a/n: Again a speedy update! I'm on the roll, I guess. It's not that I would have time to write frivolous fanfics, but the fact that I use writing them as a way to procrastinate all the real work I should be doing seems to fasten up the writing process. (There's so much I should be doing, instead of this!) Be happy, you dear readers for my poor work-ethics! And now, if I may present: the next installment in Hermione's Horrifying Adventures. I actually like this chapter, hopefully you do, too!

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Dangerous Weapons and Enchantments

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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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She blurted it out, shaking all over, and her actions weren't restricted to yelling alone. After the draggingly long day full of real and imaginary threats, the sight of the Fat Lady smothering Ron was too much for Hermione. Without a thought, she attacked.

"Let him go! Let him go! Don't you dare to do it or I'll use this!" Hermione drew out the knife she had transfigured during the breakfast and pointed it at the Fat Lady. "I'll rip you into half, you disgusting piece of shit! You know what a flamethrower is?! Want to see one? I'd be happy to introduce you."

Hermione's voice that had started out as a yell, was now just a forceful hiss, but the decrease of volume didn't make her any less frightening. She didn't see but the Fat Lady. She locked her eyes with the painting's and silently dared the Fat Lady to make a move. One single move. If the evil cow as much as got a twitch in her ugly little painted toe, Hermione would take it as a declaration of war. She didn't see anything but the portrait trying to hurt the man she loved.

"Hermione! Hermione!" Somehow, Harry was there, squeezing himself between the Fat Lady and Hermione and shaking his friend by the shoulders. "Let go of the knife! Hermione!" She was swaying back and forth in Harry's grip and she couldn't see the Fat Lady clearly anymore, which made her almost frantic. Why was Harry shaking her? Shouldn't he be saving Ron like the resident hero he was? And why was Harry shouting so loudly?

"Hermione!" Hey, that wasn't Harry. That voice was different. Different, but as familiar as Harry's. It was...Ron! She turned her head towards the voice and there he was, totally unscathed, as if he hadn't just a moment ago been kidnapped by an evil portrait. Suddenly, Hermione felt like dreaming, like inside of a weird almost-nightmare. The horrible tension left her muscles and everything was in slow-motion and Harry was still shaking her and Ron was staring at her and he wasn't the only one. It seemed that all of Gryffindor was in the Common Room and staring at her. Unfocused, she thought they should have arranged the audience better. Now the tall Seventh Years were all in the front row and the shorter, younger students couldn't get a proper view of the scene she was making. Although the scene maybe was rated at least PG-13 for the violence and sinister art.

"Hermione! Can you hear me?!" Harry was yelling with even more forte now and Hermione snapped out of her trance.

"Of course I can hear you, Harry. You are yelling." Her calm and collected voice astonished even herself. She stepped out of Harry's grip and nonchalantly, slipped the knife back into her schoolbag. Her hands were trembling slightly when she turned back to Ron. He was still staring at her, his blue eyes concerned, his mouth a bit ajar, his breathing quick. Hermione realized that she, too, was breathing heavily, and when she looked at Ron, it become still more evident.

"Are you all right, Hermione?" he asked and she felt her cheeks heating up. Thankfully, her complexion didn't show blush too well, and hopefully no-one could tell.

"Yes. I'm fine. It's just...when she snapped you like that...I panicked." Oh great, now she felt tears rising in her eyes. Exactly what the situation was lacking: womanly tears! She wanted to stop, but heard her own voice continuing: "Oh, Ron, I was so scared!"

"Of what? Hermione, it's a portrait," Ron said soothingly, "The Fat Lady. Besides, I just got stuck, it's no big deal."

"I'm so terribly sorry, dearie!" the Fat Lady chirped from her portrait, smiling an apologetic, syrupy and clearly fake smile, "I can't imagine, how that happened. I really didn't mean it!" Hermione whirled to face the painting and her expression made the Fat Lady pale and whimper in all her smugness. A couple of first years, who were just trying to climb in, froze, turned around and ran fast away from the enraged Head Girl.

"Hermione, really, calm down. It was an accident. Nothing happened." Ron was looking at her. His eyes were still so heavenly concerned and he came closer and put his hand on her shoulder and smiled at her, consolingly, and looked at her intensively and she was all ready to melt into his arms and just breath him in and feel the amazing relief that he was unharmed and here and the Fat Lady hadn't done anything...wait a minute! Hadn't done anything? Why had she then let Ron go? And smiled so smugly? And why was Ron now looking at Hermione like that?

Hermione took a step back and shook off Ron's hand. Her eyes narrowed when she stared at Ron. There was something in his eyes. Something suspicious. They were a bit unfocused, darker blue than usually, and his pupils...oh God, they were dilated! The Fat Lady was looming behind him and Hermione was certain she was smirking.

"Ron? Do you feel anyway out of ordinary? Anything odd?"

"What?" He shook his head a bit and his eyes focused at her. "No, nothing. As I said, it was no big deal." Again, he was staring at her. She was almost certain the Fat Lady had done something.

"Ron?"

"Yeah."

"How do I look like?"

"Wha? Now?"

"Yes. How do I look like...to you?" She felt her palms sweating. Ron shook his head again, as if to clear it.

"Please, answer me! How do I look like? Now, to you?" Hermione was dreading the answer, but she had to have it.

"Um..." He was just standing there, looking at her in this odd way. Why didn't he answer?

"Say it! How do I look like?"

"Bloody gorgeous! That's how you look like to me! Happy?" Ron suddenly blurted, and blushed violently. Some-one sniggered. Harry snorted. Ginny whooped.

Hermione felt awful. She had always wanted to hear Ron say something like that, and now, when he finally did, it was only because of some stupid spell. He would never had said it in the middle of the Common Room full of people, otherwise. She had to do something.

"Finite Incantatum!" Hermione cried and pointed her wand at Ron. Then she repeated the spell at herself, just in case. The whole Common Room gasped and waited, holding their breath, for what would happen next.

To say that nothing happened, would have been slightly exaggerative. The minute the incantation was uttered, Ron's robes shortened by several inches and his schoolbag's seam burst open letting all the books and parchments spill to the floor. Hermione felt her hair sprang free from it's knot and simultaneously remembered that she had, in the morning, hidden a large, ugly pimple on her forehead with a small glamour-spell. Now it probably shined like a traffic light. People were laughing and Seamus started to joke about Ron's too short robes, but others told him to be quiet, because they wanted to hear what Ron would say. They didn't have to wait for long.

"What the bloody hell, Hermione!" Ron was beet-red and flustered. "Are you completely mad?! What's the matter with you?"

No, there was no more admiration in his eyes. It had been a spell, just a stupid, disgusting spell. Ron didn't really think she looked gorgeous and why would he? Her hair was worse than Medusa's and there was a pimple size of a small hippogriff on her forehead. Suddenly, Hermione felt exhausted and really, really sad.

"Yes, I guess I am. Mad. I must be. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to." She was near tears and wanted nothing but to go to her room and cry herself to sleep, but the danger wasn't over, yet. "Harry? You are not going anywhere anymore, are you?"

"What?"

"You are going to stay here in the Common Room?"

"Well...I guess so." Harry was looking at her weirdly. Everybody was looking at her weirdly. She couldn't let it bother her.

"Good. Please, don't leave here tonight. Make sure Ron doesn't, either."

"What? Me? Why?" Ron stuttered.

"Please, Ron, please," she was pleading now and her voice was breaking. "I'm so sorry for this all, I really am. I can't explain, not yet, but please, don't leave the Common Room tonight. Promise me, will you?"

"Why should I promise you anything? Look at me! Look at what you did to my robes!" He was parading his ankles that were clearly visible, as the robes hardly reached his shins, now. He looked ridiculous and she loved him and he didn't love her and he probably wanted to leave the Common Room to go to see his Hufflepuff girlfriend and he couldn't go!

"Ron! Please!" Suddenly, the tears she had been holding spilled free. Ron looked at her, alarmed.

"Hermione, what's the matter? Don't cry! I won't go anywhere, I promise! Are you sick? Or hurt?"

She couldn't take the concern in his eyes. "No, I'm just tired. I'm fine. This whole day has been....I don't know. I just...thank you. Thank you, Harry. I'm sorry. I'll just go to bed, I really need to sleep."

She avoided all the eyes clearing her way through the crowd towards the stairs and her room. She had never been so happy to have her own room than when she finally crossed the threshold. She closed the door behind her and cast a silencing spell at it, more to avert hearing the voices from the Common Room than to prevent them from listening her. She really didn't want to hear what the Gryffindor students had to say about their Head Girl. They probably all believed her to be completely insane, now.

To think that she had been so scared of the possible humiliation of confessing her feeling to Ron. How much worse had she humiliated herself with this ridiculous scheme? Frolicking around at night with Harry's invisibility cloak, letting evil paintings loose, jumping with paranoia the whole day long, attacking first-year students in the hallways, launching an assault on the Fat Lady, demanding Ron to tell how he thought of her looks, casting Finite Incantatum at both Ron and herself, threatening her best friends not to leave the Common Room....and most of it in front of half the school! Uh huh, quite an impressive list of achievements for the last forty-eight hours.

Hermione was miserable, but she sure as hell didn't want to cry and whine tonight, again. Furious at herself, at the Fat Lady, at Derek, at Ron, at everybody, she paced her room, occasionally kicking the wall or some unfortunate garment that had been left lying on the floor.

"Damn! Damn! Damn! I hate myself! I hate life! I hate Hogwarts! I hate hormones, and handsome best friends and art, all art there is! No more art galleries for me, never! All the painters should be burnt alive!" She carried on, cursing every painter she could name, and being Hermione Granger, she could name quite a many. She didn't even care if there were Muggles; at the moment, all the painters were the same: eeeeevil. "Matisse! Van Gogh! Monet! Manet! Munch! Renoir! Picasso! Van Dyck! Da Vinci!" Each of the names was emphasized with a kick or a throw.

Finally, exhausted after her day and her rant and incapable of thinking of any other artists, Hermione threw herself on the bed. Something was poking her under her back. Frustrated, she reached for the irritating object – and came face to face with a very familiar witch.

Melasina Charmeuse smirked her self-satisfied smile at Hermione and the footnotes in the bottom of the page 261 of Hogwarts, a History were shifting and flicking tantalisingly. Hermione was about to throw the book to the wall, but she stopped herself abruptly in the middle of the throw. Melasina Charmeuse was so smug and confident that it reminded Hermione how devious and clever Derek had been and how deceiving the Fat Lady was. They all seemed like people who enjoyed elaborate schemes and complicated enchantments. Could they really have attacked Ron or her with a spell that was countered with a mere Finite Incantatum?

No! That was impossible! After all, how much havoc could they have caused in the past if their spells had been so easily dealt with. It had been a bluff! The Fat Lady didn't supposedly even have a wand! They were just trying to make her afraid and weak. Hah! Obviously, those evil little pieces of bad brushmanship didn't know one Hermione Granger! She would research, she would plan, she would act, she would attack, and there was nothing that could prevent her gaining victory over the sinister art of the castle of Hogwarts!

In the middle of her victory march, which consisted of taking out sharpened quills and piles of parchment as well as all her books that might help, Hermione realized something else, too. Something that filled her with a lovely warm tingling feeling. Something she didn't dare to think too closely, but only let it roam, unfocused, in the background of her mind: If Ron wasn't under any spell, then he meant it when he said I was bloody gorgeous.

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a/n: Now, at last, there's some hope in the horizon. Way to go, Hermione! The next chapter will probably be the last, if it doesn't do some weird swelling-stunt that my chapters sometimes tend to do.

Orangetabby – Well, yes, the story didn't start as a humorous one, but it seems to gain more of that kind of characters as I go on....and I'm always been the kind of sadist that believes there's a lot of humor for others in situations, where the actual people experiencing them don't see anything funny at all. lol.

Lady Rach - I'm very proud to have gotten you stressed! Hopefully this chapter wasn't too much for your heart!

Susan D – Thanks for your opinion! No 17 alternative endings to come. Instead, I think I know now how it will end J

ProudMuggleGirl – Hermione's thoughts about Hufflepuffs are totally her own and unfortunately very heavily biased. I see that the Gryffindors are more timid to approach Ron because of Hermione and the Slytherins because of the House feud. That leaves the Ravenclaws and the Hufflepuffs, and Hermione is seeing them in a very bad light solely because of their interest in Ron. Hufflepuffs maybe still in a worse light, as she herself could have been sorted into Ravenclaw. I wouldn't really take Hermione's view of the situation as the absolute or objective truth ;) I also believe that "practising" with flirting is very normal amongst any adolescent girls and it doesn't necessarily mean that the girl is a slag. I myself have also always thought that there are maybe most possibilities for variation in being a Hufflepuff. Thank you for your insight, and hopefully this explained my point, here.(Which really wasn't to abuse the Hufflepuffs in any way;)

Many, many thanks for all of your reviews! I just love to hear from you! Please, do tell me how you liked this chapter! All comments and constructive critisism are very welcome!