Author's Note: Ok, so this is a fun chapter (I think). Am taking recent reviews into account and will try to work on it but first must have patience. NOW: this is me guilt tripping readers (if I still have any (they fly away in droves)) to REVIEW. Got no reviews for chap 9 and, while I know it was a weird chapter, you could still say something. Am pretending people just got confused 'cause it came so soon after chap 8 (just let me have my illusions). Would threaten not to update until I got more reviews but don't have that much will power. Anyway, after all that, hope you enjoy this chapter.





chapter 10: ELABORATION - tangling the lies





Hermione never wanted to see another cauldron again so long as she lived. When she, Lavender and Seamus had reported for their detention that night, they had been met by a somberly greasy Filch, accompanied by the ever present Mrs. Norris, and a towering stack of dirty cauldrons. It had looked as though Snape had been saving them up for a special occasion. Some appeared to be about fifty years old, caked all over with grime and cob webs (as well as not a few fresh webs the spiders were less than willing to abandon). Others were so rusted it was a miracle they still held together rather than just crumbling into dust the way any decent cauldron should.

To sum it up, it had not been a pleasant evening. Hermione's arms ached from the hours of near non-stop scrubbing and she was having trouble uncurling her fingers from where they had gripped the rag. The only high point had come when one of the newly displaced spiders had crept up Filch's coat as he scowlingly watched them work. He hadn't noticed it until it was halfway across his cheek, then he had let out a scream fit to shatter crystal. Mrs. Norris had bolted from the room and it had been half an hour before Filch had returned from searching for her.

During the time he was gone Hermione had cast a simple household spell to give them all a break from scrubbing and the three had fallen to chatting. The time had passed all too quickly before Filch returned and they had to scramble back into their cauldron-cleaning positions but, surprisingly, Hermione had gotten a lead on the whole Ron-spinach problem.

Naturally, her conversation with Seamus and Lavender had turned to the topic of their potions class earlier that day and, Seamus and Lavender being Seamus and Lavender, it had shifted to aphrodisiacs and other magical performance enhancers. Hermione, not fully comfortable with this subject had mostly just kept her mouth shut but apparently the other two had a great deal to say on the subject. She had started to tune them out, mentally listing all the things she needed to get done or check up on, when the tail end of something Seamus was saying caught her attention. "Of course, my cousin just says he swears by spinach."

"What?" Hermione snapped out of her revere. Lavender and Seamus just blinked at her, confused. "Why spinach?" Hermione finally prompted when it appeared neither was about to volunteer anything.

"Spinach for stamina, everyone knows that," Seamus finally said before turning back to his conversation with Lavender. It was only a couple moments after that when Filch returned and Hermione hadn't had a chance to follow up on this new bit of information. She'd never heard anything of the sort but, then again, it could just be another one of many wizard superstitions, which often mirrored muggle ones but had their own twists to them.

And so now Hermione was headed for the library. Of course, 11:30 at night probably wasn't the best of times for a research expedition and she would probably get another detention if caught, prefect or no, but she currently had a pretty good idea of where Filch was and she wanted to run some cross-references on the subject. It would make simple sense if the reason Ron was acting strangely and looking so tired lately was because he had some secret girlfriend, though it irked Hermione to think that he hadn't told them about something like that. Besides, while she was there she could pick up the next in the series she'd been reading on the Development of Magic in the East Indies. Madam Pince wouldn't be there to check it out for her, of course, but it was in the restricted section anyway.

When she reached the library, she was surprised to see a dim light falling through the doorway. She peeked through the door warily, afraid it might be a teacher doing some late night research. She relaxed when she saw who it was, though her brow knit in puzzlement. What was Ron doing here?

He was looking intently at a book Hermione couldn't quite make out the title of, flipping rapidly through it as though looking for something specific. Apparently he found what he was looking for because shortly he stopped and began hurriedly copying down his findings onto a slip of paper. He was so intent on his task, in fact, that he didn't notice Hermione's approach until she was about two feet from the table and had just managed to make out the title on the book: "Glamours: from clear skin to castles in the sky." Hermione frowned at this new piece in the Ron puzzle.

Before she could get a look at the contents of the page Ron was looking at, however, Ron caught sight of her. He jumped and slammed the book shut. "Hermione!" he gasped, practically white from startlement, "What are you doing sneaking up like that? I thought you were Filch come to test out the thumb screws on me."

Hermione winced and stammered, unwilling to admit to the sneakiness of her behavior. "Sorry," she finally got out. "I was surprised to find you here and wondered what you were looking for. Anything I can help you with?" she added dubiously. What would Ron want with glamours? Hermione wondered, then froze as the obvious teenage boy answer presented itself to her thoughts. Eew.

It was Ron's turn to stammer. "Oh, no, that's ok Hermione. It's nothing, really." He quickly stuffed the piece of paper into a pocket in his robes and rose, snatching the book off the table, to place it back on the shelf where it belonged. "What are you doing here?" he asked, coming back from behind the bookshelves.

Not wanting Ron to know that he was the latest subject of her research, Hermione offered her secondary excuse of light reading for her library visit. She quickly ducked into the restricted section, grabbed the book from its place on the shelf and hurried back to where Ron was waiting, holding Harry's invisibility cloak. Seeing this, Hermione realized that maybe Harry knew a bit more about the situation and made a mental note to ask him about it the next day.

She froze again as she remember something else, something she'd read randomly about glamours while looking up a charm to make her eyes look blue. It really wasn't something she wanted to think about but, friends give friends pertinent information, right? "Um, you know," she offered casually, "glamours cast on one's genitals tend to wear off rapidly or unexpectedly." Well, at least now he knew.

Ron gave her a baffled look. "Okay," he said slowly, "I'll keep that in mind, Hermione." He then slipped the cloak over their heads and they headed back to Gryffindor tower in silence.