a/n: Another speedy update! This is happening either because of some weird Yuletide virus or then the reason for my speed are simply your lovely reviews. Thank you very much for those, they are really appreciated and cherished. But now, on with the story: Hermione and paranoia that's unfortunately not without foundation.

The Evil, Evil Fine Arts

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Melausina Charmeuse, the witch responsible for this whole awful mess, smiled maliciously at Hermione from the corner of the page and winked smugly as she slammed the book shut. For once, knowledge didn't render the situation any more manageable. Hermione felt tears raising in her eyes. How had she been so stupid? Without consent...what if they started to harass her now? Or Ron? What would they do? Had she maybe broken the confinements placed by the Headmasters? What if the portraits were now free to do what ever they wanted to? And it was all her fault!

Why did other people manage to act all foolish and girly, but when she tried to do even something really small and innocently girlish, it all blew up on her face? Was foolishness really forbidden for one Hermione Granger? Was she really condemned to act practical forever and for everyone else, too? Was it fair at all, what?!

The dawn saw one Hermione Granger, the one and only wholly sensible teenaged witch in the Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, silently crying her eyes out in her Head Girl Room.

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She should have felt as if she hadn't slept at all. Se should have looked as if she had cried the whole night long. She should have blushed fervently when seeing Harry and Ron in the morning. But she was Hermione Granger, she had had time to prepare and she was a witch.

Came the morning and she was perfectly collected, looked well rested and calm and had Harry's invisibility cloak with her in her bag so that Ron couldn't see it and get suspicious. Oh yes, she looked calm and well rested. She was a witch , after all. In reality, she was weary, distressed and seriously panicking, panicking in a way one normally panics fearing confrontation with Death Eaters or Dark Lords, not at all like one usually acts before confronting their quarter's guardian portrait.

During the long, sleepless night, Hermione had really gained a totally new way of looking at the portraits on the castle's walls. As far as she was concerned, they were now all beyond evil, guilty before proven innocent. Maybe she should ask her parents to send her some serious amounts of turpentine, just in order to defend herself from the sinister fine arts of her school. At least, she would not listen to a word the Fat Lady said, and she wouldn't let Ron or Harry do so either.

"Hermione," she heard Harry saying timidly and turned to look at him, simultaneously making a plan to protect him from the evil paintings. "Eh...how was your date?" Harry asked, glancing at the stairs Ron still hadn't come down.

"Very scary," she answered absentmindedly, shuddering. Harry blanched and then, he did that all too familiar shift of demeanor and in the place of the awkward and embarrassed teenaged, there was someone else, someone older, someone ready to face danger and violence if necessary.

"Scary?" he asked softly, but with a grave undertone.

"Not like that!" Hermione hurried to correct him. "Besides, it wasn't a date date!" She felt frustrated. How could she tell Harry? Hadn't he enough on his shoulders already? The Boy Who Lived surely didn't need his best friend letting evil paintings loose and expecting him to fix it all.

"I'm fine,"she insisted, and even though both Harry and Hermione recognized the phrase as the same Harry himself had used thousands of times, always lying, he didn't push it and she was grateful he didn't.

Hermione didn't know whether she should try to pass the Fat Lady as fast as she could or wait for Ron and make sure the Lady wouldn't do anything to him. The dilemma was solved for her, when Ron appeared and loudly descended the stairs.Hermoine was nervous to look at him and quickly turned her face away, ready to hear some ridiculous accusation of fraternizing with the enemy or jeopardizing Harry's safety. However, Ron acted perfectly normal, and for some reason, she felt almost disappointed.

"Morning. I'm starving, let's go to eat," was all Ron said, and running his fingers through his uncombed hair, he neared the portrait hole. Quickly, Hermione slipped past him, grabbed both Ron's and Harry's hands, shouted the password and hurriedly ducked through the hole, pulling the perplexed boys along with her.

"Hermione!" Harry exclaimed. "What on earth was that? What's the matter?"

"She has seeecrets!" the Fat Lady announced screeching after the trio, but Hermione didn't let it stop her. She dragged the boys safely away from the evil portrait. Now Ron was protesting as well:

"What the bloody hell is this, Hermione?"

"Nothing," she assured, "it's just that we are in a hurry, if we want to eat breakfast and still be in time for Transfiguration. Have you done your homework?" Suddenly she realized she was still holding Ron's hand and hastily drew hers away. Why hadn't he let go of her hand? It was sweaty and clammy and Harry had let go ages ago and nobody wanted to hold a perspiring hand – and she had more important issues to attend.. "I'm sure you didn't write all of the required length, did you, Ron? If we hurry, you can still add a few inches."

The boys stared at her, clearly not convinced by her explanations, but she almost ran along the corridor, rattling about homework and marks and points. As she talked, she held her right hand in her sleeve, ready to draw her wand, and her eyes were restlessly patrolling the walls. More than once, she was certain she saw the Fat Lady in one of the paintings and several times she thought she heard Derek's voice taunting her. What if he had escaped his painting? He could lurk anywhere! For a moment, she felt tempted to pull out Harry's invisibility cloak and hide from all the painted eyes following her, but she couldn't leave Ron without protection.

Hermione didn't notice how Ron and Harry stared at her and then looked at each other, concerned for their best friend. She didn't acknowledge the boys' timid attempts to start a conversation with her either. All of her concentration was used on observing the countless paintings on Hogwarts' walls. Didn't that woman look like Derek O'Samuelson? Maybe she was his sister or aunt or mother or something? Was the name under that portrait really Marigold? Violet, Primrose, Marigold, Pansy...what if they were all Parkinsons? That would certainly explain their evilness!

It could have been paranoia. Hermione would have been happy to admit her suspicions were unaccounted for. However, even before they reached the Great Hall, three portraits had already addressed her. A elderly woman with grey hair and wandering eyes had asked her not to listen to that nasty boy, as he had always been a rotten apple; a slightly plumb but still pretty lady with a handsome wizard on her arm had whispered: you'd better use their charms, they work marvelously! and a small boy with a pony had breathlessly stammered: cousin Derek wants to see you right after breakfast!

Naturally, the attention several portraits gave her didn't go unnoticed by her friends. No matter how loudly she nagged about Charms and Potions and essays, she couldn't hide the fact that the art of Hogwarts was unusually interested in one Hermione Granger. Finally, Ron grabbed her elbow and turned her to face him and Harry.

"Hermione, what's this all about? Who's that Derek fellow? How do you know all these paintings?"

"Ron, Harry..." she couldn't face them, but kept her eyes down, " I'm awfully sorry, but I can't explain now. Please, just don't...don't talk to any of the portraits. Not even the Fat Lady!"

"Why?" That was Harry, and even in that one little word, his voice managed to sound determined. Hermione almost felt compelled to tell it all, but she resisted the temptation. It was all her fault. She had no right to dump this mess on others, never mind if they were saviours of the wizarding world or her best friends. She had to fix it herself.

"I can't tell you now. Just...don't talk to them, not at all! And you better keep your wand ready."

Hermione had just finished her sentence, when someone behind her shouted suddenly: Derek! She drew her wand, turned around quickly as lightning and started to cast Stupefy. Before she got to utter the spell's last syllable, Harry had took hold of her wand and stopped her from finishing the spell.

"What are you bloody doing?!" Ron shouted. "You almost hexed that firstie! You're the Head Girl!"

"Should we take you to the infirmary?" Harry asked, more calm, but as concerned as Ron.

"His name is Derek?" was all Hermione could utter.

"Y-ye-es," the small first-year stammered, clearly scared of her. "I'm so sorry, Miss. I didn't mean it."

"Oh, bloody hell!" Ron exclaimed, "It's not your fault what your name is, midget! She's a bit crazy sometimes. I guess she thought you were someone else."

"I...I didn't know there was someone awful named Derek." The little Hufflepuff seemed to be at brink of tears and his lower lip was trembling dangerously. His friends were staring at Hermione as if she was something dangerous and explosive.

"There isn't, sport," Ron assured the small boy and grinned at him, pushing a chocolate frog in his hand. "There you go. Have a nice breakfast, Derek!" The boy practically vanished from the corridor and after he and his friends had gone, Ron turned to Hermione, looking more serious than she had seen him for a long time.

"Now, Hermione, what's this all about? Who's this Derek fellow? How's he made you scare the midgets in the corridors?"

"No, he...it's not....,"Hermione was sounding idiotic and she knew it. Sometimes, Ron had that effect on her. She tried to look at Harry, instead, and make up a believable explanation for her weird behaviour. "Um...I found this spell in a book and....um...it makes the portraits see me as a person, instead of a pupil amongst the others. That's why they treat me so friendly. And...Derek...I went to meet him last night and..." at this point of her report Hermione realized she hadn't used the best possible wording. First, she thought of telling it all, but then an image of Harry drowning under his responsibilities stopped her. So, she continued awkwardly: "...and it didn't go too well, so...um...I'm a bit jumpy about the subject. I'm fine, though. I just don't want to talk about it."

She glanced nervously at Ron, but his face was, for once, unreadable. "You loaned her the cloak then, eh?" he asked Harry, who nodded, looking guilty, and then neither of the boys said anything anymore. Hermione looked from one to the other and couldn't think of what to say. She hadn't even time to think of what to say and how to explain the Derek-thing. It was much more important to keep an eye on the paintings and prevent them from harming Ron without telling him or Harry what she had done.

During the breakfast, Hermione was again oblivious to the concerned glances Ron, Harry and by the time, even Neville and Ginny were throwing at her. Instead, she was contemplating about Sirius Black. Not about his death or Harry's sorrow, but about the time he had broken into the Gryffindor Tower slashing the Fat Lady's portrait with a large knife. At the time, his behaviour had seemed horrid and drastic; now Hermione saw Sirius Black as an extremely intelligent and observant man. Deciding to take a leaf out of his book if necessary, she took a table knife in her hand, drew her wand and transfigured the little blunt utensil into a large, sharp knife. Satisfied, she followed the sharp edge of the knife with her finger and slipped the now dangerous-looking tool into the pocket of her robe, again missing the looks of her friends. She was prepared.

Yes, she was maybe prepared to meet the Fat Lady, but she wasn't prepared to get seriously mobbed by half of the portraits on the Hogwart's walls. During the day, several dozens of paintings approached her, and each one of them seemed to have their own opinion on whether she should let Derek cast his spell at her or not.

It was exhausting, trying to keep her secret from Ron and Harry, when every few minutes, some two-dimensional character would start loudly pouring out unasked for, but extremely loud advice on her love-life. She would have dumped the boys, but then Derek could have spelled Ron instead of her and that just wasn't going to happen. So, Hermione had to stay close to Ron and simultaneously prevent him from hearing anything the extremely loud paintings had to say. By dinner-time, she was going crazy. She was looking behind her shoulder and under the desks all the time, sometimes even trying to do both at the same time, which was really quite hard on her neck and shoulders. She was also talking constantly and more loudly than usual, hoping her voice to drown all the other noises.

Hermione would have liked nothing more than going to hide in her room as soon as possible, but she couldn't leave Ron at the mercy of the evil paintings. She had to protect him. Nevermind if he had hardly said a word to her all day and was probably daydreaming of his Hufflepuff girlfriend, he was now Hermione Granger's responsibility and she took her responsibilities extremely seriously. So, when he took third helpings of everything on the dinner table, she just sighed, relieved that at least there weren't any actual paintings in the Great Hall.

When both of the boys had finally eaten enough, Hermione led them running to the Gryffindor Tower. After the day they had spent with her, Ron and Harry didn't even question her breakneck speed, but only followed their best female friend with silent resignation. Hermione couldn't stop glancing at the portraits. She was waiting for all of them to start cackling evilly anytime now. She had to rescue the boys!

Finally, they reached the Gryffindor Tower. Again, Hermione grabbed both Harry's and Ron's hands, shouted the password, continued her unbreakable rambling only raising her voice still a few notches in order to drown the Fat Lady's comments, were she to make any. Hermione jumped through the hole first, then came Harry and last, Ron.

Hermione was almost ready to sigh of relief, when the portrait hole suddenly started to close – with Ron still in the middle of climbing through it.

"Let him go, you evil pink cow!"

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a/n: Yes, yes, that was a cliffy...sorry. I have, at the moment, several scenarios about how to finish this little fic. None of them the one I originally had when starting to write this. Hmm...I even could easily finish this with a beautiful love-declaration and a kiss – so that it would still be an unhappy, angst-filled ending! How great would that be, eh? I can hardly resist... Or then I could write several endings and make you decide....well, we'll see. I can't even decide whether I will write something from Ron's POV or not. In the meantime (i.e. the time I'm happily reflecting my options) please, do review! Reviews inspire me, or at least, they make me feel good inside! You surely can't resist making me fell good inside? Criticism and suggestions are very welcome, too!