Mine Protector
Chapter 10: Double-Whammy

Ron Weasley had a special Quidditch tradition--one which had been practised by all the Weasley brothers before him. On the evening prior to the year's season-opening Gryffindor game, he slept out on the Quidditch pitch for good luck. "Brilliant strategy," Charlie had always claimed. "Gives your body a feel for the pitch over night--gets your very blood revved up to play!" All the Weasley brothers thus swore by this method. Harry and Hermione thought them mad, of course, and refused to participate, but until this year, Ron at least had Fred and George to keep him company. Usually, the inclusion of the twins promised many pilfered bottles of butterbeer, savory meat pies, large quantities of honeyduke's fudge, and games of exploding snap played by wand-light. But now that Fred and George were gone, it looked as though Ron was the first Weasley brother who would have no familial company on the night before the Quidditch opener.

Even if it meant going it alone, though, Ron would have rather bathed in undiluted bobotuber pus than be the first Weasley brother to forgo the annual sleep-out tradition. So on Friday night, as expected, he dragged his broomstick and sleeping bag down to the Gryffindor common room, making it plain to everyone that he was going through with his ritual, come hell or high water.

"Herm?...Harry? You sure you wouldn't like to join?" He asked hopefully. Both Harry and Hermione were playing chinese checkers at a roomy table, drinking hot cocoa that Ginny had brewed up over the fireplace.

"No way, pal," Harry said good-naturedly. Hermione said nothing, only pressed her lips together and shook her head faintly. She'd been under the weather all day, supposedly, and had even skipped out on potions class to take a nap up in her room. ("Health before schoolwork?" Ron had joked. "You must be losing your edge, old girl.")

"Allright!" Ron exclaimed. "Just don't cry to me when you're slower than treacle tomorrow."

"Somehow, I don't think sleeping out in the cold will improve my performance," Hermione replied shrewdly, then took a giant slug of her cocoa.

"Geez, what a grouch," Ron said lightly. And with that he tucked his sleeping bag under one arm, and pressed the broomstick to his shoulder, soldier-fashion. He gave both of his friends a little salute and started to slip through the portrait hole. Before he made it all the way through, though, Hermione jumped out of her seat and ran to him, that look of familiar apprehension on her face.

"Ron.." she breathed, holding the portrait open and looking out into the hallway where he stood. "Are you sure you should go out alone tonight, after what happened in the dungeons last weekend?"

"Pish..." he said dismissively, waving a hand. "Sleeping on the Quidditch pitch is a Weasley tradition, but it's also a secret tradition. No one will even know I'm there. Oh course, if you're that worried, you can always join me..."

She smiled a little. "No thanks. But be careful, okay?"

"Sure," he said, shrugging, and she backed away, leaving the portrait frame to slide shut behind him.

---

Outside, the fog made a stark umbra of the forbidden forest, and Ron had to walk quite a ways before he even saw the Quidditch pitch. For the first time, the stands looked nothing like a place of glory; instead, they seemed to rise up from the gloom like the entrance to some forbidden cathedral, wind warbling through the ruined corridors. To keep himself cheerful, he forced himself to whistle, and he didn't stop until he reached the grass that lay directly below the Gryffindor keeper zone; being the keeper, he expected that this was the luckiest spot to unroll his sleeping bag. He did so, and was relieved to climb in and zip it up to his chin; the bag itself was magically charmed to keep him toasty, no matter how frosty the weather became.

He stared up at the stars which, thanks to some significant cloud-cover, seemed to dip in and out of existence. He could just imagine the announcer tomorrow: "AND THANKS TO THE SKILLS OF THEIR KEEPER, RON WEASLEY, THE GRYFFINDORS FORCE SLYTHERIN'S OFFENSE TO A STANDSTILL!....."

The words were still echoing through his head when he dozed off.

---

By the time the Gryffindor Quidditch team strolled out to the pitch the next morning, garbed in their scarlet robes, their keeper was no where to be found. There was certainly evidence that Ron had been there, however; his sleeping bag was rumpled at one end of the field alongside his prized broomstick.

"What in the world..." Harry muttered, rubbing his forehead. "HERMIONE...COME 'ERE," he shouted, and Hermione, who was thirty feet up on her broom, searching the grounds from above, executed an impressive dive and swooped down to the grass, landing neatly at his side.

"His stuff is still here," she said, her anxious expression deepening.

"Which means that he probably didn't go too far. He'd never walk five feet away from that broom."

She met Harry's eyes. "Yes, but what if someone *took* him away?" The stands were already beginning to fill with Quidditch enthusiasts, and Madame Hooch and the Slytherin team could be seen just outside the pitch, preparing to enter.

"Don't even *think* that way, Hermione!" he exclaimed, then put on his no-nonsense, I'm-the-captain face.

Draco Malfoy, apparently, had caught wind that something was going wrong for the Gryffindors. He strolled over to Hermione with his Nimbus 2001 cocked at his hip, looking quite pleased with himself. "Heard you're missing a keeper, Granger. Pity."

"He'll show up, Malfoy," she said evenly.

He leaned forward, an eager sneer spreading over his face. "Do you really think so? I wouldn't be so sure, Mudblood."

Hermione nearly dropped her broom. Seeing her startled, Draco only smiled wider--and it worried her that it was probably the closest thing to a genuine smile that she'd ever seen from Malfoy. "You know something about this, don't you?" she asked coolly, though it was taking everything in her power not to strangle him then and there.

He only tittered slightly, and before she could interrogate him further, she was distracted by Harry's shouts. "Here he is! He's here!" He waved frantically in her direction, and she was relieved to see Ron pull up beside him, breathing hard, as if he'd been running.

"RON....are you okay?" She hurried to join both boys on the sidelines. Indeed, Ron was kneeling over and massaging a cramp in his side. His face was sweaty and vividly crimson.

"Yeah," he panted. "Something weird happened, though.."

"What was it?" Harry asked, squeezing his shoulder lightly.

He waved a hand as if to shoo them away. "I'll tell you later. We gotta get the game started....tell Hooch we're ready."

Hermione's brow wrinkled. "Are you sure? You look exhausted, Ron."

"Of course I'm sure!" he said, irritated. "But please, promise me you will send a bludger straight up Malfoy's arse today, Hermione."

She couldn't help but chuckle, and pivoted her head to see Malfoy and his cronies, Crabbe and Goyle, talking in a tight little circle at the other end of the field, looking quite disappointed at Ron's late arrival. She was suddenly positive that somehow, Malfoy had been involved in whatever had happened to Ron last night. Her eyes narrowed, and she realized that perhaps it *was* high time that Malfoy get the message: lay off her friends, or pay the price.

Hooch's shrill whistle called them over to the center of the pitch. By now, the stands were full, and the spectators were beginning to roar and cheer, waving banners of red and green. The Gryffindors faced off with the Slytherins, ready to mount their brooms, and the noise from the crowd became near-deafening.

"So it's come time for the girly-beaters first game," Malfoy drawled, the focus of his antagonism not Harry, as it usually was, but Hermione.

"Fuck off, Malfoy!" Seamus said; being the other Gryffindor beater, he was quick to defend his partner.

"That's enough!" Hooch snapped. "Now I expect a good clean game. Best of luck!" With that, she blew on her whistle again and all fourteen players shot up simultaneously; with a second whistle the quaffle, the bludgers, and the snitch were released.

Hermione had been practising with the Quidditch team since last spring, but this was her first time playing in front of a crowd, a presence which she found both overwhelming and thrilling at once. Virtually riding on a wave of the crowd's noise, she coasted backwards, club in hand, and effortlessly sent a bludger rocketing towards one of the Slytherin chasers. The bludger failed to make contact, but very nearly grazed the chaser's nose, who was then so taken by surprise that he stopped short on his broom, offering Katie Bell the opportunity to shoot forward and score.

"AND GRYFFINDOR'S NEW BEATER IS LOOKING TO PUT A KINK IN SLYTHERIN'S OFFENSE!" Justin Finch-Fletchley crowed, his voice booming out in stereo around them.

After that, things were less easy. Crabbe and Goyle, the Slytherin beaters, began to concentrate their attacks on Hermione, while Malfoy was free to mimic Harry's flight patterns a few feet above them. Malfoy was a decent flyer, but he lacked Harry's intuition; as a seeker he strategized by tailing and distracting the opposing seeker, rather than actually watching for the snitch itself. Unfortunately, he'd gotten this dirty bit of playing down to a near art-form.

"SLYTHERIN SCORES!" Justin shouted, and Hermione had to loop upside-down to avoid Crabbe's wicked volley. The two ruddy lugs were slow on their brooms, but they put a whole lot of muscle behind their clubs. She did a couple of zippy figure-eights around them, fairly certain that if she kept moving, they wouldn't be able to aim for her properly.

"SLYTHERIN SCORES AGAIN!" came Justin's voice, and both she and Seamus exchanged glances. At the other end of the field, Ron was not looking good. He seemed disoriented and fighting extreme muscle fatigue; as a result, the quaffle slipped through his grasp, several times over. If Gryffindor didn't get the snitch soon, Slytherin would win.

Flying in smooth--but slower--circles around Crabbe and Goyle, Hermione looked up long enough to see that, by his motions, Harry had definitely spotted the snitch--he was only waiting to shake Draco before he made his move. Meanwhile, she glimpsed that Crabbe and Goyle were preparing to send *both* bludgers in her direction.

"Harry! Ready?" She shouted up to him. A barely perceptible nod was all she needed to put her plan into action. She ground to a mid-air halt and faced the on-coming bludgers; they were blasting towards her like angry canon-balls, one after the other, but she felt oddly serene inside. Fast as they were, they seemed small and insignificant, like gnats that she could easily dissuade. The first one came into range and instead of beating it back at Crabbe and Goyle, she socked it upwards without even looking, able to gauge Malfoy's position by the play of shadows on the ground.

"SHIT!" she heard him yelp, and with that cue, she walloped the other bludger upwards, where it eagerly pelted its already-injured target.

With an ugly *thwap*, Draco was knocked clean off his broom. He fell fast, more loose-limbed than a scarecrow, his mouth a wide, astonished "O". Hermione stifled the urge to blow kisses as he plunged past her, his shocked team-mates looking on, silent and dumb.

"POTTER GOT THE SNITCH!" Justin boomed, then added: "MALFOY CRASH-LANDS, AND POTTER GETS THE SNITCH! GRYFFINDOR WINS!"

Both teams came in for landing, and Hermione and Harry soon found themselves riding on the shoulders of their team -mates, their bodies vibrating with the immense fanfare of the crowd.

"Brilliant, fucking brilliant!" Harry shouted to her, raising his arms up in triumph. With unexpected mirth, Hermione felt giggles course through her body, which was still suspended above the shoulders of Seamus and Ron. For the first time ever, she realized that Quidditch could be more than a handy way to keep up her physical training--it could also be a load of excellent thrills, too.

A bruised and broken Malfoy was being levitated onto a stretcher while the Slytherins watched on, looking quite pitiful for once. But the rest Hogwarts had their eyes on her and Harry, and of all of them, she particularly sensed the burning, double-gaze of two men, one of whom was the brooding professor Snape, and the other embodied in the form of a large black dog, standing watch at the top of the stands.

---

It was quite some time before Harry and Hermione were able to corner Ron and ask him about his night out on the Quidditch pitch. First they had to endure a mad, celebratory luncheon feast up in the Gryffindor common room. Hermione, who hadn't been hungry at breakfast, found that she was unexpectedly ravenous; she tucked in to a shepard's pie with enthusiasm, and for dessert munched on a handful of brilliant red raspberries--all while being regaled with frame-by-frame descriptions of her own end-game defense.

"We oughta give a name to that stunt you pulled," Seamus said, shaking his head in disbelief. "The Granger double-whammy, maybe."

Hermione grinned and pushed back from the table, then said to Harry, pointedly: "I think I'd better stop eating and get to the library. Do you and Ron want to meet me there?"

Harry took the hint. "Sure," he said smoothly. "We'll see you in twenty minutes."

It was another struggle for Hermione to work her way down to the library, since other students kept stopping her in the hall to congratulate Gryffindor's win.

"Thanks...thanks very much," she chanted, trying to politely push back the small crowd. When she reached a relatively empty corridor, she pulled up to a wall and collapsed against it, trying to collect herself. She wasn't sure how she felt about this new-found fame as a Quidditch player; it certainly seemed to Wow people more than being the best student in school, but the thought of never having a moment of privacy again overwhelmed her--but surely that would all pass, wouldn't it?

"So it's our new star, Hermione Granger," a disembodied voice said, and if it hadn't been so gentle, so careful in tone, she might have attributed such a comment to Severus Snape.

Sirius stepped out of the shadows, a small smile playing at his lips; his hair was disheveled--attractively so--and he was dressed entirely in black. "That was quite some flying today. Your instincts were fascinating to witness. . .like nothing I've ever seen before."

She worked his words over carefully. This was the second time she had impressed him with her physical prowess; first swordplay, now Quidditch. She wondered if she was over-doing it.

"I got lucky," she said, and he raised his eyebrows in amusement, as if expecting her to say something along those lines. Before he could speak, she changed the subject. "I saw you up in the stands. How come you came to the game as Padfoot?"

"Ah, you saw that," he said, tipping back on his heels a little. "After all those years in hiding, I guess I'm still a little daunted by such large crowds of people. I find I prefer anonymity. . .when I can afford it, that is."

She shifted a little, unsure of how to end the conversation. "Well, I'm really pleased you were there," she said, uncertain. "I need to get to the library, though, so I expect I should be on my way. . ."

He smiled a little, but it was shadowed somehow, as if he was saddened by her obvious excuses to run off. "Always the studious one, aren't you?" he said, and stepped forward to brush a few strands of hair off her forehead. The slight touch caused her to break out in fine goosebumps, and she very nearly jolted when he leaned forward, sweeping in close to her face. She held her breath, frightened, for a moment, that he might kiss her. Instead, he spoke directly into her ear, his hot breath tickling her neck.

"Relax...." he whispered.

Relax. That single word--it gave her chills.

Then he walked away, hands stuffed in his pockets casually, sauntering with that usual, breathtaking air of confidence.

---

Later, in the library, Hermione could still feel Sirius' hot breath against her neck; her entire body felt wrapped in the warm envelope of a permanent blush. -What has come over you?...- she thought fiercely. -First you attack Snape, then you're down on the floor licking your lips for him....and now your trembling like a school-girl over Uncle Sirius!-

"You okay, Hermione?" Harry's voice drilled into her thoughts, and the heat she was feeling promptly drained away. "You look funny."

"I'm fine," she croaked. "Just a little worn out after this morning."

"You and me both," Ron said, collapsing into an adjacent chair.

"Okay, then," Harry prompted. "We brought you here to get some answers, Ron. Where the hell were you this morning?"

Ron sighed and forked his fingers through his hair, resting his head on his palms. "You just won't believe this. . ." he began.

"Try us."

"Okay, well, this is gonna sound crazy. . .but when I woke up this morning, I wasn't on the Quidditch Pitch. I was in..." he paused here, flashing them an agonizing look. "...in the cellar of Honeydukes."

"WHAT?" Harry exclaimed, thunderstruck.

Hermione felt a sharp prickle of concern raise the hairs on her neck. "In Honeydukes? But Ron...why?"

"I don't know! Maybe I was hungry and sleepwalked there, you reckon?"

"How did you feel when you woke up?" Hermione asked, dismissing his comment.

"Shitty, if you want to know the truth. My mind was fuzzy--even more so than usual. And I felt really stiff. Of course, I imagine that might be because I spent the night on a flight of steps. . ."

"This is not good, Ron," Harry said, his face now matching Hermione's dead serious expression.

"Harry's right," she continued. "It sounds like someone may have stunned you, then altered your memory. That would explain both the fatigue and the fuzzy-mindedness."

To his credit, Ron was taking this news rather well. More than anything, he seemed thoroughly confused. "But why...? What would anyone want from me?" He was used to facing danger at every turn and corner because of his friendship with Harry, but this was the first time he'd ever been singled out on his own.

"I don't know," she replied honestly. Then a silent thought surfaced: -But if what happened has anything to do with the death-eaters...then it's probable that *I* will be the one they go after next...-

Good. She'd be ready.

*********************************

That wasn't -too- cliffhangery, was it? Anyway, this particular day will be a busy one for Hermione. More post-Quidditch madness will ensue, but the chapter was getting long, so we'll save that for next time.

By the way, it really DID hurt me to knock Draco off his broom. I adore him, and though I'd love to write a story with him as a main character someday, in this particular piece I'm afraid that he remains quite the schlub. So yes, please don't hate me for sending him to the hospital wing.

Special thanks to Coffee and Loz, who have given me several warm reviews. I really appreciate it. =) And a note to Kasey, too: Sorry, but Snape really does have a sample of the VesClotho! Stay tuned to see what he does with it.