Hello, there! I guess nobody remembers this fic any more, as even I hardly did, but here's the next chapter, anyhow. Hopefully somebody will read it...

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hermione Granger collected Hogwarts, a History under her arm and climbed the stairs to her Head Girl room, determined that she would never, ever seek advice from an portrait.

The Fat Lady with a cloak and a dagger

Her resolution lasted for exactly three days. Or really not even for so long. It took three days before she did something, but she had known right away, in the morning after her decision, that she would eventually renounce. She had known it, but to maintain even a slight illusion of actually following her own decisions and sticking to her own principles, she had waited until after two and a half more days.

Two and a half more days, which she had fruitfully used convincing herself that she was only going to ask the Fat Lady's advice because of intellectual curiosity and academic interest. In the sense of the Fat Lady being a wizarding portrait of a historical person, probably even a historical person with some importance, as they had painted her portrait and hung it on Hogwart's wall, it was really much easier to use that argument than if she had been forced to talk to Lavender or Parvati.

There was nothing similar in asking her roommates' advice and in asking the Fat Lady's. Nothing whatsoever.

Hermione sighed. She was certainly the only person in the world who had to keep up appearances for herself's sake! She knew what it was all about! She knew what she wanted and why! She knew! And still she continuously wove together these ridiculous excuses – not to deceive others, no, but to deceive herself – even though she knew already!

Why was it such a horrifying idea to act like a teenaged girl in love – when you happened to be a teenaged girl in love, Hermione scolded herself. If she didn't act like one now, when would she then? When she'd be thirty-five? Wouldn't it be slightly more ridiculous then?

Ridiculous. That was the horrifying word. Or one of them. Ridiculous. Rejected. Failure. She didn't want to be ridiculed. She was the one who ridiculed others. Even when she didn't mean to. She wasn't cruel, no, she didn't laugh when Neville tripped and fell down the stairs or when Ron managed to make another impossible mistake in Transfiguration, but she couldn't help sighing or sniffing aloud when Lavender gushed about the wonders of Divination or Luna rattled on about non-existent beasts – or when girls giggled about boys and did all kinds of insane things to attract them.

She honestly couldn't help it! Somehow her nose just did that wrinkly thing and she almost snorted, but not really, and nearly sighed, but not exactly, and all but rolled her eyes, but not just. That was who she was: Hermione Granger, the sensible witch with no toleration to follies, stupidities or ignorance.

Except that now she was contemplating a folly herself, and not even a normal folly, but a girly, giggling kind of folly. The kind of folly one really should contemplate with one's best girlfriend and whisper about it and titter and blush vigorously in the corridors when the certain someone passed by.

Instead, she was all alone, having no actual girl girlfriends. Or, well, supposedly she had Ginny, but as she had never shared any girl-talk with her, it was quite awkward to start now. And therefore she had to walk the corridors without a girlfriend but with the certain someone and she couldn't giggle or blush without him believing she had accidentally swallowed a generous helping of some strange potion.

Sometimes it was hard to be Hermione Granger, the one and only wholly sensible teenaged witch in the castle of Hogwarts. It was hard to risk laying herself at the mercy of others' ridicule, when they would without a question laugh so much harder because it was her, and not some silly...Hufflepuff. Worse still was the fact thatshe herself certainly wasn't used to regard her own actions with derision.

As if the ridicule itself wasn't a threat big enough, there were Rejection and therefore, Failure, that also loomed in the horizon of this folly she was contemplating. If she was to ask the Fat Lady for help in her love life, and if she was to follow her advice, it would mean she would actually end up doing something about her feelings for Ron. And if she did something, she would risk his Rejection.

This far, she had succeededat hiding her feelings and therefore keeping them safe. No risk of Rejection if you never reveal your attraction. Rule number one in her book. One can dream and imagine all kinds of scenarios where he would tell about his feelings – and even then she would only laugh at first, just in case it had been a joke – and she would only have to accept.

Unfortunately, somewhere after the events in the romance novels she liked to read (secretly, mind you, as reading them was a bit frivolous, in her opinion) had taken place, someone (probably a Hufflepuff) had changed the rules. Now one couldn't be a passively accepting fair lady anymore. Even if you lived in a castle and had to wear very proper robes, no noble knights would come to woo you. Instead, it was almost expected that you yourself wooed the said knights. Especially if you were a bit intimidating and usually self-confident, and everybody thought you always had the courage to do and say what ever you wanted to, whenever you wanted to and to whomever you wanted to.

Hermione sighed. This frustrating battling over it all wasn't going to help any. How was she supposed to be ready to face Voldemort or help Harry, if she couldn't even face her own ridicule over herself? She had to learn to laugh at herself. She had to learn to give herself permission to do stupidities – at least meaningless, small stupidities.

Logically, it could even work as a prevention: there was probably some decided amount of mistakes each and every person had to make during their life, and if she made small stupidities, she could be saved from making the big ones. And contemplating the small, trivial things and how they could go wrong, she at leastwouldn't have todread the big and important ones and the much more fatal ways they could go wrong.

Hermione Granger's patented way to conquer stress and fear and war-time angst: to drown oneself in follies and romantic problems. She snorted at the thought. It was the truth, but that didn't make it sound any more believable.

Anyhow, she didn't even try to deceive herself anymore. She knew very well that she was going to talk to the Fat Lady. She could take her own ridicule. After all, she was Slytherin enough to hide her actions from the others and thusavoid theirs. She would approach the portrait during dinner, when everybody would be in the Great Hall stuffing themselves. Normally, Ron would come to see what was the matter if she didn't come to eat, but luckily, they still weren't really speaking.

Even though their continuing argument was profitable to her plan, she couldn't help feeling cold and lonely. Naturally, Ron couldn't take care of her anymore, or wouldn't. He had a girlfriend to take care of, now. Hermione didn't know for sure if Ron had met the girl (the Hufflepuff, as she had named her in her mind) after that evening three nights ago, but she imagined he had. She almost liked to torture herself with the images of them together. It gave her a reason to be miserable and she needed her misery to go through with her plan.

And she did have a plan. Oh, yes,did she havea plan. It was only a little chat with the Fat Lady, something which wasn't illegal, dangerous or even against the rules, but she had planned it carefully. For once, the boys weren't there making rash decisions and the life-or-death circumstances weren't demanding recklessness. So she had had time to get ready. She had prepared several different excuses for missing dinner or getting caught when talking to the Fat Lady. She had even made distinctions between the different people who might demand her explanation. A good strategist used various lies for various opponents: Harry – got to check something in the library, Ron – none of your business, not hungry, Ginny – trying to lose a bit of weight, Professor McGonagall – that time of the month, feeling a bit nauseous...

It was almost a disappointment, when nobody asked why she wasn't coming to dinner and the corridor leading to the Gryffindor Tower was totally empty. A bit of cloak and dagger-activity would at least have distracted her from what she was about to do.

"Yes, dearie? The password?"

Hermione jumped at the Fat Lady's voice. Apparently she had stood in front of the painting for some time, already. "Eh...well..."

"You must know the password, dearie.You aren't the one to usually forget anything. Trouble with boys, is it?" The Fat Lady smiled down at her in a way that normally would have irritated Hermione enormously. Now, she just felt more nervous.

"Actually...you see..." How should she address her? Fat Lady didn't sound very polite and she couldn't just call her "Primrose", either. Hermione cursed in her mind (she did that quite often, even though she really didn't like anybody cursing aloud): why had she used valuable time making up useless excuses when she should have searched Hogwarts, a History for thorough information on the Fat Lady, including the Lady's full name. Finally, she settled with "ma'am" and drew a breath to begin.

"Oh, you do have boy-troubles, my dear! How delightful! And imagine how I still remember the time you first came here. How time flies..."

"Ma'am...yes, actually, yes...I do have a problem concerning a certain...boy." She knew she was blushing and the Lady's enthusiastic giggles weren't helping any.

"Well, congratulations, my dear! Young love is always so romantic. But I'm afraid I still cannot let you in without the password."

"It's not...look, ma'am, I know the password..."

"Why don't you say it, then?" Now she was getting Hermione frustrated instead of just nervous. She felt like screaming but as that probably wouldn't persuade the Lady to help her, she only started to speak so fast the portrait couldn't interrupt her anymore:

"Well, as I do have these problems with this boy and he doesn't really see I'm ..well, datable, I guess, and I was reading Hogwarts, a History, and I came across with this witch, Melasina Charmeuse was her name, and she recommended that I should talk to you, as you, according to her, really know about these things and could maybe give me some advice and so I was wondering if you maybe could." Hermione stopped there, out of breath after her long rant, and looked anxiously at the Fat Lady.

The Fat Lady's whole demeanour suddenly changed drastically. She glanced hurriedly at the other portraits and started to speak very loudly: "No, no, no, dearie. There's simply no way I could help you." She shook her head so energetically that her curls bounced around her chubby face and the pink bow on the top of her head diddered vigorously. At the same time, though, her eyes danced with excitement and she reached for a quill and a piece of parchment as she loudly exclaimed: "I have given up that business, totally given it up, dearie! The Headmaster doesn't approve, you see. And I would never, ever confront the Headmaster, never!"

As she spoke, she hurriedly scribbled something on the parchment and then gestured apologetically with her hands: "I really can't help you, dearie. I'm terribly sorry." While gesturing, she skillfully aimed at Hermione and a crumpled piece of parchment fell straight into the pocket of her robe. "So terribly sorry!"

"Hermione!" The voice calling her startled her and she whirled around – to face one Ronald Weasley who had an anxious expression on his face. "Why weren't you at dinner? Are you ill? And how come you are just standing here in the hallway? And why's she so sorry? What's the matter?"

She was going to say, according to her plan: "It's none of your business", but his concern for her made her blush and stutter: "I-I'm fine, Ron, it's nothing."

"Yes, dear, nothing at all," the Fat Lady assured from her frames and Hermione cringed. The Lady's whole demeanour just shrieked secrets! romance! embarrassment! and she was sure Ron would see it as clearly as she did, especially when the Lady carried on: "We were just discussing the love...ly weather outside."

"I forgot the password," Hermione added hurriedly.

"You never forget the password! Bloody hell, Hermione, you set them yourself!"

"Yes, yes, which is why I now remember it again. Determination," she snapped at the portrait, trying to distract Ron from the Fat Lady's not-so-subtle winks and whispers (It's him, isn't it?). She swept in to the Common Room and discreetly opened the little note while Ron was still behind her. Her eyes flew over the few words and then she crumpled the paper in her fist and turned around.

"Do you think Harry would loan me his cloak?"

"What?" Ron stared at her, open-mouthed. She almost grimaced. What was happening to her careful plans and discreet conduct? Why was she practically revealing herself to Ron – and to him, of all people!

"I should check something in the library and there's really not enough time before the curfew." Not the best of excuses and not very skillfully performed, either, but maybe it would go through. She studied Ron's face...it possibly went through. He maybe bought it.

"I'll come with you." Why was he offering? They weren't even supposed to be speaking, for Heaven's sake!

"It's not necessary. It's just some research."

"Hermione, you look ill and you forgot the password. I don't think you should go by yourself. In fact I don't think you should go at all, but I know not even a herd a wild hippogriffs can keep you out of the library, so I'll come with you." And then he smiled. And something weird happened to her stomach. And then to her brain. And she panicked.

"No! I'm...I'm meeting somebody and you can't come!"

And then she realized what she had said and paled and blushed and run to the stairs, not wanting to see his face. She didn't know which she feared more: that he would get angry or the possibility that he wouldn't.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

There. Some cliches, I know, but it's fun to write them, sometimes. Feedback is appreciated, and I'll try to update a bit faster next time...