Disclaimer: HP not mine. Neither is one bit of a Crystal rant, which I stole from something... don't remember what though. (love perfect recall *grin*)
AN: Did you see the Blue Raspberry jokes last chappie? And this is the chapter where I introduce the "lovely" beginnings of Hermione's issues, so keep an open mind and be prepared for anything!
And so maybe I'm being a little hard on her, and maybe you'll think, as Ron put it so nicely, that "someone can't be feeling all those things at once, she'd explode!", but believe me, a person can. And I'd know.
Oh yea, and... bleah... this is not OoTP-complient. I will use things from it, but... like I said.
Another thing you're going to notice is that I have no flipping clue how the prefect thing works. Is it a girl and a boy from each house in 5th, 6th, and 7th years plus a head girl and boy who are only allowed to be 7th years? (excuse me while my head explodes from the mere thought of constantly working with that many characters)
So what I'm going to do is figure that there are two prefects from each house - one boy and one girl - that remain the prefects for that house until they graduate or become head boy/girl. When that happens, a 5th year is picked for the place. If that explanation threw you for a loop, e-mail me or something and I'll try to explain it better.
And I'll try to use as many "real" characters as my lovely little brain can conjure up, I really will ^^;; And try not to shoot me if I get somebody's age wrong.
Chapter Two: Lively Motion
Hermione walked into the great hall slightly behind Harry and Ron. The sky-roof was cloudy, and no stars shone. The first-years were sorted, none of them catching Hermione's attention except the new Gryffindor who looked remarkably like a calico cat.
"Hi! I'm Crystal Earth! Who're you?" she rattled in a painfully soprano voice the literal moment the banquet began.
"Hermione Granger."
"You're one of the new prefects this year, right? Mama told me all about Hogwarts and prefects and OWLs and NEWTs and the professors and Dumbledore of course but I didn't want her explanation of the twelve uses of dragon's blood again, so I..." Hermione tuned her out for her own sanity, hoping the girl wouldn't take too much of a liking to her.
"New friend?" Ron asked, snickering.
"Goddess forbid." Hermione quietly groaned back. "At the very least I'd have to break her of the habit of talking in very long run-on sentences."
"...but then she grabbed my pigtails and turned them green and they stayed that way for a week even with the bubblegum shampoo and I was so mad I woulda stomped on all the flowers and shoved them in my mouth and puked them all back up and then stomped on them all over again then painted her all sorts of pretty colors from the sticky goo but we didn't have any flowers so I couldn't do that so instead I..."
Ron blinked more than once and looked at Crystal as if she were something very large and purple for a moment before turning back to Hermione. "Is she sane?" he asked.
"I'm beginning to wonder that myself." she whispered back. From somewhat down the table a second-year yelled,
"Crystal, lay off the cauldron cakes! They have waaaaay too much sugar for you."
"Echo I'm fine can't you tell that there's no worries for Crystal because I haven't had that much sugar today not as much as usual at least maybe ten packets but that's it so don't worry and did you know your hair is half blue?" Glances were exchanged between everyone in hearing range.
"So anyway, Hermione," Harry began. "are you ready for the first day of classes?" Hermione turned and grinned at him and Ron.
"You bet! I can't... wait...?" Behind Harry and Ron the doors of the great hall had opened and a very farmiliar-looking redhead had stepped through. Hermione stared at him, trying to place a name with the face. At the head table, Dumbledore stood again.
"And I see that our defense against the dark arts teacher has arrived! Please welcome Professor Bill Weasley!" Overall, an immense cheer and tumultuous applause greeted Ron's older brother. Ron's jaw dropped and his eyes bugged out.
"Bill!?" He exclaimed almost loud enough to be heard over the noise of greeting. Hermione glanced over at the Slytherin table. Malfoy was halfway between a scowl and complete surprise.
"Hey all!" Bill greeted when he got up to the teachers' platform.
"Ron, is that your brother?" Lavender asked dreamily from down the table.
"Um, yea." He replied, still sounding shocked.
"Looks like we won't have a nutter for a defense against the dark arts prof this year." Harry commented, surprise in his voice.
"Are you kidding?? He MUST be a nutter if he took that job!" Ron replied, casting another incredulous look in Bill's direction.
"Oh, come on Ron, it can't be THAT bad to have him working here." Hermione replied gently.
"But Hermione, you know as well as anybody else that the position is cursed! I mean look at what's happened to the last four teachers!" He held up a hand and started counting them off on his fingers. "One dead, one without his memory, one shunned because he's a werewolf, and one locked up in his own trunk all year!"
"Except, Ron, that all those teachers except Lockhart ended up that way because they were either in league with You-Know-Who or he had a grudge against him. And Lockhart was stupid enough to use your broken wand." Hermione stated cooly. Ron looked at her, then over at Harry who looked sheepish and nodded, and sighed.
"Okay, okay, so maybe Bill isn't going to be so bad off. But if he's being carried home in a matchbox at the end of the year, remember that I told you so!" Harry chuckled and, after a moment's hesitation, patted Ron's shoulder warmly.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Hermione lay sprawled out on her bed in the Gryffindor 5th-year girls' room, staring at the canopy. 'Harry was busy...' she was thinking. 'That is, seeing Ron for the first time since last year. He was occupied with his own thoughts. And Ron... he was too busy talking to Harry about Quidditch and summer and Bill to notice.' she turned over and groaned into her pillow. 'Tomorrow they won't be so tied up though. Breakfast I can get away with, but lunch and dinner...'
"Hermione?" came a voice from outside of the curtains. She pushed herself up on her elbows so her face wasn't in the pillow.
"Yeah?" she called back.
"Oh good, you're awake. Come out for a sec?" Hermione pulled a cord and the bedcurtains opened. Parvati sat on her own bed, holding a CD player and earphones. "Can you make this work?"
"Well, I can try." she held out her hands. "Here, let's see what we can do."
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Hermione was mumbling something at her porridge the next morning when Harry arrived at the breakfast table.
"Maybe it would run off an extract of phoenix feathers..." Harry caught when he got close enough.
"What could run off phoenix feathers?" he asked, startling her out of her thoughts.
"Oh, Harry, it's just you." she caught her breath and tried to slow her racing heart. "Parvati's CD player. We were trying to make it work in a place like this even though it's mechanical and we got everything except the power source. And that was an extract of phoenix feathers, not just the feathers themselves."
Harry raised an eyebrow and propped his chin on his hand. "And where, persay, are you planning to get extract of phoenix feathers from?"
Hermione smiled. "Well, it's not hard to make if you've got the feathers themselves. I was thinking of asking Dumbledore for some from the next time Fawkes molts. I think he'd approve of the cause."
Harry looked thoughtful. "Yes... he probably would, wouldn't he?" he finally commented. "For someone as old as he... at least seems to be... he's very open to new ideas." He glanced at Hermione's full bowl of porridge. "Not hungry?" he asked.
"No..." she said and refused to meet Harry's eyes. "I got out of the habit of breakfast over summer. Not really hungry at this hour of the morning." Harry shrugged.
"Alright. I never really have been either in the mornings, now that you mention it."
Inwardly, Hermione wondered if Harry had guessed already. He did know her better than anyone else, especially after the letters they had exchanged over the summer.
"Hey guys!" called a familiar voice suddenly, breaking the slight tension. Ron sat down across from Harry and flashed a brilliant smile at the two. Hermione glanced at Harry, who suddenly seemed much more amiable.
"Hey Ron." he replied after a short moment, watching the redhead dish up porridge for himself. Ron started to look back up at him, and Harry quickly looked back over at Hermione. "So how would you get a CD player to run on extract of phoenix feathers?"
Hermione looked up from her cereal at the boys and noted that Ron was looking at Harry with a slightly puzzled expression on his face. She guessed he had caught the back end of Harry's ungraceful attempt to look nonchalant. "By hooking some up to the CD player in a battery-like fashion. See, I think that it's just the muggle power sources that don't work around Hogwarts - like batteries. So if we hook up a magic-based power source it should work fine." She took a breath and studied their expressions to see if they had understood. Ron seemed to have caught most of it, and Harry got it all. "Get it?" she asked anyway.
"What's a CD sayer?" asked Ron. Harry jumped into explaining, something which made Hermione smile fondly at them.
It took most of the mealtime for Harry to explain CD players to Ron, and near the end Hermione found Alicia Spinnet and Lee Jordan standing behind her. Lee was the male Gryffindor prefect, and Alicia head girl.
"Hey guys." Hermione said, twisting around in her seat.
"Hi Hermione. I was going to give you this last night, but you weren't in the common room long enough." Alicia handed over what looked to be a normal piece of parchment, with
Meeting of all Prefects and Heads - Headmaster's Office - After the last bell on the first classday
printed at the top in loopy handwriting. Hermione looked up at her questioningly. "It's like the ultimate billboard. All the Prefects and the Heads have one, as well as Dumbledore and the House Heads. Every time somebody writes on one, it shows up on all the others until the time included in the entry has passed."
"Very cool." Hermione commented, earning a smile from Alicia and a grin from Lee. "And thanks. I'll be sure to check it often."
"Wise words." Lee said. "Seeya, Hermione."
"Bye!"
"Lee being a prefect seems very odd to me." Ron commented offhandedly, and Hermione turned back around. "But I guess when it was a choice between him and Fred and George..." he smiled. "It figures Percy would have had to become Head Boy the year they were the only replacements."
"He seems to be responsible enough though." Hermione replied. "He just likes having fun too." Ron scrunched his eyebrows and looked at her oddly.
"Y'know, Mione, last year you would have called their jokes 'disruptive' and 'childish'." he grinned. "What'd you do? Pull a good one on someone over summer break?" Hermione just shook her head and smiled.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
The first day of classes at Hogwarts included nothing particularly exciting for the Gryffindor fifth-years. Transfiguration was just as it had always been, History of Magic couldn't have been more boring if Professor Binns tried, and Herbology and Charms were nice but not exactly invigorating either. The most interesting part of the schoolday, in fact, was probably finding out that Potions with the Slytherins was first the next day, followed by Defense Against the Dark Arts.
"You coming to the common room, Hermione?" Harry asked as she began going the opposite way when they left the Charms room.
"In a bit. There's a prefects meeting first."
"Okay. Seeya then!"
"Seeya!"
The stairway to Dumbledore's office was already revealed, and when she got to the top, she found that most of the others were already there - including Draco Malfoy.
'Damn.' she thought. 'I forgot he's the new one for Slytherin.' Luckily, he was already busy talking to who she presumed to be the other Slytherin prefect - a short-statured girl with long light pink hair and pale blue eyes. Quietly, Hermione made her way over to a couch along one wall and sat next to Lee.
"It's a bigger group than you'd think, eh, Hermione?" he asked when she looked the group over again with slightly widened eyes.
"Yeah. I'm surprised, there's three people I've never even seen before."
"I can tell you who they are, point 'em out to me." The first one was a boy with light brown hair and green eyes, who sat talking to Cho Chang on a couch across from theirs. "That's Gozol Tennousei. New Ravenclaw prefect, he's a 5th year like you. He seems alright so far. Friendly fellow, that is." Next was a very tall boy with his ginger-red hair in a long pigtail down his back, and his eyes were bright blue. She found herself reminded of Bill Weasley. "Kado Sorasol. Hufflepuff 6th year. Kind of keeps to himself, but he's cool." The last one she pointed to was the pink-haired girl talking to Malfoy. "Ah, Cosimia Dagaz. Slytherin, 6th year. She's sort of a recluse too, doesn't talk unless spoken to and usually the only ones who will do that are the heads, teachers and other Slytherin. But I don't think I've ever heard of her giving anybody a hard time, unlike her friend there."
Hermione rolled her eyes and smiled. "Malfoy? No kidding. I hope he doesn't rub off on her."
"But, as you said, we can only hope." They looked at each other and laughed, stopping when Dumbledore walked in, flanked by the four house heads. Everybody stood up and faced them curiously.
"I suppose you're all wondering why I called you here tonight..." he paused and chuckled. "I've always wanted to say that. Seriously, though, I suppose you are." some of the olders nodded. "Well, I have been working on something with Professors McGonagall, Snape, Sprout, and Flitwick for the past few years. A sort of 'prefect perk'." he chuckled again at his own phrasing. "Living quarters!"
"Living quarters?" some of the students echoed.
"But of course! Come, it is easier to show than explain when at all possible." He led them to a tower Hermione had never been in before. In fact, she wasn't sure she had even known it existed. Later she would realize the prefects' tower was located above the part of the school Hagrid led the first-years to every year. Just then, though, she was busy trying to remember how to get there.
At the top of a long staircase shaped like a tight rectangular spiral, they stopped. On the wall facing the inner part of the tower hung a beautiful, elaborate painting of four people at what looked like the head table in the great hall. They were discussing something amiably.
"This" Dumbledore began, "is where you can get into your tower. Right now, the password is 'Fire Opal'. It is, however, subject to change for security reasons. If it does, there will be a notice on the prefect papers." he turned to the painting and cleared his throat. "Fire Opal." he stated clearly, and the painting swung inward as if on a hinge. As soon as they were inside, all the students, including Slytherins, abandoned themselves to staring about themselves in awe. The room they were in was absolutely gorgeous. The floor was covered with a plush amber-colored carpet, the walls were mostly plain stone but studded with bricks of red, green, yellow, and blue.
The right-hand wall seemed to be mostly two massive windows, the glass as clear as the air around it. The left-hand wall housed four tapestries, one for each Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin in the appropriate colors. Straight ahead when one entered the room were three large royal purple couches around a low square table with a massive fireplace on the last side. Two round tables with plenty of cushioned chairs were behind that, one near the tapestries and the other close to the windows.
From the fireplace, the walls slanted back and two huge spiral staircases stood, one on each side. The staircases themselves were incredible - stone with rich-looking wooden rails and crimson carpet up the middle. Then Hermione looked up. Her eyes grew huge as she looked up into at least five stories' worth of space, the walls punctuated with huge windows like the ones down where she was. A balcony ran around three sides of the room a story and a half up - it was what the spiral staircases led to. Two huge windows were on both the left and right sides on the balcony level, and staircases near but behind the fireplace's chimney were just visible, as well as eight other doors with different house symbols on each of them.
"Go on now, explore." Dumbledore encouraged. "The room isn't going to bite, or at least it hasn't yet. This is your shared common room - the Prefects' Common." he smiled. "Go on, all of you! I'll explain the rest in a bit."
Gozol was the first one to move, stepping out in front of the group then turning back and shrugging at them. Then his eye was obviously caught by something behind them. "Woah." would be the exact quote.
Hermione, curious, turned as well, and found herself facing her own personal heaven. Row upon row of books neatly arranged towered a story and a quarter high and spanned the entire wall minus right around the portrait entrance.
"Now that is a lot of books." a mildly familiar male voice stated. Hermione guessed it was Roger Davies - Head Boy - who said it.
"Everything available in the library, and then some." McGonagall stated with a touch of pride in her voice. Hermione guessed that she had been the one to gather such a collection.
After looking at the wall of books for a bit longer, the rest of the students began dispersing throughout the room. Hermione went to look out the window, and found herself faced with a magnificent view of the lake, Hogwarts grounds, and even some of the forbidden forest. Having been struck by the breathtaking picture laid out before her, she turned back to the inside of the room and found herself looking right at Malfoy. He was walking slowly up to the purple couches and once there, he ran a hand along the back of one. His expression remained stone but for his eyes, which Harmione was puzzled to find soften and smile in their own right.
"Alright, so what do you think?" Dumbledore called. He was replied with a chorus of 'Very cool's and 'incredible's. "Thank you. Now, a few things to point out and then I shall be off. First - and this is why the heads of house are here - notice the house tapestries on the left wall, if you have not yet. Behind them and a bit of stone are passageways to each of the house common rooms. Through them you may visit your house or bring some friends up here. However, you are the only ones who may know the passwords. Do not tell them to your friends. Your house head will tell you the password to your house's tapestry. Go to them, now."
Hermione, along with Alicia and Lee walked up to McGonagall, who quietly but clearly stated that the Gryffindor tapestry password was "Dragonsblood Balm".
"Everybody have their passwords? Good. Second, you will notice that up on the balcony there are two doors with each house's symbol on them as well as two staircases. Standing facing the fireplace, the boys' rooms are on the right and the girls' on the left. The staircases lead to the head boy's and girl's rooms. You will find instructions for your rooms just inside their doors. Now, I think that's it..." he received confirmatory nods from the other teachers, and he nodded as well. "All right then! Enjoy yourselves and this lovely set of rooms, and have a good evening." and with that, he stepped out of the portrait hole and was gone. The four teachers quickly followed suit, and the students just sort of stood there looking around.
After a bit, they headed for their rooms. Hermione's found the door to hers at the portrait-wall end of the room, and opened it.
AN: Did you see the Blue Raspberry jokes last chappie? And this is the chapter where I introduce the "lovely" beginnings of Hermione's issues, so keep an open mind and be prepared for anything!
And so maybe I'm being a little hard on her, and maybe you'll think, as Ron put it so nicely, that "someone can't be feeling all those things at once, she'd explode!", but believe me, a person can. And I'd know.
Oh yea, and... bleah... this is not OoTP-complient. I will use things from it, but... like I said.
Another thing you're going to notice is that I have no flipping clue how the prefect thing works. Is it a girl and a boy from each house in 5th, 6th, and 7th years plus a head girl and boy who are only allowed to be 7th years? (excuse me while my head explodes from the mere thought of constantly working with that many characters)
So what I'm going to do is figure that there are two prefects from each house - one boy and one girl - that remain the prefects for that house until they graduate or become head boy/girl. When that happens, a 5th year is picked for the place. If that explanation threw you for a loop, e-mail me or something and I'll try to explain it better.
And I'll try to use as many "real" characters as my lovely little brain can conjure up, I really will ^^;; And try not to shoot me if I get somebody's age wrong.
Hermione walked into the great hall slightly behind Harry and Ron. The sky-roof was cloudy, and no stars shone. The first-years were sorted, none of them catching Hermione's attention except the new Gryffindor who looked remarkably like a calico cat.
"Hi! I'm Crystal Earth! Who're you?" she rattled in a painfully soprano voice the literal moment the banquet began.
"Hermione Granger."
"You're one of the new prefects this year, right? Mama told me all about Hogwarts and prefects and OWLs and NEWTs and the professors and Dumbledore of course but I didn't want her explanation of the twelve uses of dragon's blood again, so I..." Hermione tuned her out for her own sanity, hoping the girl wouldn't take too much of a liking to her.
"New friend?" Ron asked, snickering.
"Goddess forbid." Hermione quietly groaned back. "At the very least I'd have to break her of the habit of talking in very long run-on sentences."
"...but then she grabbed my pigtails and turned them green and they stayed that way for a week even with the bubblegum shampoo and I was so mad I woulda stomped on all the flowers and shoved them in my mouth and puked them all back up and then stomped on them all over again then painted her all sorts of pretty colors from the sticky goo but we didn't have any flowers so I couldn't do that so instead I..."
Ron blinked more than once and looked at Crystal as if she were something very large and purple for a moment before turning back to Hermione. "Is she sane?" he asked.
"I'm beginning to wonder that myself." she whispered back. From somewhat down the table a second-year yelled,
"Crystal, lay off the cauldron cakes! They have waaaaay too much sugar for you."
"Echo I'm fine can't you tell that there's no worries for Crystal because I haven't had that much sugar today not as much as usual at least maybe ten packets but that's it so don't worry and did you know your hair is half blue?" Glances were exchanged between everyone in hearing range.
"So anyway, Hermione," Harry began. "are you ready for the first day of classes?" Hermione turned and grinned at him and Ron.
"You bet! I can't... wait...?" Behind Harry and Ron the doors of the great hall had opened and a very farmiliar-looking redhead had stepped through. Hermione stared at him, trying to place a name with the face. At the head table, Dumbledore stood again.
"And I see that our defense against the dark arts teacher has arrived! Please welcome Professor Bill Weasley!" Overall, an immense cheer and tumultuous applause greeted Ron's older brother. Ron's jaw dropped and his eyes bugged out.
"Bill!?" He exclaimed almost loud enough to be heard over the noise of greeting. Hermione glanced over at the Slytherin table. Malfoy was halfway between a scowl and complete surprise.
"Hey all!" Bill greeted when he got up to the teachers' platform.
"Ron, is that your brother?" Lavender asked dreamily from down the table.
"Um, yea." He replied, still sounding shocked.
"Looks like we won't have a nutter for a defense against the dark arts prof this year." Harry commented, surprise in his voice.
"Are you kidding?? He MUST be a nutter if he took that job!" Ron replied, casting another incredulous look in Bill's direction.
"Oh, come on Ron, it can't be THAT bad to have him working here." Hermione replied gently.
"But Hermione, you know as well as anybody else that the position is cursed! I mean look at what's happened to the last four teachers!" He held up a hand and started counting them off on his fingers. "One dead, one without his memory, one shunned because he's a werewolf, and one locked up in his own trunk all year!"
"Except, Ron, that all those teachers except Lockhart ended up that way because they were either in league with You-Know-Who or he had a grudge against him. And Lockhart was stupid enough to use your broken wand." Hermione stated cooly. Ron looked at her, then over at Harry who looked sheepish and nodded, and sighed.
"Okay, okay, so maybe Bill isn't going to be so bad off. But if he's being carried home in a matchbox at the end of the year, remember that I told you so!" Harry chuckled and, after a moment's hesitation, patted Ron's shoulder warmly.
Hermione lay sprawled out on her bed in the Gryffindor 5th-year girls' room, staring at the canopy. 'Harry was busy...' she was thinking. 'That is, seeing Ron for the first time since last year. He was occupied with his own thoughts. And Ron... he was too busy talking to Harry about Quidditch and summer and Bill to notice.' she turned over and groaned into her pillow. 'Tomorrow they won't be so tied up though. Breakfast I can get away with, but lunch and dinner...'
"Hermione?" came a voice from outside of the curtains. She pushed herself up on her elbows so her face wasn't in the pillow.
"Yeah?" she called back.
"Oh good, you're awake. Come out for a sec?" Hermione pulled a cord and the bedcurtains opened. Parvati sat on her own bed, holding a CD player and earphones. "Can you make this work?"
"Well, I can try." she held out her hands. "Here, let's see what we can do."
Hermione was mumbling something at her porridge the next morning when Harry arrived at the breakfast table.
"Maybe it would run off an extract of phoenix feathers..." Harry caught when he got close enough.
"What could run off phoenix feathers?" he asked, startling her out of her thoughts.
"Oh, Harry, it's just you." she caught her breath and tried to slow her racing heart. "Parvati's CD player. We were trying to make it work in a place like this even though it's mechanical and we got everything except the power source. And that was an extract of phoenix feathers, not just the feathers themselves."
Harry raised an eyebrow and propped his chin on his hand. "And where, persay, are you planning to get extract of phoenix feathers from?"
Hermione smiled. "Well, it's not hard to make if you've got the feathers themselves. I was thinking of asking Dumbledore for some from the next time Fawkes molts. I think he'd approve of the cause."
Harry looked thoughtful. "Yes... he probably would, wouldn't he?" he finally commented. "For someone as old as he... at least seems to be... he's very open to new ideas." He glanced at Hermione's full bowl of porridge. "Not hungry?" he asked.
"No..." she said and refused to meet Harry's eyes. "I got out of the habit of breakfast over summer. Not really hungry at this hour of the morning." Harry shrugged.
"Alright. I never really have been either in the mornings, now that you mention it."
Inwardly, Hermione wondered if Harry had guessed already. He did know her better than anyone else, especially after the letters they had exchanged over the summer.
"Hey guys!" called a familiar voice suddenly, breaking the slight tension. Ron sat down across from Harry and flashed a brilliant smile at the two. Hermione glanced at Harry, who suddenly seemed much more amiable.
"Hey Ron." he replied after a short moment, watching the redhead dish up porridge for himself. Ron started to look back up at him, and Harry quickly looked back over at Hermione. "So how would you get a CD player to run on extract of phoenix feathers?"
Hermione looked up from her cereal at the boys and noted that Ron was looking at Harry with a slightly puzzled expression on his face. She guessed he had caught the back end of Harry's ungraceful attempt to look nonchalant. "By hooking some up to the CD player in a battery-like fashion. See, I think that it's just the muggle power sources that don't work around Hogwarts - like batteries. So if we hook up a magic-based power source it should work fine." She took a breath and studied their expressions to see if they had understood. Ron seemed to have caught most of it, and Harry got it all. "Get it?" she asked anyway.
"What's a CD sayer?" asked Ron. Harry jumped into explaining, something which made Hermione smile fondly at them.
It took most of the mealtime for Harry to explain CD players to Ron, and near the end Hermione found Alicia Spinnet and Lee Jordan standing behind her. Lee was the male Gryffindor prefect, and Alicia head girl.
"Hey guys." Hermione said, twisting around in her seat.
"Hi Hermione. I was going to give you this last night, but you weren't in the common room long enough." Alicia handed over what looked to be a normal piece of parchment, with
printed at the top in loopy handwriting. Hermione looked up at her questioningly. "It's like the ultimate billboard. All the Prefects and the Heads have one, as well as Dumbledore and the House Heads. Every time somebody writes on one, it shows up on all the others until the time included in the entry has passed."
"Very cool." Hermione commented, earning a smile from Alicia and a grin from Lee. "And thanks. I'll be sure to check it often."
"Wise words." Lee said. "Seeya, Hermione."
"Bye!"
"Lee being a prefect seems very odd to me." Ron commented offhandedly, and Hermione turned back around. "But I guess when it was a choice between him and Fred and George..." he smiled. "It figures Percy would have had to become Head Boy the year they were the only replacements."
"He seems to be responsible enough though." Hermione replied. "He just likes having fun too." Ron scrunched his eyebrows and looked at her oddly.
"Y'know, Mione, last year you would have called their jokes 'disruptive' and 'childish'." he grinned. "What'd you do? Pull a good one on someone over summer break?" Hermione just shook her head and smiled.
The first day of classes at Hogwarts included nothing particularly exciting for the Gryffindor fifth-years. Transfiguration was just as it had always been, History of Magic couldn't have been more boring if Professor Binns tried, and Herbology and Charms were nice but not exactly invigorating either. The most interesting part of the schoolday, in fact, was probably finding out that Potions with the Slytherins was first the next day, followed by Defense Against the Dark Arts.
"You coming to the common room, Hermione?" Harry asked as she began going the opposite way when they left the Charms room.
"In a bit. There's a prefects meeting first."
"Okay. Seeya then!"
"Seeya!"
The stairway to Dumbledore's office was already revealed, and when she got to the top, she found that most of the others were already there - including Draco Malfoy.
'Damn.' she thought. 'I forgot he's the new one for Slytherin.' Luckily, he was already busy talking to who she presumed to be the other Slytherin prefect - a short-statured girl with long light pink hair and pale blue eyes. Quietly, Hermione made her way over to a couch along one wall and sat next to Lee.
"It's a bigger group than you'd think, eh, Hermione?" he asked when she looked the group over again with slightly widened eyes.
"Yeah. I'm surprised, there's three people I've never even seen before."
"I can tell you who they are, point 'em out to me." The first one was a boy with light brown hair and green eyes, who sat talking to Cho Chang on a couch across from theirs. "That's Gozol Tennousei. New Ravenclaw prefect, he's a 5th year like you. He seems alright so far. Friendly fellow, that is." Next was a very tall boy with his ginger-red hair in a long pigtail down his back, and his eyes were bright blue. She found herself reminded of Bill Weasley. "Kado Sorasol. Hufflepuff 6th year. Kind of keeps to himself, but he's cool." The last one she pointed to was the pink-haired girl talking to Malfoy. "Ah, Cosimia Dagaz. Slytherin, 6th year. She's sort of a recluse too, doesn't talk unless spoken to and usually the only ones who will do that are the heads, teachers and other Slytherin. But I don't think I've ever heard of her giving anybody a hard time, unlike her friend there."
Hermione rolled her eyes and smiled. "Malfoy? No kidding. I hope he doesn't rub off on her."
"But, as you said, we can only hope." They looked at each other and laughed, stopping when Dumbledore walked in, flanked by the four house heads. Everybody stood up and faced them curiously.
"I suppose you're all wondering why I called you here tonight..." he paused and chuckled. "I've always wanted to say that. Seriously, though, I suppose you are." some of the olders nodded. "Well, I have been working on something with Professors McGonagall, Snape, Sprout, and Flitwick for the past few years. A sort of 'prefect perk'." he chuckled again at his own phrasing. "Living quarters!"
"Living quarters?" some of the students echoed.
"But of course! Come, it is easier to show than explain when at all possible." He led them to a tower Hermione had never been in before. In fact, she wasn't sure she had even known it existed. Later she would realize the prefects' tower was located above the part of the school Hagrid led the first-years to every year. Just then, though, she was busy trying to remember how to get there.
At the top of a long staircase shaped like a tight rectangular spiral, they stopped. On the wall facing the inner part of the tower hung a beautiful, elaborate painting of four people at what looked like the head table in the great hall. They were discussing something amiably.
"This" Dumbledore began, "is where you can get into your tower. Right now, the password is 'Fire Opal'. It is, however, subject to change for security reasons. If it does, there will be a notice on the prefect papers." he turned to the painting and cleared his throat. "Fire Opal." he stated clearly, and the painting swung inward as if on a hinge. As soon as they were inside, all the students, including Slytherins, abandoned themselves to staring about themselves in awe. The room they were in was absolutely gorgeous. The floor was covered with a plush amber-colored carpet, the walls were mostly plain stone but studded with bricks of red, green, yellow, and blue.
The right-hand wall seemed to be mostly two massive windows, the glass as clear as the air around it. The left-hand wall housed four tapestries, one for each Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin in the appropriate colors. Straight ahead when one entered the room were three large royal purple couches around a low square table with a massive fireplace on the last side. Two round tables with plenty of cushioned chairs were behind that, one near the tapestries and the other close to the windows.
From the fireplace, the walls slanted back and two huge spiral staircases stood, one on each side. The staircases themselves were incredible - stone with rich-looking wooden rails and crimson carpet up the middle. Then Hermione looked up. Her eyes grew huge as she looked up into at least five stories' worth of space, the walls punctuated with huge windows like the ones down where she was. A balcony ran around three sides of the room a story and a half up - it was what the spiral staircases led to. Two huge windows were on both the left and right sides on the balcony level, and staircases near but behind the fireplace's chimney were just visible, as well as eight other doors with different house symbols on each of them.
"Go on now, explore." Dumbledore encouraged. "The room isn't going to bite, or at least it hasn't yet. This is your shared common room - the Prefects' Common." he smiled. "Go on, all of you! I'll explain the rest in a bit."
Gozol was the first one to move, stepping out in front of the group then turning back and shrugging at them. Then his eye was obviously caught by something behind them. "Woah." would be the exact quote.
Hermione, curious, turned as well, and found herself facing her own personal heaven. Row upon row of books neatly arranged towered a story and a quarter high and spanned the entire wall minus right around the portrait entrance.
"Now that is a lot of books." a mildly familiar male voice stated. Hermione guessed it was Roger Davies - Head Boy - who said it.
"Everything available in the library, and then some." McGonagall stated with a touch of pride in her voice. Hermione guessed that she had been the one to gather such a collection.
After looking at the wall of books for a bit longer, the rest of the students began dispersing throughout the room. Hermione went to look out the window, and found herself faced with a magnificent view of the lake, Hogwarts grounds, and even some of the forbidden forest. Having been struck by the breathtaking picture laid out before her, she turned back to the inside of the room and found herself looking right at Malfoy. He was walking slowly up to the purple couches and once there, he ran a hand along the back of one. His expression remained stone but for his eyes, which Harmione was puzzled to find soften and smile in their own right.
"Alright, so what do you think?" Dumbledore called. He was replied with a chorus of 'Very cool's and 'incredible's. "Thank you. Now, a few things to point out and then I shall be off. First - and this is why the heads of house are here - notice the house tapestries on the left wall, if you have not yet. Behind them and a bit of stone are passageways to each of the house common rooms. Through them you may visit your house or bring some friends up here. However, you are the only ones who may know the passwords. Do not tell them to your friends. Your house head will tell you the password to your house's tapestry. Go to them, now."
Hermione, along with Alicia and Lee walked up to McGonagall, who quietly but clearly stated that the Gryffindor tapestry password was "Dragonsblood Balm".
"Everybody have their passwords? Good. Second, you will notice that up on the balcony there are two doors with each house's symbol on them as well as two staircases. Standing facing the fireplace, the boys' rooms are on the right and the girls' on the left. The staircases lead to the head boy's and girl's rooms. You will find instructions for your rooms just inside their doors. Now, I think that's it..." he received confirmatory nods from the other teachers, and he nodded as well. "All right then! Enjoy yourselves and this lovely set of rooms, and have a good evening." and with that, he stepped out of the portrait hole and was gone. The four teachers quickly followed suit, and the students just sort of stood there looking around.
After a bit, they headed for their rooms. Hermione's found the door to hers at the portrait-wall end of the room, and opened it.