Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize in the Harry Potter books.
Chapter III: At Hogwarts
"Dean, have you seen Hermione?" Ron asked anxiously.
"No, Ron."
"How about you, Seamus?"
"Nay." He answered mimicking the way the characters in Romeo and Juliet talked, Shakespeare being his most recent discovery of the muggle world. Well, trying to mimic the way they talked anyway. "Weren't… um—what was that again? Were thou not with the fair damsel a while ago? Does that sound right?" Dean and Seamus laughed.
Ron ignored them saying: "Well yeah, but after we had, um… she said she was going to the library but she was not there when Harry and I went there," he answered nervously. "We've looked everywhere. We even asked Ginny to check in the girls' bathroom, all of them, even Moaning Myrtle's. I don't know what to do. If anything happens to her it's all my fault. I…"
"Why?" Seamus quickly asked before the he started to blame himself until dinnertime. "What'd you do?"
"We kinda had an argument and…"
"You mean a fight?" Lavender piped in, coming from the girls' dormitory with Parvati.
"Not a fight," Ron shouted angrily. "Ok, ok sort of like a fight," he said, receiving the glares the girls gave him. They have been present in most of Ron and Hermione's small quarrels and knew that Hermione wouldn't leave because of just a little argument like Ron was saying. It must have been something really terrible for Hermione to run out of patience—for she had an admirable amount of it. "Well anyway," Ron continued, "she got really mad at me. I really don't know what to do. What if she went into the Forbidden Forest and got captured by the Aragogs or by You-Know-Who or by one of his Death eaters or… or…"
"Ron, get a hold of yourself." Dean shouted. "Hermione's not stupid. She has enough sense to stay away from those places."
"And she knows loads of spells that she could use to protect herself," Parvati added.
"We couldn't find her," they heard Harry announce as he came in through the portrait hole, immediately followed by Ginny. The two walked towards the small group of sixth year Gryffindors.
"We couldn't even find anyone who's seen her since lunch" the young red-haired girl said.
"Except Madam Pince," Harry corrected.
"What did she say?" Seamus asked.
"She said Hermione went in the Restricted Section about two hours ago and hasn't seen her come out since."
"Guys, I think we should talk to a teacher about this," Ron said uneasily.
Finally, someone! After wandering around the unfamiliar place she found herself in after touching a very strange book she finally found someone she could ask for directions. She approached the man who had black robes and greasy black hair. She could see that the man was reading something and from the creases on his forehead, it appeared to be important. The house-elf ignored this however and approached the man and pulling at his robes, caught his attention. The man quickly hid the piece of paper he had been so preoccupied with that he didn't notice the elf approach him.
"What do you want… elf," he said eyeing her up and down. At this, the house-elf became nervous.
"Sssir," the house-elf stuttered.
"Professor," came Harry's voice.
"We need to talk to you about…" added Ron's.
"Well, speak up elf. I haven't got all day," Snape snapped impatiently, completely ignoring both Harry and Ron, who decided to leave the enraged teacher alone for a while. Anyway, of all the people to report to.
The house-elf's brown eyes enlarged upon recognizing who she was speaking to and her uneasiness minimally lessened. Snape oftentimes went to the Malfoy Manor for some death-eater meetings.
"Well, sssir." She took a deep breath. "Cccould you please tell me how I can get back to Malfoy Manor?"
Snape was so surprised that he didn't seem to process what he heard quick enough and just said: "What do you mean Mal…"
His sentence was cut off when another high-pitched voice came in. "Oh, Blinky. What are you doing here? The headmaster told you to get your clothes," Dobby shouted going near the two. He saw his old friend's encounter with the professor and had been at Hogwarts long enough to know who not to tangle with. "Dobby really very sorry, sir," he said addressing it to Snape, "but my friend Blinky is new here and is just recovering from her…" he paused a second looking sadly over to the female elf, "…dismissal," he quickly whispered, pretending to hope not to let her hear.
Snape seemed to have caught on to what Dobby was trying to imply and said: "Well, I always told the headmaster not to be too soft on these elves. Go on, then. I need some time alone."
"Of course, sir," Dobby said, bowing very low, his nose almost reaching the ground.
"But…" the female elf started.
"Now, now Blinky," Dobby interrupted while directing her away from Snape, "we need you to get started right away."
"Ron, I don't think we should tell a teacher yet," Harry said once they were a good distance from Snape.
"Yeah, I think so, too," Ron agreed. "I mean Hermione wouldn't like to get in trouble, especially from Snape. Let's just try to look for her for a bit longer. Maybe she just got lost or fell asleep somewhere."
"Ok, but no news from her until tomorrow and we'll go straight to Dumbledore."
"Let's try Hagrid's cabin," Ron suggested.
"But we've already looked there. He might get suspicious if Hermione's not with us a second time in a row."
"Maybe she went there after we left. Anyway, we could just ask Hagrid not to tell anyone until we've searched the whole grounds."
"Ron, we've already searched the whole grounds."
"Well, let's try again. Maybe we just missed her or something,"
Harry sighed. "Well, ok. But the dungeons are yours."
"Ok, ok," Ron said resignedly.
"What is Dobby doing?" Blinky shouted, fortunately out of Snape's range of hearing. "Let go! Let go!"
"Dobby is saving Blinky. Blinky doesn't want to get in trouble, right?" dobby said still pulling Blinky towards the kitchen.
"No, not Blinky. Blinky does not want to get in trouble, especially from family. Let go, Dobby. Blinky needs to go back to masters.."
Dobby finally let go. "Don't Blinky want to stay here with Dobby?" he asked, his eyes full of tears. "Dobby is really happy here but sometimes lonely. The headmaster is really a good man," he said slightly cheering up. "He would let Blinky stay."
"Being with Dobby again would be really nice but Blinky isn't free yet. Oh, Dobby, Blinky really needs to go back to masters before they find out," she said terrified of just the thought of being punished. "Blinky don't want to get them angry," she said, tears pouring down her cheeks.
Dobby finally gave in to the female elf's request and said: "Ok, Blinky. Let's talk to the Headmaster. Maybe he'll know what to do."
"Thank you, Dobby," she said gratefully.
a/n: Sorry about the house-elf talk. I don't know if I exchanged them with that character in the Lord of the Rings, Gollum. Tell me if I did. I'm gonna get back to Draco and Hermione real soon, so don't worry. Just review, Ok?