never fighting to kill."

The redhead made a sound of agreement. "Got it out of your system, then?" he asked, lapsing back into seriousness.

"Mostly," she said, shrugging, and George snorted. "Hey," he said suddenly. "While we're here, and you've taken that stick out of your arse—"

Hermione made an offended noise, but her defeated opponent waved his hand dismissively. "Admit it, you've relaxed some. Anyway, did you want to talk about it?"

Hermione was immediately on her guard. "Talk about what?" she asked suspiciously.

"What Luna said," George replied.

Hermione pressed her lips together. The answer was yes, but it was also no. She hadn't even told Ron what had happened, because she knew exactly what Luna was referring to. But she wanted desperately to talk about it, to have someone understand, even if it was this broken teenager in front of her who she had just trounced in a duel. Because Harry didn't. He couldn't, what with his basically built-in friend group carrying over from his parent's days, and the fact that Lily and James Potter would have never stood for their son being bullied.

Once, she had thought the same about her own parents.

Making a snap decision, she pressed her lips together and tossed her head. "Why not," she declared, and plopped onto a desk, all previous grace forgotten.

George settled next to her, holstering his wand.

"But first, privacy," she said firmly, and cast three more wards on the door. "Nobody's getting in here unless they're the second coming of Merlin himself, and what's said doesn't leave this room."

"Alright," George agreed easily.

Hermione let out a long sigh. "Easter hols, second year," she murmured, tapping nervously on the wooden desk. "My parents sent me a letter, saying they wanted me home…"

Hermione was excited. She was going home for Easter hols! Her parents has specifically told her that they didn't want her up at Hogwarts for the break. They wanted to spend it with her.

Well, they hadn't said the second bit, but it had been implied.

Also, she had gotten an O on her latest Transfiguration essay that she wanted to show them instead of writing it in a letter. She had fidgeted restlessly for the first hour of the train ride to London before drifting into an uneasy sleep on Ron's shoulder. She woke up to Harry's bright grin. "C'mon, 'Mione," her best friend said cheerfully, "We're here."

Hermione jumped up from her seat, jolting an also-asleep Ron. "Whuzzappenin'," Ron said blearily, pushing himself into a more upright position.

"We're here!" Hermione said excitedly, before tugging her trunk down from the overhead compartment. It thumped to the ground and the little brunette frowned. She would have to reapply the featherweight charm next time she took the train, she realized. "I'll see you all in two weeks," she said to Harry and Ron, giving them both quick, enthusiastic hugs. "Don't forget to do your homework!"

The twin groans behind her only made her smile as she dragged her trunk through the train and out onto the platform. Spotting a trolley, she hauled it on and walked briskly through the magical divide between wizarding King's Cross and the regular King's Cross. Her smile widened when she spotted a familiar head of brown hair.

Helen Granger, like Hermione, had brown hair in riotous curls that defied gravity and reason alike. She usually kept it in a high ponytail that, as she had confided to her daughter once, pulled her scalp sometimes and gave her headaches.

Dan Granger, on the other hand, was a balding man with close-cropped blonde hair. His smile was kind, as was his wife's, and they were both lovely people who had never taken a hand to her. They were just...distant, especially since Hermione had gotten her Hogwarts letter and they had to let go all their dreams of Harvard and Cambridge for her.

"Hermione," her mother greeted, and she barrelled into her mother for a hug. "Mum, Dad," she said, smiling so wide her cheeks hurt. "I've missed you."

"We've missed you too," her father said, and took the trolley handlebar from her. "Come on, then, let's get you home."

"That doesn't seem so bad," George said.

"It wasn't my parents," Hermione told him, "and it wasn't that day. It was the third day."

The first day had been...nice. Quiet, in the way Hogwarts rarely was, and distinctly mundane in the way Hogwarts never was.

Hermione hadn't minded, enjoyed it, even, but on the third day, she had started to get a little stir-crazy. So she went for a walk through her neighborhood, savoring the feeling of being home.

And then she passed the park.

"Bloody hell—is that—?"

"No way, I thought she was at some boarding school for the rest of the know-it-alls?"

"Only one way to find out, yeah? Oi, you! That you, Granger?"

Hermione turned, her hand reflexively going for her wand. Then she remembered she didn't have it. Her parents had a strict no-wizarding policy in the house, which meant she kept her wand in a drawer in her desk with the rest of her magical textbooks. She hadn't thought to bring it with her when she went out.

"That was my first mistake," Hermione murmured to George, whose face had set in grim lines. Wizards and witches almost never left their wands at home. Their entire society was dependent on them, after all. But as a muggleborn with only two years of living in the magical world, second-year Hermione Granger wouldn't have the same instinctual need to keep her wand close.

Hermione turned around. "Amy," she replied, recognizing the girl. "Amy Townsend, was it?" Her face was unfortunately reminiscent of Millicent Bulstrode, who, though both nice and competent, had never been blessed with stunning looks.

"That's me," the girl sneered, before hopping off the park bench she had been perching on like a bird.

"A vulture," Hermione opined. "Amy was like a vulture."

George only listened silently, watching her face.

"Whatcha doing back here, Granger? Is your fancy boarding school not as good as you hoped?" Amy asked, sauntering over as best as a gangly fourteen-year-old girl could.

"Visiting for the holidays," Hermione said cautiously.

Amy snorted derisively. "'Course you are," she said, flipping her lank hair over one shoulder. "What do you even do at your fuddy-duddy school? Sit around doing fuddy-duddy maths with your fuddy-duddy friends?"

Amy's entourage looked Hermione over, taking in her baggy grey sweater and ratty sneakers. "Do you even have friends?" one of them asked, clearly skeptical.

"I do," Hermione snapped, straightening. "I do have friends, and they're very nice and smart, and I learn all sorts of interesting things at school."

"Yeah?" another of Amy's friends asked. "Like what?"

Hermione took an unconscious step back, remembering the Statute of Secrecy, and clenched her jaw. "Awwww, Beaverface, you shouldn't do that," Amy cooed. "Telling lies makes your nose get longer, remember? Your face is ugly enough. You don't need to make it worse."

Hermione's anger was rising, hot and tight in her gut. Amy had always been snarky and sarcastic, but...before she had left, she had been one of Hermione's acquaintances. She had never said cruel things to her face, at least, though because she was two years ahead of Hermione, there had always been a distance between them. Advanced as she was and with Amy in remedial courses, the two of them had several classes together.

George was regarding her with a sympathetic look. He knew where this story was going. Hermione was twisting her shirt hem in her hands, but she couldn't stop the story now.

"I bet," Amy said, tapping a finger to her chin, "that you're not even going to a school for smart kids at all. You probably just transferred because nobody liked you."

"That's not true!" Hermione protested.

"The second part is," one of Amy's friends piped up. He was pretty, Hermione decided, but the sneer on his lips was anything but.

Hermione backed up a step as Amy advanced closer. "You know what, Granger?" Amy hissed, low but loudly enough that her friends could hear. "You know what I think?"

The brunette swallowed hard. "What," she said, trying to sound dismissive, but instead she sounded nervous.

"You're just a loser," Amy stage-whispered, as if telling a great secret. "A pathetic loser who makes stuff up about her school and has imaginary friends."

Hermione snapped, and before she knew it, her fist crashed into Amy's face. The girl reeled back, her nose starting to bleed, and one of her friends caught her. "You bitch," Ami growled, and wiped savagely at the blood. "You're gonna pay for that."

"She was right," Hermione said, not wanting to relive the beating that came after, and how she had lay on the pavement for a good ten minutes before dragging herself home. "I did pay for it."

"Merlin," George breathed, putting a tentative hand on her shoulder. "You were what, twelve?" Hermione nodded. "The worst part was," she said softly, all the fight drained out of her, "Was that I told my parents."

George's brows knit together. "What did they do?"

Hermione slammed a fist down on the desk next to her, startling George. "Nothing," she hissed. "Absolutely fucking nothing. Said I shouldn't have punched Amy in the first place."

"The bitch deserved it," George said, with surprising vitriol. "Picking on a little kid? That's just…" he exhaled sharply.

"I spent the rest of break holed up in my room, owl-ordering defense books. I thought, what if someone at school was like that? They could probably beat me with blindfolded. I never, ever wanted to be caught off guard again, especially not by a wizard." Hermione shrugged. "And when I got back to school, I went to Professor Riddle and begged him to teach me on the side."

"He said yes, just like that?"

Hermione snorted. "He made me work for it," she admitted, sighing. "Taught me one routine, told me I better have it perfect by next week or else he wouldn't deem me adequate to take on as his protege."

"Did you?"

"No," the brunette said, remembering all of his barbed comments about her form, her footwork, and everything from the angle of her feet to the position of her fingers on her wand. "But it was close enough. And now…" she waved her arm in a mockery of the gesture George had made earlier, "Here I am."

"Here you are," he agreed, somewhat enigmatically. "I'm glad you told me."

"I'm glad, too," she said. She then took out her wand and dismantled the wards before opening the doors. "Shall we make our way back?" she asked, feeling...lighter, somehow.

George nodded. "Gryffindor Tower awaits," he said, letting a half-smile tug at his mouth.

When they got back to the Fat Lady, she swung open without a word. "Where were you?" Harry (glamoured) burst out.

"Dueling," Hermione said, glancing somewhat guiltily at George, who was stone-faced once more. "Castle's on lockdown," Ron (also glamoured) said grimly.

"Why?" Hermione asked, caught off guard.

"Someone attacked the wards," a prefect standing by the fireplace called. "Might as well make yourself comfortable. We'll be here until the problem is dealt with."

"I should be out there," George muttered.

"Go," Hermione said, and, seeing his indecision, let her own mouth twist into a half-smile. "You're probably needed."

With a nod and one final concerned look, George left through the portrait hole and Hermione sat beside her friends, calling up her friendliest facade.

"So," she said, "What'd I miss?"

"Not much," Harry said, shrugging. "We got crammed in here with everyone else." Ron nodded in agreement.

With unease roiling in her stomach, Hermione watched the flames. "On the day we get here, too," she murmured.

Omake: Stupid Harry Potter jokes

Draco was giggling to himself in the very back of the Hogwarts library. Concerned, his friend Theodore Nott walked over and sat down. "Drake…?" Theo said cautiously, "You alright, mate?"

Draco just kept giggling.

"Something funny?"

"Your name," Draco gasped, "Everyone's names!"

"Draco, have you been snorting Peruvian Darkness Powder again? You don't know what the Weasley twins even put in that…"

"No, no, hear me out," the blonde said, sitting straight up. He grinned, a thoroughly disquieting expression on his normally pinched and frowning face. "Theodore Nott?" he asked, and began to cackle "More like Theodore THOT!"

Theo, aghast, looked away from his cackling friend. He caught Crabbe's eye as the boy hid behind a bookshelf. "He's been giggling to himself for thirty minutes," the normally taciturn minion said, "I think you set him off again."

In the quiet of the library, Theo could make out the quiet thumps of a skull against a bookcase.

"Goyle's been doing that for the last fifteen," Crabbe whispered.

"Oi, Theo," Draco said, sniffling as he tried to hold in his laughter. "So, there's that meme, right?"

Meme? Theo mouthed at Crabbe, who only shrugged his massive shoulders. He turned his attention back to Draco. "Meme," the blonde said impatiently. "The 'hiss hiss, I'm a snake' meme?"

"Sure…?" Theo replied.

"Okay, but...Professor Snape."

Theo looked at him blankly.

"Snip snip, I'm a Snape," Draco said, making a scissor motion with his right hand, and began to cackle anew.

A/N Non-canon spells (I made them up using English to Latin on Google Translate):

Vox fragmentum: fragment voice

Conspersa: flour

Ipse replicare: replicate myself

343 disicples—7 to the power of 3, both extremely magically significant numbers.

Salem Convention—I wrote some backstory on the blog.

Genjustu Hermione, anyone? Naruto fans will recognize that my writing here is heavily inspired by the anime, but adapted to the constraints of HP, and consequently Hermione here is rather reminiscent of some fanon characterizations of Sakura. Just as another nod, Hermione's tormentor has the same first name as Sakura's when she was younger and bullied for her forehead. Dimension B!Hermione and fanon!Sakura are honestly just similar enough that I couldn't resist.

Also, I basically wrote this giant chapter in one night, because, unlike the last chapter, this one came really easily. Please review if you find errors or if you have suggestions for improving my fight scenes—I'm working on making them more interesting—actually, just please review in general. They honestly make my day. Er, night.

And school is finally over, so I'll have more writing time!

#nobetawedielikemen

Edit: Fixed some typos, changed Ami to Amy (because Amy does flow better in an English setting, thank you Guest!), and added an omake.

Edit Edit: FFNET DECIDED TO REMOVE ALL OF MY FORMATTING, SO I HAD TO FIX THAT. *tears hear out in frustration*