A/N: Here is the next one…
Chapter Three: Mistake
"So, how was the library?" Ron asked four hours later when he and Harry sat on either side of Hermione in the great hall for supper.
"Good as usual. I got plenty done. You know, a funny thing happened on the way, though…" she began.
Harry looked at her expectantly while Ron filled his plate with food.
"Oh, well, not really funny, actually, just Peeves," she said, deciding to leave who she had met out of it.
"Oh," Harry said, nodding as he helped himself to a chicken leg, "Yeah, Peeves is a bit funny in the head, I think."
Hermione smirked as she absent-mindedly looked over at the Slytherin table. Draco Malfoy had been looking at her, but when she looked over at him he looked at Crabbe on his left side, then down at the steak he was determinedly cutting with a butter knife.
"He's never had steak before, has he," she said.
"Wha?" Ron asked, his mouth full of food. He first looked at her, then looked at where she was looking and swallowed his food, "Oh bloody hell, please don't tell me you fancy him."
"Excuse me?" she asked, offended, "Me, fancy Malfoy? Malfoy who had called me every foul, disgusting name in the book? Yeah, I fancy him alright," she sarcastically said, serving herself some pasties.
She looked up at him again and found he was looking at her. She made a face, lifted her steak knife into the air to show him that this was the knife he was supposed to use.
Comprehension dawned on his face as he set the butter knife down and picked up the steak knife.
Hermione let out a laugh and rolled her eyes as Harry said, "Hermione! That was my entertainment for the night! Watching Malfoy cut his steak with a butter knife was funny!"
Hermione laughed, "And I supposed it's amusing to him that you're trying to eat jello with a fork."
"Oh no!" Hermione whispered, turning to Harry and Ron. It was Monday morning and they were lined up, ready to enter the Potions classroom.
"What?" asked Ron, "Hermione, you ok?"
"No!" she quietly exclaimed, "I've forgotten to do Snape's essay!" she said, a tear leaking out of her eye.
"What were you doing in the library then? I reckoned you were doing your Potions essay," Ron said, then looked at Harry, "Oh no! Hermione hasn't done her homework! The world's going to end!"
Hermione hit his shoulder, "It is not funny Ronald! He's probably going to give me another detention!"
"Hermione, calm down. This is your first ever missed assignment period; he can't give you a detention for it."
Hermione nodded, trying to calm herself down, "Alright. Are…are you sure he can't…?" she began as the dungeon door opened.
Harry nodded as the class shuffled in.
"Today we will be mixing yet another difficult potion in which I don't expect any of you to mix correctly. That being the case I will assign all of you yet another essay on how to correctly mix the ingredients of the wolfsbane potion. You will tell me exactly where you went wrong, why you went wrong and how, if it is possible, you can fix your mistake," he sneered at Neville who Hermione was surprised to see, "But first," he continued, "I would like all of your essays on the Drought of Living Death. Accio!"
Twenty-four rolls of parchment flew into his hands and Hermione wished she could sink through the floor. Somehow he knew right away it was her that had forgotten to do her assignment.
"Well well well, only twenty-four when there should be twenty-five. Miss Granger," he said going through the rolls, "Unless I am mistaken, I don't see your essay here."
"No sir," she whispered, looking at the desk. This proved to be a mistake.
"Look at me," he quietly said, stepping up in front of her, "And stand up. I would like you to inform the class why you have failed to turn in your first assignment."
She slowly stood and looked right in between his eyes, "I don't see you making anyone else do this when they miss an assignment," she said so only Snape, Harry and Ron could hear.
"Detention again, I think, same time, for your cheek. Now, do as I asked."
"I forgot about it. I had detention Saturday night and an important matter to attend to on Sunday so I simply…forgot," she said, staring at Snape.
He looked at her for a moment, "Forgot. That is the most pathetic excuse I have ever heard…" he began.
"Well it's the truth," she loudly said, "So unless you want me to come up with some great adventure story I suggest you accept it," she finished, shocked at her own words and attitude.
"Detention for the next three weekends then, Miss Granger," he said through pursed lips.
All the Slytherins were smirking and whispering to one another. All of them, she noticed, except one who was; was it possible; glaring at Snape?
Malfoy.
"It was a mistake Harry! I didn't mean to say it; it just sort of…you know, came out!" she cried once they were back in the common room after class, "I told you! I told you he was going to give me another detention! And it wasn't just one other, it was three more!"
"Hermione calm down. He didn't give you a detention for not doing your essay, he gave it to you because you were being smart with him!" Ron explained.
She glared at him.
"Because he thought she was being smart with him, Ron, thought. You missed a key word there," Harry said.
"It doesn't matter, he would have given it either way, Ron! He would have found something; anything that I was doing that wasn't exactly right and he would have given me a detention for it!"
"Yeah, you just made it bloody easier for him, Hermione," Ron exclaimed, "Now that you're really on Snape's bad side you have to learn to not make it easy for him to find fault in you!"
"Yes, and I suppose you'd know how to do that," Hermione sarcastically said, wiping the rest of her tears away, rolling her eyes, hitching up her book bag and walking out of the common room to her next class room.
"Hermione, you've got to be patient with him," Harry said, panting a little as he caught up with her, "He doesn't exactly think before he talks and…"
"I know Ronald, Harry," she said, rounding on him, "I know what he's like, ok? I've only spent the last six years with him, I think I know him just as well as you do," she said, turning on her heel and making her way down the hall again.
"Granger!" someone yelled from the opposite end of the hallway.
Hermione looked up, "No," she groaned as Harry again caught up with her, "What do you want this time?" she rudely asked as Draco Malfoy stood in front of her.
He glared at Harry for a moment, who glared back and held Hermione's arm with a tight grip, then looked at Hermione.
"I just…just wanted to know if you were alright."
She looked at him reproachfully and exchanged reproving expressions with Harry, "Pardon me?"
"You know, after what happened in class…"
"Who are you again? Oh, that's right, Draco… Malfoy, the snot-nosed Slytherin and Death Eater who's father, also a Death Eater, got himself locked up in Azkaban earlier this year. What's gotten into you?"
"Actually, I…I did that," Harry muttered to Hermione's accusation of Lucius getting himself locked up.
"It's just…you know, Snape doesn't exactly favor Gryffindors…"
Hermione stared at him in disbelief, "And you do? What are you trying to do? There has got to be a reason behind all this," she said.
"Can't I be worried about a fellow student…?"
"Fellow student?" Hermione shouted, barely daring to believe her own ears, "I'm a mud-blood if you haven't forgotten! You've always treated me and my friends like dirt! Lower than dirt if you want to be precise!"
"What in the blazes is going on?" Professor McGonagall asked, quickly walking up to the group, "And why aren't you three in class?"
"We've had a misunderstanding, professor," Hermione said, glaring at Malfoy.
Malfoy looked from McGonagall to Hermione, "I just wanted to know if you're alright…"
Hermione rolled her eyes and pushed past him, looking back at him, "I don't need your filthy protection, Malfoy!"
She stopped walking and turned around when she saw the expression on his face, which had turned from concerned to cold as ice in one fleeting second, "Fine. I'll just have you know that Snape's detentions aren't always lines or sorting out bloody ingredients," and he turned around and was gone.
"Detention?" McGonagall asked, walked up to Hermione with Harry, "You have a detention Miss Granger?"
Hermione tried to look everywhere except McGonagall, "Yes, professor, I do. I did last Saturday, and I do this Saturday. Then next Saturday, and the Saturday after that and finally; if I'm lucky, the one after that," she finally made eye contact with her transfiguration professor.
McGonagall looked at Harry, pure shock on her face, clearly wanting a different answer from him. He only nodded.
"From who?" she asked as if the one who had assigned Hermione the detentions was worthy of death.
"Professor Snape," she answered.
"Why?"
"She forgot to do a homework assignment," Harry answered for her.
She looked from one student to the other, "Why don't you two come into my office; I'll let your teacher know your absence is excused."
"Wait here," she said, two minutes later, "What is the class you two have right now?"
"Herbology with Professor Sprout," Hermione answered.
McGonagall nodded and left them in her study.
"Hermione…there isn't anything…you know…going on…" Harry began.
"Between Malfoy and me? I see you and Ron have had lengthy discussions. He seems to think the same thing. I thought you knew me better than that," she said, looking at him, her arms crossed.
"I…I don't think that, Hermione, but Ron…he's paranoid about it. He's just seen Malfoy staring at you a lot, and then how he was treating you just now…it's all, fishy, actually."
"Nothing is going on between us," she said, then quickly added, "Honest," when she saw his expression, "I don't know what's gotten into Malfoy lately. You know yesterday when I told you I ran into Peeves?"
"Yeah."
"Well, Malfoy was there. He kept a piece of chalk that Peeves was throwing at me from hitting my face then he threatened to set the Bloody Baron after him."
"You know, come to think of it, he didn't bother us on the train this year coming to Hogwarts either, did he?" Harry asked.
Hermione shook her head, "No, he didn't."
There was silence between them until they heard McGonagall's foot steps in the hallway approaching the office.
"I've just informed Professor Sprout that your absences are excused. Now, Miss Granger, I believe we were discussing your detentions?"
"Yes, Professor, but…but why…?" Hermione began.
"I would like to talk Professor Snape out of any other detentions after this coming Saturday and, if I am to do that, I would like to know everything which is why I am keeping Mr. Potter from his class as well. And please, if it seems as if I am interrogating you rashly or otherwise; that is not my intention."
"Yes, Professor," Hermione said.
"Firstly, I would like to know how you came to receive your first detention."
With Harry's help, though she barely needed it, Hermione explained to McGonagall exactly what had happened and what was said.
"Because…your potion steam wasn't the correct color? Only a shade or two off?" she asked disbelievingly.
"Yes professor."
"And this is the first time this has happened?"
"To me. Usually he just assigns an extra essay if someone's potion is a little off. And, no offense Harry, but yours was a bit more off than mine was and he gave you full marks."
Harry nodded, "It's true professor."
"And your second detention?"
"You know I had detention Saturday night from eight until eleven. I was exhausted and I didn't get any homework done that night, obviously. So it threw me off; I usually do my potions essays on Friday nights and everything else Saturday. I just forgot…about it. So he gave me a detention for it."
McGonagall studied her for a moment, "Does he realize this is the first assignment you have ever missed in your five years at Hogwarts?" she asked.
"I believe so, Professor."
"Well, that being said I think I'll go have a little chat with Severus after supper. He is making you do lines?"
"Yes professor."
"I won't be able to excuse you from this Saturday's detention, miss Granger, but I will try to take the others off of your record. I have other business to attend to; I suggest the both of you go back to the last few minutes of class," she said, standing up and heading out of the room.
Hermione stared at her as she left. She had a record now. She was just like any of the other wrong-doers in Hogwarts; her vile dirty and contaminated with two detentions. No longer was she any better than Fred or George Weasley, Harry or Ron, Malfoy or Crabbe or Goyle.
"This was a mistake," she whispered.
