EPILOGUE
In Which Things End Well
"C'mon, Hermione," Harry said coaxingly. "Was it really that bad?"
She shuddered, staring resolutely at the common room fireplace. "You have no idea, Harry. We composed poetry about each other. And I stared into his eyes."
"We'll kill him for you if you like," Ron suggested helpfully. "And maybe Fred and George too. Though I think Dumbledore has that pretty much covered."
Harry had to agree with that. Dumbledore had been particularly ruthless with the twins, subjecting them to a month's detention with Filch. They had ought to be glad Filch still wasn't allowed to string students up by their toenails. Though Harry couldn't say that they didn't deserve it. The headmaster had made the twins tell the whole story, beginning with spiking the pumpkin juice Hermione drank, all the way to the end. Dumbledore had also been kind enough to convince Snape to allow Hermione to redo her Invulnerability Brew, which she did flawlessly, of course, progressing beyond step three and efficiently adding the giraffe bile to her cauldron in the proper order. However, the headmaster had not agreed with Ron's suggestion to modify everyone's memories of the incident and Harry suspected that Dumbledore had actually enjoyed parts of the whole debacle.
Malfoy was back to his old tricks, the snide remarks once again oozing from his lips with arrogant condescendence. But it seemed that whenever he met Hermione's eyes, he froze, and Harry fancied he could see a faint blush creeping up his cheeks at those times. Harry began seeing the whole event as something to hold over Malfoy's head in the future and he liked the feeling of power it gave him.
Ron was still indignant about the whole affair and Hermione seemed to find his protectiveness of her somewhat amusing. After a while, though, she was back to her old self, and whenever Ron or Harry would mention the day at Madame Puddifoot's she would curl her lip in scorn, though her eyes still retained a bit of the horror that she had displayed in the café. At times, Harry began wondering if he should just modify all their memories against Dumbledore's wishes. Clearly, this matter would not be forgotten otherwise. And Harry would never be able to look at pumpkin juice the same way again. At least not while Fred and George were around.