Disclaimer: Yo. I am so not J.K. Rowling. The characters within are not
mine. Dig?
Thanks to everyone who reviewed and/or added me to your favorites list. You guys make me feel totally squishy.
(Long author note, skip if you'd like, sweeties.) Gah. I've run out of viable stall tactics yet again so I'm going to tell you how this chapter required blood and sweat and lots of whinging at my boyfriend. It took daaaaaaays to do and I'm sorry if it sucks. Lie to me, though, 'kay? Thanks. (Okay, I've finally finished it and I do think it's terrible and I'm not saying that so you say nice things to me, [though, if you'd like to, by all means.*gestures to review button*].)
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"blue moon, you saw me standing alone, without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own"
-billie holiday, "blue moon"
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If Hermione could've growled, she would've done so. Not just a little sound of displeasure in the back of her throat, she wanted to roar, she was so angry. Honestly, running away from those gits like that. Merlin, they were probably discussing it right now in monosyllabic words back at Fred and George's store. She was sure they were wondering why she'd ran like that and Harry the Prat was probably looking generally. . .well, like he'd done something wrong and pretending he didn't know anything.. And the look on her face, she knew, probably would've compared to some of the ones she'd given Draco before they became friends. She'd lost her cover. Instead of thinking everything was normal, like she had intended, they were sure to know that something was different. Even they weren't so thick they wouldn't recognize a change. And George! Whisking her away from here like that! What in Circe's name was he thinking? He was lucky she hadn't hexed him into next week. Falling into her lounger with a decided lack of grace, she held her wand up and pretended to he was there, just for the sheer joy of it. She starting running through her lengthy mental list of hexes and decided she'd take it one step farther and act it out. She'd read in a Muggle psychology text that sometimes it was good to act out your aggressive emotions. She stood up and closed her eyes, stepping into dueling position. Picturing George, she began imagining the effects various curses would have on him.
Then she heard a faint popping sound. She recognized the noise, but her much admired mind had suddenly stopped working. Who would dare follow her here? This was her room, her house, and she hadn't invited anyone here. Her mind flitted back to the moment last June when Harry had shown up unexpectedly, but he had made it clear that he wouldn't be popping in again anytime soon. And, when she had seen him moments ago, he was decidedly sober. Suddenly, almost as quickly as it had frozen, her mind decided to start working again and she opened her eyes. If her mind registered the red hair, it didn't tell her hand to put the wand down. Pointing her wand directly at the intruder, she threw off a Leg Locker Curse and followed it up with one that bound him at the wrists and, just in case, the ankles. Just for good measure, she added a silencing charm. She realized that maybe, perhaps, she was acting in an extreme fashion, but she'd been trained to do this, after all. Half of it was reflex. The swift kick she gave to the intruder's midsection, which sent him tumbling on to her bed may have been a bit over the top, but the rest was perfectly justified.
It is often said that veterans of any war suffer some post traumatic stress syndrome. After she, Ron and Harry had defeated Voldemort, Hermione had put her prodigious researching skills to work to find out what psychological symptoms they may have started showing. Harry was refusing to take responsibility for things and acting generally irresponsible and Hermione was a bit jumpy. Given that she knew more curses than the rest of the seventh years she had graduated put together, this was a tricky bit of circumstance. And she only, thankfully, acted like this when she was feeling threatened or was generally exhausted. Today she could certainly be allowed this momentary lapse. Besides, people often forgot that Hermione was a teenage girl. Just because she possessed a prodigious intelligence and could help defeat dark lords didn't mean she didn't get a little miffed when someone barged into her room unannounced. Furthermore, it was laundry day again. With a little regard to that, she turned and kicked a pair of blue bikini underwear under the bed. Funny, that. These silly people couldn't show up when all of her naughty underthings were safely tucked in their drawers, could they? Shaking her head and keeping her wand not only out but pointed at the bed, she finally looked up at the bed and her intruder.
There, lying rumpled and scared on her light blue bedspread, was George bloody Weasley. Imagine that. Hermione sighed and then started running through her options in the situation. She briefly considered just banishing him back to the store, which would be, by far, the most appealing option. He'd be gone with no discussion and he'd surely get the message that she was displeased and feeling a little anti-social. And busy. She was busy. Of course, he had known that when he followed her here. And, truthfully, she did have a dinner date with her parents. They should be home in roughly half an hour. One thing was absolutely for certain, when she got home tonight she was putting up wards. On at least her bedroom. Maybe the backyard, too, while she was thinking about it. No, she decided, she was going to ward the whole house. She could Portkey in. However, there was a far more immediate concern and it was about to roll onto her new academic journals and that was not good.
"George", Hermione said slowly, making sure he was looking at her, "I'm going to remove the bindings and the silencing charm and you're going to tell me what possessed you to follow me here! Honestly. . ." Making sure he understood her, she did so with a quietly cast spell. "Okay, George, you can talk now. Why are you here?" To herself, she quietly wondered how many more times she was going to have to do this. She was getting quite tired of dealing with boys who didn't know how to owl first. And she sighed and thanked the stars that she was leaving for Puddlemere in a week. Puddlemere was heavily warded, especially the academic area she'd be living and working in. These unannounced visits were quickly going to be stopped and Hermione was glad. Lavender may have enjoyed this kind of behavior, but it wasn't HER residence these prats were invading, was it?
She was startled out of her musings when George cleared his throat. "Well, you rushed out of the store like that, I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"I'm fine, George, just spiffing. But I'm a very busy girl today. I," she paused and crossed her arms here for effect, which always used to work with Harry and Ron, "have things to do today. You should be back at the store instead of," here she sniffed a bit, "bothering me."
"Hermione, I'm kind of worried about you, to be honest. You seemed a bit off today when I ran into you and then you didn't even want to see Harry and Ron at 3W. I Portkeyed you there because I thought you'd want to visit, maybe nag them about their plans this fall or something like that." George was just trying to make Hermione feel a little better about all of this and was quite unnerved by the immensely displeased look on her face. She'd always been a little uptight, but towards the end of fifth year, he'd thought they'd worked out some kind of easy truce. Hermione, on the other hand, wasn't thinking of truces, but trying very hard not to hex George in the manner she had happily imagined earlier. Why wouldn't these endlessly stupid boys leave her alone, she wondered, especially since she had made it clear she wasn't interested in their company?
"Let me tell you how thrilled I would be to see Ron and Harry, George. About as overjoyed as they would be. The only time I've seen Harry this summer is when he showed up at my house drunk after Susan had broken up with him. And that was just for a snog! He didn't want to talk to me or do anything like that." George had the grace to look shocked here and even opened his mouth to say something, but Hermione wouldn't let him. "Afterwards, all I got was an owl that could've been written by his press liaison about how he would get back to me at the end of the summer. I'm leaving for Puddlemere in a WEEK and I haven't heard a word."
"But Ron and. . .I know you've owled Ron. And Harry would never. . ." George had snapped out of it enough to protest weakly. He wasn't sure what to do right now. Hermione was angry looking and had been stepping closer and closer to him. If she didn't stop walking, she'd be tripping over him in a minute.
"Oh, yes. Ron. Ron and I talk about the weather. We talk about your store. We talk about textbooks. We don't actually talk about anything, George. We're acquaintances. They're off doing boy things and I'm. . .I'm not a boy and therefore they don't really want me anymore." She paused here a little and looked at her feet before her head snapped back up to look at George, her great cinnamon eyes blazing. "Oh, and Harry? Let me tell you, he would and did. I wasn't asking for a grand romance, but an apology would've been nice." Hermione had said the last bit in a rush and, looking down, had also realized how close she was to the boy she'd kicked onto her bed. Oh, yes, she thought, she'd better check on that. Taking out her wand, she leaned down and cast a medical scanning spell on him. Fortunately, she hadn't hurt him and she could get back to the business of being angry. She was just opening her mouth to get on with it when George beat her to it.
"What d'you mean? You three are inseparable. You're the Dream Team. When we were younger, Mum would always ask Fred and I why we couldn't get along with our brothers like the three of you did." Here George cocked his head a little. "I told her it was because they were bloody gits, but she wasn't having any of it. She'll be heartbroken when she finds out that you three aren't chums anymore. Harry was probably confused and is too shy to say anything about it. We all know that. . .well, Harry's been a bit wonky this last year. He'll come around, Hermione, he's 19! Besides, being on his own at some point should make him grow up like Fred and I did." Hermione scoffed a bit at this and George looked a little sad. "Just come back to the store. I'll make Ron test some of our new products." He looked up at Hermione, a lively grin replacing the shadows that had appeared on his face, in an attempt to gauge her reaction and was horrified to see that her normally lively brown eyes had lost all of their depth and it was like looking at a flat surface. Hermione's beautiful eyes were a shade of brown overlooked by more undiscerning eyes, but they always had some fire in them, and it was gone. And now there was nothing there. Maybe, he thought, bringing up he and Fred hadn't been such a good idea.
"Well." Hermione stepped away to somewhere halfway between him and the door and looked at him. "It's not my fault those two are so childish! And, furthermore, they don't even realize what's happened! Even if they do, they can't be bothered to care. Do you know something, George Weasley? I don't know if I can be bothered anymore, either. In a week, I'll be leaving for Puddlemere. I will have books and research and. . .and. . .more research! I will be so busy that I will not have time to play Agony Aunt, or worse, be the fallback for two selfish, unfeeling, immature. . .boys!" Hermione was right up in George's face again and the anger was back in her eyes. He'd seen her fight with Ron and he wasn't surprised. For a bookwork, Hermione was quite kinetic in her motions. "For six years we had been best friends, we had helped each other, we'd been so close I wasn't sure where I ended and they began and I thought it was the same for them. But no! They bonded over which shade of curls they liked the best and gave me up as a girl, as a person who wouldn't understand." Suddenly, Hermione realized what she was saying and how close to George she had gotten again. She'd always stood her ground with Ron, but for some reason, being this close to George was quite odd. And, gods, what if he went back and told Harry and Ron about this? She'd die of humiliation. He needed to leave, her brain decided, and not now but NOW. "So. I. . .I decided that it would probably be best if I left them to it." She walked over to her chaise lounge and sat down, resting her elbows on her knees and cradling her head in her hands. "And, George, I think I've said enough. You should go."
As if on cue, a door slammed downstairs and a voice could be heard downstairs calling Hermione's name. "See, George? My parents are home. You should go." She looked up at him almost pleadingly, as if she could make him disappear with just that plaintive tone. It didn't occur to her to Banish him or use any other form of magic.
"But, Hermione, you. . ." George had stood up and stepped forward, towards her. She dropped her hands and they rested loosely in her lap and looked down at her feet.
"George, just go. Please." Looking down at her, he considered staying or Apparating her back to the Burrow. Deciding that discretion was perhaps the better part of valor (and that he couldn't compete Hermione's vast mental dictionary of hexes), he Apparated back to the store. When he got back, he felt oddly subdued amongst all the bright colors and fun toys at 3W. He just couldn't get the picture of the girl he'd just left out of his head. She'd looked so forlorn, among her lovely things and prestigious awards. Hermione Granger was an articulate, confident, amazingly lovely (he wasn't sure when that'd started applying to her, but it was true), incredibly talented and stunningly powerful Witch, but when he'd left her, she'd looked like a scared little girl. She'd looked so lost. He was definitely going to have some words with Ron and Harry. Striding confidently down the hall, he decided that maybe he'd try a little niceness first. His American-raised accountant had a weird saying about flies and honey. . . And then, maybe, when he was done when all this, he'd see if Hermione maybe, perhaps, wanted to go out for tea.
Hermione, in the meantime, was very confused. Confused and upset and, strangely, deeply touched. George had come after her, when she had left his store in such a rush. He had taken time out of his actually busy day to make sure that she was well. Harry and Ron had stopped being concerned a long time ago and her parents, while they tried very hard, weren't very empathetic to the plight of a magically gifted, unlucky in love genius. She hated to do it, but part of her was still the girl from earlier this summer who was honestly wishing for. . .well, it certainly wasn't Harry she saw in her daydreams, but it would certainly be nice for someone to notice her. All these years of books and cleverness, and all she wanted was for someone to look at her the way Viktor Krum had when she was in fourth year. While learning would always be her first priority, it'd be nice for it to have some competition.
For, you see, she hadn't started out with textbooks, and she remembered the storybooks of her youth. In them, the beautiful princess always had a charmed childhood, went through adversity, defeated it and lived happily ever after. The evil witch either died or spent life alone and friendless. When she got older and went to Hogwarts, she'd laughed at the stereotype. But tonight, as she dug through her closet looking for something to wear to dinner, Hermione couldn't help but think maybe she had the princess' life, but she was still the witch in more than the obvious sense of the word.
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It's moving slow. . .believe me, I know. Next chapter I *swear* we get some happy stuff. I know Hermione's really sad, but. . .it'll get better, you know that. We love Hermione, we wouldn't leave her sad and stressed out and lonely, would we? She's going to Puddlemere and let's see if we can't do something about that lovelife of hers.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed and/or added me to your favorites list. You guys make me feel totally squishy.
(Long author note, skip if you'd like, sweeties.) Gah. I've run out of viable stall tactics yet again so I'm going to tell you how this chapter required blood and sweat and lots of whinging at my boyfriend. It took daaaaaaays to do and I'm sorry if it sucks. Lie to me, though, 'kay? Thanks. (Okay, I've finally finished it and I do think it's terrible and I'm not saying that so you say nice things to me, [though, if you'd like to, by all means.*gestures to review button*].)
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"blue moon, you saw me standing alone, without a dream in my heart, without a love of my own"
-billie holiday, "blue moon"
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If Hermione could've growled, she would've done so. Not just a little sound of displeasure in the back of her throat, she wanted to roar, she was so angry. Honestly, running away from those gits like that. Merlin, they were probably discussing it right now in monosyllabic words back at Fred and George's store. She was sure they were wondering why she'd ran like that and Harry the Prat was probably looking generally. . .well, like he'd done something wrong and pretending he didn't know anything.. And the look on her face, she knew, probably would've compared to some of the ones she'd given Draco before they became friends. She'd lost her cover. Instead of thinking everything was normal, like she had intended, they were sure to know that something was different. Even they weren't so thick they wouldn't recognize a change. And George! Whisking her away from here like that! What in Circe's name was he thinking? He was lucky she hadn't hexed him into next week. Falling into her lounger with a decided lack of grace, she held her wand up and pretended to he was there, just for the sheer joy of it. She starting running through her lengthy mental list of hexes and decided she'd take it one step farther and act it out. She'd read in a Muggle psychology text that sometimes it was good to act out your aggressive emotions. She stood up and closed her eyes, stepping into dueling position. Picturing George, she began imagining the effects various curses would have on him.
Then she heard a faint popping sound. She recognized the noise, but her much admired mind had suddenly stopped working. Who would dare follow her here? This was her room, her house, and she hadn't invited anyone here. Her mind flitted back to the moment last June when Harry had shown up unexpectedly, but he had made it clear that he wouldn't be popping in again anytime soon. And, when she had seen him moments ago, he was decidedly sober. Suddenly, almost as quickly as it had frozen, her mind decided to start working again and she opened her eyes. If her mind registered the red hair, it didn't tell her hand to put the wand down. Pointing her wand directly at the intruder, she threw off a Leg Locker Curse and followed it up with one that bound him at the wrists and, just in case, the ankles. Just for good measure, she added a silencing charm. She realized that maybe, perhaps, she was acting in an extreme fashion, but she'd been trained to do this, after all. Half of it was reflex. The swift kick she gave to the intruder's midsection, which sent him tumbling on to her bed may have been a bit over the top, but the rest was perfectly justified.
It is often said that veterans of any war suffer some post traumatic stress syndrome. After she, Ron and Harry had defeated Voldemort, Hermione had put her prodigious researching skills to work to find out what psychological symptoms they may have started showing. Harry was refusing to take responsibility for things and acting generally irresponsible and Hermione was a bit jumpy. Given that she knew more curses than the rest of the seventh years she had graduated put together, this was a tricky bit of circumstance. And she only, thankfully, acted like this when she was feeling threatened or was generally exhausted. Today she could certainly be allowed this momentary lapse. Besides, people often forgot that Hermione was a teenage girl. Just because she possessed a prodigious intelligence and could help defeat dark lords didn't mean she didn't get a little miffed when someone barged into her room unannounced. Furthermore, it was laundry day again. With a little regard to that, she turned and kicked a pair of blue bikini underwear under the bed. Funny, that. These silly people couldn't show up when all of her naughty underthings were safely tucked in their drawers, could they? Shaking her head and keeping her wand not only out but pointed at the bed, she finally looked up at the bed and her intruder.
There, lying rumpled and scared on her light blue bedspread, was George bloody Weasley. Imagine that. Hermione sighed and then started running through her options in the situation. She briefly considered just banishing him back to the store, which would be, by far, the most appealing option. He'd be gone with no discussion and he'd surely get the message that she was displeased and feeling a little anti-social. And busy. She was busy. Of course, he had known that when he followed her here. And, truthfully, she did have a dinner date with her parents. They should be home in roughly half an hour. One thing was absolutely for certain, when she got home tonight she was putting up wards. On at least her bedroom. Maybe the backyard, too, while she was thinking about it. No, she decided, she was going to ward the whole house. She could Portkey in. However, there was a far more immediate concern and it was about to roll onto her new academic journals and that was not good.
"George", Hermione said slowly, making sure he was looking at her, "I'm going to remove the bindings and the silencing charm and you're going to tell me what possessed you to follow me here! Honestly. . ." Making sure he understood her, she did so with a quietly cast spell. "Okay, George, you can talk now. Why are you here?" To herself, she quietly wondered how many more times she was going to have to do this. She was getting quite tired of dealing with boys who didn't know how to owl first. And she sighed and thanked the stars that she was leaving for Puddlemere in a week. Puddlemere was heavily warded, especially the academic area she'd be living and working in. These unannounced visits were quickly going to be stopped and Hermione was glad. Lavender may have enjoyed this kind of behavior, but it wasn't HER residence these prats were invading, was it?
She was startled out of her musings when George cleared his throat. "Well, you rushed out of the store like that, I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"I'm fine, George, just spiffing. But I'm a very busy girl today. I," she paused and crossed her arms here for effect, which always used to work with Harry and Ron, "have things to do today. You should be back at the store instead of," here she sniffed a bit, "bothering me."
"Hermione, I'm kind of worried about you, to be honest. You seemed a bit off today when I ran into you and then you didn't even want to see Harry and Ron at 3W. I Portkeyed you there because I thought you'd want to visit, maybe nag them about their plans this fall or something like that." George was just trying to make Hermione feel a little better about all of this and was quite unnerved by the immensely displeased look on her face. She'd always been a little uptight, but towards the end of fifth year, he'd thought they'd worked out some kind of easy truce. Hermione, on the other hand, wasn't thinking of truces, but trying very hard not to hex George in the manner she had happily imagined earlier. Why wouldn't these endlessly stupid boys leave her alone, she wondered, especially since she had made it clear she wasn't interested in their company?
"Let me tell you how thrilled I would be to see Ron and Harry, George. About as overjoyed as they would be. The only time I've seen Harry this summer is when he showed up at my house drunk after Susan had broken up with him. And that was just for a snog! He didn't want to talk to me or do anything like that." George had the grace to look shocked here and even opened his mouth to say something, but Hermione wouldn't let him. "Afterwards, all I got was an owl that could've been written by his press liaison about how he would get back to me at the end of the summer. I'm leaving for Puddlemere in a WEEK and I haven't heard a word."
"But Ron and. . .I know you've owled Ron. And Harry would never. . ." George had snapped out of it enough to protest weakly. He wasn't sure what to do right now. Hermione was angry looking and had been stepping closer and closer to him. If she didn't stop walking, she'd be tripping over him in a minute.
"Oh, yes. Ron. Ron and I talk about the weather. We talk about your store. We talk about textbooks. We don't actually talk about anything, George. We're acquaintances. They're off doing boy things and I'm. . .I'm not a boy and therefore they don't really want me anymore." She paused here a little and looked at her feet before her head snapped back up to look at George, her great cinnamon eyes blazing. "Oh, and Harry? Let me tell you, he would and did. I wasn't asking for a grand romance, but an apology would've been nice." Hermione had said the last bit in a rush and, looking down, had also realized how close she was to the boy she'd kicked onto her bed. Oh, yes, she thought, she'd better check on that. Taking out her wand, she leaned down and cast a medical scanning spell on him. Fortunately, she hadn't hurt him and she could get back to the business of being angry. She was just opening her mouth to get on with it when George beat her to it.
"What d'you mean? You three are inseparable. You're the Dream Team. When we were younger, Mum would always ask Fred and I why we couldn't get along with our brothers like the three of you did." Here George cocked his head a little. "I told her it was because they were bloody gits, but she wasn't having any of it. She'll be heartbroken when she finds out that you three aren't chums anymore. Harry was probably confused and is too shy to say anything about it. We all know that. . .well, Harry's been a bit wonky this last year. He'll come around, Hermione, he's 19! Besides, being on his own at some point should make him grow up like Fred and I did." Hermione scoffed a bit at this and George looked a little sad. "Just come back to the store. I'll make Ron test some of our new products." He looked up at Hermione, a lively grin replacing the shadows that had appeared on his face, in an attempt to gauge her reaction and was horrified to see that her normally lively brown eyes had lost all of their depth and it was like looking at a flat surface. Hermione's beautiful eyes were a shade of brown overlooked by more undiscerning eyes, but they always had some fire in them, and it was gone. And now there was nothing there. Maybe, he thought, bringing up he and Fred hadn't been such a good idea.
"Well." Hermione stepped away to somewhere halfway between him and the door and looked at him. "It's not my fault those two are so childish! And, furthermore, they don't even realize what's happened! Even if they do, they can't be bothered to care. Do you know something, George Weasley? I don't know if I can be bothered anymore, either. In a week, I'll be leaving for Puddlemere. I will have books and research and. . .and. . .more research! I will be so busy that I will not have time to play Agony Aunt, or worse, be the fallback for two selfish, unfeeling, immature. . .boys!" Hermione was right up in George's face again and the anger was back in her eyes. He'd seen her fight with Ron and he wasn't surprised. For a bookwork, Hermione was quite kinetic in her motions. "For six years we had been best friends, we had helped each other, we'd been so close I wasn't sure where I ended and they began and I thought it was the same for them. But no! They bonded over which shade of curls they liked the best and gave me up as a girl, as a person who wouldn't understand." Suddenly, Hermione realized what she was saying and how close to George she had gotten again. She'd always stood her ground with Ron, but for some reason, being this close to George was quite odd. And, gods, what if he went back and told Harry and Ron about this? She'd die of humiliation. He needed to leave, her brain decided, and not now but NOW. "So. I. . .I decided that it would probably be best if I left them to it." She walked over to her chaise lounge and sat down, resting her elbows on her knees and cradling her head in her hands. "And, George, I think I've said enough. You should go."
As if on cue, a door slammed downstairs and a voice could be heard downstairs calling Hermione's name. "See, George? My parents are home. You should go." She looked up at him almost pleadingly, as if she could make him disappear with just that plaintive tone. It didn't occur to her to Banish him or use any other form of magic.
"But, Hermione, you. . ." George had stood up and stepped forward, towards her. She dropped her hands and they rested loosely in her lap and looked down at her feet.
"George, just go. Please." Looking down at her, he considered staying or Apparating her back to the Burrow. Deciding that discretion was perhaps the better part of valor (and that he couldn't compete Hermione's vast mental dictionary of hexes), he Apparated back to the store. When he got back, he felt oddly subdued amongst all the bright colors and fun toys at 3W. He just couldn't get the picture of the girl he'd just left out of his head. She'd looked so forlorn, among her lovely things and prestigious awards. Hermione Granger was an articulate, confident, amazingly lovely (he wasn't sure when that'd started applying to her, but it was true), incredibly talented and stunningly powerful Witch, but when he'd left her, she'd looked like a scared little girl. She'd looked so lost. He was definitely going to have some words with Ron and Harry. Striding confidently down the hall, he decided that maybe he'd try a little niceness first. His American-raised accountant had a weird saying about flies and honey. . . And then, maybe, when he was done when all this, he'd see if Hermione maybe, perhaps, wanted to go out for tea.
Hermione, in the meantime, was very confused. Confused and upset and, strangely, deeply touched. George had come after her, when she had left his store in such a rush. He had taken time out of his actually busy day to make sure that she was well. Harry and Ron had stopped being concerned a long time ago and her parents, while they tried very hard, weren't very empathetic to the plight of a magically gifted, unlucky in love genius. She hated to do it, but part of her was still the girl from earlier this summer who was honestly wishing for. . .well, it certainly wasn't Harry she saw in her daydreams, but it would certainly be nice for someone to notice her. All these years of books and cleverness, and all she wanted was for someone to look at her the way Viktor Krum had when she was in fourth year. While learning would always be her first priority, it'd be nice for it to have some competition.
For, you see, she hadn't started out with textbooks, and she remembered the storybooks of her youth. In them, the beautiful princess always had a charmed childhood, went through adversity, defeated it and lived happily ever after. The evil witch either died or spent life alone and friendless. When she got older and went to Hogwarts, she'd laughed at the stereotype. But tonight, as she dug through her closet looking for something to wear to dinner, Hermione couldn't help but think maybe she had the princess' life, but she was still the witch in more than the obvious sense of the word.
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It's moving slow. . .believe me, I know. Next chapter I *swear* we get some happy stuff. I know Hermione's really sad, but. . .it'll get better, you know that. We love Hermione, we wouldn't leave her sad and stressed out and lonely, would we? She's going to Puddlemere and let's see if we can't do something about that lovelife of hers.