DISCLAIMER: It's mine!!! all mine!!! In my dreams!

~CHAPTER TEN~

"What?" Hermione exclaimed.


"Both Draco Malfoy and Gregory Goyle have been in the infirmary since lunch," Dumbledore repeated.


"Polyjuice," Neville muttered softly.


"It seems that Mr. Longbottom has answered his first correct Potions question," Snape said in a cold voice.

Neville turned red.

"But who could it have been then?" Hermione wondered out loud. "Why did they keep asking me about a book?"

"What book?" Snape immediately asked her.

 
"How the hell am I supposed to know?" Hermione snapped at him.

"10 points from Gryffindor for your attitude," Snape said calmly.


Hermione looked at Dumbledore for support, but he looked at the professor. Suddenly he turned to Neville.

 "Mr. Longbottom, you may go back to Gryffindor Tower. You are not to talk to anybody about what has happened, do you understand?"

Neville nodded, "Yes, Professor Dumbledore."

He stood up and walked towards the door.

"Oh and Mr. Longbottom," Dumbledore said just before Neville left, "50 points to Gryffindor for helping a fellow student in need."


After he had thanked Dumbledore, Neville, whose face had turned even redder, left the office.

"Miss Granger, what book were they questioning you about?" Dumbledore asked.


"I don't know.  They said something about a white book, but I don't know what they were talking about," Hermione said softly.

Suddenly she remembered something.

"They said that they couldn't find it in my old room," she added quickly.

"Headmaster, I think that it's best that, due to recent events, we choose another Head Girl," Snape suddenly said.

Hermione jumped up.

"You can't do that!" Hermione said, her voice trembling. "What happened did not affect my Head Girl duties," she told Professor Dumbledore.


The Veritaserum had probably stopped working because she knew that what she had said was a lie. She had freaked out when she saw that Damien had blonde hair, like so many boys at Hogwarts.

"Now Severus, I don't think that it's necessary to replace Miss Granger." Dumbledore said calmly.

Hermione sighed in relief.

"However, I'm afraid that we will have to move you to another dormitory again."

Ten minutes later Hermione sat in her new dormitory. It looked exactly the same as the previous two, only this time it was in the Hufflepuff house colours. Crookshanks was already asleep on Hermione's bed. He didn't seem to mind the fact that he had been moved twice. Nothing else had changed though, Hermione's detention that evening wasn't cancelled, neither were her Head Girl duties. Dumbledore had offered her a break from them, but Hermione told him that she would be fine. Besides, she had to show Snape that he was wrong.

Right after dinner she had detention. The cauldrons were already piled up in the corner. There were more then usual, and she knew that there was no way that she could finish cleaning all of them before her Head Girl duties started.
This matter was sorted out however when Professor Snape told her that they would be patrolling the halls a little later then usual. Silently, Hermione started to clean the cauldrons, without magic of course.

It was eleven o'clock when the Head Girl had finished cleaning the last cauldron. She was just about to leave when the door to the classroom opened. Professor Harper walked in the room, obviously not expecting that Snape would still be there.

 
"Can't you knock?" Snape spat at her.


"I didn't think that you would be here," Harper said casually.

"Then why bother coming here at all?" Snape sneered.

"I just wanted to borrow some ingredients, that's all," his colleague confessed.

"No," Snape said.

 
"Excuse me?" Professor Harper asked confused.

"I will not allow you to 'borrow' any of my ingredients," Snape said in a cold voice.

Harper shrugged.

"Fine by me," she said, and after saying goodnight, she left the classroom.


"Miss Granger, why don't you begin patrolling?" Snape told Hermione.


As she left the dungeons she saw Professor Snape locking the door to the Potions room with a spell that she had never heard before.

That night Hermione caught two fourth year Slytherins in the Astronomy tower. Just to be sure that they wouldn't stay in the halls, she walked them to the Slytherin's portrait

On her way back, she heard a noise coming out of the dungeons. Without hesitating she walked towards them, the hall was empty. Just when Hermione had decided to turn back she heard a noise coming out of the Potions classroom.

Didn't Snape lock that room? As silently as possible she tried to open the door. It was unlocked so she stepped inside the room.


On Snape's desk was a little black bag that Hermione had seen before; it was

Professor Harper's bag. She must have lifted the wards Hermione thought.  She went to the door, wanting to leave the classroom, but the door wouldn't open.

Hermione had just tried to open the door with Alohomora, when Professor Harper came out of Snape's office carrying a few ingredients.


"What are you doing here?" Harper asked the Head Girl

Hermione watched as Harper stuffed the ingredients in her bag. She started to explain that she heard a noise coming from the room, and that she thought it was students. Her teacher walked towards the door, but also couldn't open it.

"Did you lock it?" she wanted to know.

Hermione shook her head.

"I couldn't open it myself, not even with Alohomora," she said quickly.

Professor Harper tried several spells, but the door wouldn't open.


"I don't believe this. Why won't it open?" Elizabeth Harper muttered to herself.

 
"Professor, was the door locked when you came here?" Hermione asked.

Professor Harper shook her head.

"No, why?"

"Because Professor Snape put a spell on the door before he left," Hermione explained.


"Bugger," Professor Harper cursed as she sat down in one of the chairs. "I guess we have no other choice but to wait until he returns," she told Hermione.

They waited until Snape returned; it seemed to take hours.  When he entered the room he seemed almost happy.

"May I ask what you two are doing here?" he began, an evil smile on his face.

"I heard someone in your office while I was patrolling, so I went to take a look." Hermione said as fast as she could.

Her professor ignored her. Snape just looked at Harper. Harper grabbed her bag, walked towards the door, and tried to open it again.

"Did you put the Encierro spell on the door?" Harper asked when the door still wouldn't open.

"Indeed," was Snape's reply, "I knew your kind couldn't be trusted."

 
Harper walked back to the desk and sat down again. Snape turned towards Hermione.

"Granger, go to your dormitory."

Relieved that she could go, she left as soon as he had removed the wards.

The following weeks went by pretty fast, Hermione was getting used to her routine of school, detention and Head Girl duties. One day in October, Hagrid asked Harry, Ron and Hermione, if they would babysit Barbie. He didn't tell them where he was going though.  Hermione didn't really want to baby-sit, but it had been a while since she could do something with her two best friends, so she agreed.


Outside, while Harry and Barbie were playing with Fang, Ron and Hermione sat in the grass. As usual, Ron was complaining about his homework.

"I just don't understand why they give us so much homework," he complained. "I simply don't have enough time to do it all."

Hermione started to get upset. Every conversation they had was either about quidditch, how much homework Ron had or quidditch, and Hermione didn't want to talk about homework or quidditch.

"You know, you would have more time to do your homework if you didn't play quidditch all the time!" she snapped at him.

Ron looked offended.

"It's not like I want to," he told Hermione.

She found this hard to believe.

"Harry keeps pushing me to practice more."

Now that was something she did believe.

They sat in silence for a while until Harry and Barbie came their way. Barbie was obviously getting tired; she was just sitting, and picking a few flowers that were hidden in the high grass.

"So do you still have detention with Snape next week?" Harry asked Hermione.

She sighed, "Wednesday will be my last day, thank Merlin."

"Good," said Ron, "then you will have enough time to help me with my homework."

"Don't forget those extra quidditch practices," Harry warned him.

And the subject was back to quidditch. Hermione didn't mind it when Barbie wanted to play again; she gladly followed the girl.

Hermione threw a big ball and Barbie and Fang both ran after it. Barbie loved this game and Hermione didn't mind it, as all she had to do was to wait for Barbie, or Fang, to return with the ball and then throw it again.

But at one point it took too long before Barbie returned. Hermione started to get worried. Afraid that the girl had wandered off into the Forbidden Forest, Hermione walked towards it, calling Barbie's name.

"Do I need to remind you that it is forbidden for all students to go into the forest?"

Hermione jumped, turned around, and found herself looking at Professor Snape.

"No, I was just babysitting," she explained.

"You're not doing a good job then, are you?" Snape told her. "Are you babysitting first years now? How Gryffindor of you."

"I'm babysitting Hagrid's daughter," Hermione answered.

Snape was clearly surprised by her answer.

"Hagrid has a daughter?"

Hermione nodded.

"I'm sure he'll be happy to find out that you've lost his daughter," he replied before walking away.

 
Hermione was relieved that he didn't give her another detention; it was a bit odd actually.

"HERMIONE, WHERE ARE YOU???"

Harry had been searching for her.

"What are you doing here?" he wanted to know.

Hermione explained that she had been looking for Barbie. Apparently Barbie had grown tired of the game and had gone back to Ron and Harry without telling Hermione. She was now almost asleep, and the three friends were just talking about their classes.

"I think it's a bit strange that Harper is never present during dinner. I mean even Trelawney shows up for dinner every now and then," Harry said.

"She's a vampire," Ron said calmly.

Harry and Hermione looked at each other.

"You think Dumbledore would hire a vampire?" Harry wondered.

"Probably, he also hired a werewolf, remember?" Hermione reminded him.

She turned to Ron.

"How do you know that?"

"How can you not know it?" Ron exclaimed. "She never eats dinner, it's always dark in her classroom, and she's even paler then Snape. And did you see how she reacted when Dean got bitten by that Orgrato and started to bleed!"

"You didn't tell anyone else did you?" Hermione asked him.

"Of course not!" Ron assured her.

Hermione knew that Ron was right, how could she have missed that? It was so clear to her now. She was the only one to know that Lupin had been a werewolf.
Since when did Ron notice these sorts of things? It was like some sort of upside-down world. It was probably her busy schedule. It just had to be.

On Thursday, right after dinner, Hermione went down to the dungeons again.

She knocked on the door and, when she was ordered to enter, she walked into the room. Snape was sitting behind his desk, and looked up when Hermione shut the door behind her.

"What do you want, Miss Granger," he snapped at her.

"I'm here for my…"

But suddenly Hermione remembered that she didn't have detention anymore.

"I…I'm sorry…I thought I had a detention. I forgot that…"

"I see you have grown fond of detentions," he said as he slowly got up from his chair.  "Maybe you should serve a detention today, with Filch!" he hissed at her.

Damn, why did he have to make a big deal out of it? Why couldn't that man just be civilized just for once? Ha! Snape civilized, now there was a funny remark.

"Am I amusing you, Miss Granger?" Snape said suddenly, interrupting her thoughts.

"No sir," Hermione answered as fast as she could.

"Detentions seem to amuse you. Three weeks extra detention starting tomorrow!" he barked. "I must congratulate you, Miss Granger. I do believe that you are the first student to receive more than six weeks detention in a row."

"But I didn't do anything!" Hermione complained to her teacher.

She knew that he was unfair and favored his own house above the other ones, but this was insane, even for Snape.

"Four weeks extra detention!"

Without saying another word Hermione ran out of the dungeons.


I'm planning to update the next Chapter next week, but I hope it will be a bit sooner.
Thank you all so much for reading!

* Susan: thanks for your review here and at whispers, I'm glad you like it.
* Melwasul: you're right, polyjuice! Ok, so it wasn't that hard to find out.
* Captain Crash: I don't think so.
* Doxeysocks: thanks for your compliment on the new characters! I'm flattered.
And I think that his chapter answers your question. I mean come on, even Ron noticed!! *LOL*
* Elven_Warrior1: I'll try to update sooner this time, as soon as my beta mails it back to me I'll update.