Author's Note: None
of this belongs to me. This story is
based on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling and will
feature "offstage scenes" as well as scenes from the book reinterpreted from
Hermione's point of view.
Hermione's 4th
Year
Part 3: Accio Friendship!
By Elanor Gamgee
It quickly
became clear that Ron and Harry were not about to patch things up anytime
soon. Hermione spent Monday morning's
Herbology lesson sitting between them, trying to make conversation.
"So, Ron, did
you finish your essay on Eldridge the Eccentric for History of Magic?" Hermione
asked, desperate for something to say.
"Almost," he
answered without looking in her direction. "I just need a few more feet."
"Ron! It's
due tomorrow!" Hermione realized that her schoolwork-scolding instincts were
kicking in, and fought them down. "Well, Harry's almost finished his, maybe he could—"
"Pass me the
small trowel, will you, Hermione?" interrupted Harry. Hermione glanced over; the trowel in question was on the far side
of the table, closest to Ron. Hermione
looked from one to the other, realizing that she was now quite literally
in the middle of their fight. Sighing,
she reached across the table to pick up the trowel just as Ron leaned over and
handed it to her. He gave her a small
smile before looking back down to his tray of Bouncing Bulbs.
Hermione
handed the trowel to Harry and went back to repotting bulbs in silence. If her two friends didn't start talking
soon, this would be a very long year.
The next few
days did very little to raise Hermione's hopes. Ron had taken to hanging around with his brothers, and, as his
brothers were friends with just about everyone in Gryffindor, that left very
few people for Harry to spend time with. Hermione stuck with Harry partially out of habit, and partially because
she know with excruciating precision how miserable it was to be left on your
own when your friends were angry at you.
But it was
worse for Harry, she had to admit. To
Ron's constant chagrin, the other Gryffindors seemed to think Harry was some
kind of hero. However, students from
the other houses threw him dirty looks when he passed, and didn't bother to
keep their voices down when they said insulting things about him.
In Charms one
morning, Hermione could see that Harry was in a particularly vile mood. He had told her that Professor Trelawney had
predicted 3 different excruciating deaths for him in her class the day
before. Then, to make things worse, he
had no luck with the Summoning Charms they were working on in Professor
Flitwick's class.
"Mr. Potter,
I would like you to do some extra work on this charm before the next class,"
squeaked Professor Flitwick, eyeing the inert pile of erasers Harry was
supposed to be summoning to him. "You
too, Mr. Longbottom," he called, moving across the classroom.
Hermione saw
Ron look over at the table where she was sitting with Harry. She couldn't read his expression, but she
was fairly certain he had been about to say something nice to Harry, perhaps
out of force of habit. He remained
silent, however, turning his attention back to his own Summoning Charm.
After Charms,
Hermione reassured Harry as they made their way to the Great Hall for lunch. If
he would just concentrate, he would get the hang of the spell soon
enough. She could see why he might have
difficulties concentrating these days, though.
At lunch,
Harry chose a seat at the opposite end of the table from Ron. Hermione saw him sneak a look at Ron's end
of the table as she sat down across from him.
"You've got
to talk to him sometime, Harry," she began. "This is getting ridiculous—"
"I'm not
talking to him," said Harry flatly. "Let him talk to me."
"Fine, forget
I mentioned it," said Hermione irritably, reflecting that she had never been
interrupted so often as when she tried to get her two best friends to speak to
one another.
When Hermione and Harry arrived at Snape's dungeon after lunch, an unpleasant sight awaited them. All of the Slytherins in their Potions class were waiting outside the classroom, and Hermione could see right away that they were up to something. Just what they were up to quickly became evident.
"Like them,
Potter?" said Draco Malfoy in his insolent way, showing off a large badge on
the front of his robes. The badge said,
in bright red lettering:
Support
CEDRIC DIGGORY—
The
REAL Hogwarts Champion!
"And this
isn't all they do—look!" continued Malfoy, as he pressed the badge into his
chest, causing the red letters to be replaced with green ones:
POTTER
STINKS
Harry was
turning bright red. Hermione felt her
own temper building as she heard the mean-spirited giggles of Pansy Parkinson
and her friends. Hermione intensely
disliked Pansy—she had ever since she had heard Pansy taunting Neville in their
first year. (Taunting Neville, in
Hermione's opinion, was like kicking a puppy.) And their laughter was the last thing Harry needed right now, with
everything else that was going on. Hermione could sense Ron watching the scene from his place by the wall
with Dean and Seamus. The three of them
were very quiet, neither laughing nor saying a word.
"Oh, very
funny," Hermione said scathingly to Pansy and her friends, "really witty."
Malfoy turned
his detestible little ferret-face on her. "Want one, Granger?" he said with false friendliness, holding out a
badge in her direction. "I've got
loads. But don't touch my hand,
now. I've just washed it, you see,
don't want a Mudblood sliming it up."
Hermione felt
her cheeks flush, and had opened her mouth to say something sarcastic to
Malfoy, when she saw Harry reach for his wand. "Harry!" she cried warningly.
The other
students were rushing to get out of the way as Malfoy drew his own wand. In the confusion, Hermione couldn't hear
what Malfoy said to Harry. For a
moment, she thought they had reached a standoff, as the two boys stared at each
other without moving. Then, without
warning, they both screamed curses and flung their wands forward.
Hermione
didn't see exactly what happened, just a burst of light from each wand, and
then a sort of flash in the space between them. Before she had figured out what was going on, she felt something
hit her hard in the mouth, and then her head seemed to grow heavier. With a whimper of shock, she put her hands
to her mouth and felt her front teeth growing increasingly larger.
"Hermione!" She felt Ron's hand on her back. He came around in front of her and pulled at
her hands, which were over her mouth. "Let me see," he said softly, watching her with a terrified sort of concern. He succeeded in pulling her hands away from
her mouth and suddenly stepped back in alarm. Hermione reached up and felt her teeth again; they were now nearly to
the collar of her robes. Hermione's
eyes widened and she let out a strangled sob. Quickly she tried to cover her mouth again with her hands.
She suddenly
became aware that the hallway had grown quiet. She looked up and saw Professor Snape pointing at Malfoy. "Explain," he was saying, in a deadly voice.
Malfoy and
Harry started shouting explanations at the same time. As Malfoy gestured towards Goyle, Hermione looked over and saw
that large ugly boils had appeared all over the nose of Malfoy's thuggish
friend.
"Hospital
wing, Goyle," said Snape emotionlessly.
Ron stepped
forward. "Malfoy got Hermione! Look!" he said indignantly, dragging Hermione's hands away from her
mouth again. Her teeth were now past
her collar and still growing. Hermione
could feel hot tears of embarrassment welling up as she saw Pansy Parkinson and
the other Slytherin girls giggling silently behind Snape's back.
Snape stared
at her maliciously for a moment. "I see
no difference," he said airily.
This was too
much. The tears Hermione had barely
been containing now spilled out. She
wrenched her hands away from Ron and ran all the way back up the corridor, her
heavy school bag thumping at her back.
She didn't stop until she reached
the Hospital Wing. Goyle had gotten
there slightly ahead of her, but Madame Pomfery took one look at Hermione's
giant teeth and told him that he would have to wait.
She led Hermione into a small,
curtained-off area. "I'm not going to
ask you how this happened, young lady, but I hope it wasn't another appearance
experiment. I should hope you would
have learned your lesson after having a tail for several weeks!"
Hermione wanted to tell Madame
Pomfrey that this wasn't her fault, but she couldn't speak with the giant
teeth. Instead, she sniffled slightly, which made Madame Pomfrey look at her
kindly.
"Now, now, dear, don't fret, we'll
soon set you right." The nurse sat
Hermione down on a stool and handed her a round mirror. "I'll start shrinking them and you tell me
when they're back to normal."
Hermione nodded miserably and
watched as Madame Pomfrey raised her wand. The teeth began to shrink slowly. It really was amazing that something like this could be fixed so easily
with magic, especially when she thought about how much trouble dentists like
her parents had fixing Muggle teeth. Hermione had always hated her large front teeth; she thought they made
her look like a horse. Ironic, really,
that this would be the curse that hit her, when she was so sensitive
about her teeth already…
Suddenly Hermione realized she had
a wonderful opportunity. She watched as
her teeth shrunk smaller and smaller under Madame Pomfrey's wand, and decided
to let her carry on a bit longer. Her
parents may want her to get braces, but why should she when this opportunity
was staring her in the face?
"Done," Hermione said a moment
later, when her teeth were slightly smaller than they had been before the
curse. Normal sized, she thought
to herself.
"Yes, of course, dear," said
Madame Pomfrey with a knowing smile.
Hermione stayed in the hospital
wing for the rest of the afternoon; Madame Pomfrey had insisted she stay and
"let her teeth rest and regain their strength." Hermione suspected that Madame Pomfrey wanted to give her a
chance to recover from the embarrassment, and she was grateful. Nothing could have persuaded Hermione to
return to Potions class that day, even if she was missing an important
lesson.
At dinnertime, Madame Pomfrey even brought her a tray of food. When Hermione had finished eating, Madame Pomfrey inspected her teeth once more and told her she could leave whenever she was ready. "Oh, and you have a visitor," the nurse added, with a slight twinkle in her eye.
Hermione looked at the door,
expecting to see Harry. But it was
Ron. He approached her bed, looking a
little nervous.
"Are—are you alright?" he asked.
Hermione smiled slightly (she
wasn't quite used to her new teeth yet, and she hoped no one would
notice). "Yes, Madame Pomfrey got me
all sorted out."
Ron looked relieved that she
wasn't crying anymore. "Good." He hesitated for a moment, then burst out,
"Snape is really a lousy git!"
"Ron! Keep your voice down."
"Well, he is—"
"I know that, but it doesn't help
to shout about it. What did you cover
in Potions?"
"Antidotes again," said Ron dully.
"Oh, I was afraid of that," said Hermione worriedly. "I do need to work more on mine. Did you take good notes?"
Ron just raised his eyebrows at
her. "Right," she said, with a
slightly annoyed laugh, "What was I thinking?" She paused a moment, then decided to go for it. "Where's Harry?" she asked in a voice more
timid than she meant it to be.
Ron gave her the same exasperated
look he did whenever she brought up Harry. "How should I know? He was
called away during Potions for a special photo session for Triwizard
Champions…" he trailed off bitterly.
Hermione sighed deeply. "Ron, you two have got to talk
sometime. I can't stand this much
longer. Do you have any idea what
Harry's going through right now? It's
bad enough with someone out to get him, and the Slytherins tormenting him, but
you not talking to him makes it ten times worse!"
Ron rolled his eyes impatiently,
but Hermione thought she saw his face register some concern even so. He opened his mouth, closed it, then started
again. "What about you?" he said, a
familiar belligerent note in his voice. "You've made it perfectly clear who you are friends with, hanging
out with Harry all the time."
"Don't be silly!" exclaimed Hermione. "You've monopolized Harry's other friends. What was I supposed to do? Leave him all on his own like you two did to me last year? I wouldn't wish that on either one of you!"
Whatever Ron had expected her to
say, it wasn't that. Indeed, Hermione
herself was surprised to hear the words come out of her mouth. She had always thought that she didn't carry
a grudge about the arguments of their third year; still, it hadn't escaped her
notice that she was being a lot better friend to Harry than he had been in her
situation.
Ron looked up in surprise and met
Hermione's gaze. She looked back at
him, unsure of what to say next. Once
they had made up last year, she had never really let on how much it hurt that
Ron and Harry had ignored her for several months.
Ron broke the silence. "Was it…that bad?"
Hermione looked away. "Awful. But that's not the point. The
point is, you and Harry need to talk to one another." Ron seemed about the object, so Hermione
went on. "Come on, you can walk me back
to the Common Room."
And they left the Hospital Wing,
Ron carrying Hermione's heavy bag over one shoulder.