AN: Sorry about the delay, but now that Broken Hearts on Canvas is complete, I can officially devote all of my time to Hack It! (Yayyy!) Thanks also to everyone who reviewed/favorited. It's particularly awesome to hear so much helpful feedback on a new story.

Now if you please, prepare for some serious sassing from Miss Hermione Granger this chapter. Or like, every chapter.

(The sass is real, friends. Real is the sass.)

Two weeks later

"…And so, it was an ironic turn of events when the King of France, Louis XIV, was beheaded by his own invention La Guillotine, to the immense joy of his bloodthirsty subjects," Mr. Binns concluded. His iconic drone – a dry, colorless instrument of auditory torture – could lull an entire army of peeved bourgeoisie to sleep, Hermione thought. Today, it was tormenting a classroom of twelfth graders.

"His wife, Marie Antoinette, was also executed," the teacher went on dully, "while wearing a famous diamond necklace said in myth to have been given to her executioner just before her beheading. She bribed him to make her death as fast and painless as possible, instead of the sloppy mess usually seen at these executions. Sometimes, it took up to three drops of the blade to finally wrench off someone's head…all of this done while the charged was fully conscious."

Mr. Binns looked around impressively. Despite the graphic imagery however, he found the majority of the class was slipping into comas from which there may have been no point of return, nursing pools of drool behind propped up textbooks or playing games on smartphones that cost more than his monthly mortgage. The only students who still seemed to be conscious were Katie Bell, frantically studying for a Chemistry quiz behind the poor guise of a history binder, and Hermione Granger, her shrewd eyes fixated to the glowing screen at the front of the otherwise dark classroom. She looked alert, but the notebook on her desk was as blank as Pansy Parkinson's distant stare.

He sighed and turned back to the board. Eight years of Harvard and a master's degree in Political Sciences didn't deserve this.

"This may debatably be called the tip of the iceberg that started the French Revolution." Binns tapped the touchscreen board, switching to the next slide of the presentation. As well as an emotionless monotone, he was widely known for his twenty-three year old, picture-less Powerpoints. Endless Powerpoints.

"Thus, the reign of terror began." He scratched his shadowed jaw, pausing reflectively. "Thousands of people were executed, mostly by Guillotine, and later on through other methods, such as rounding up large groups of people, tying them together with ropes, and pushing them off the edge of a cliff to their watery deaths. This was fatal to France's population and already depleted economy, pushing the country into an even deeper depression."

"And…" He stared around, gaging the unresponsive atmosphere. "This will be on the test tomorrow."

Instantly, the glazed students slapped themselves into a semblance of vigilance, scrounging through book bags for pens and asking each other to borrow loose leaf. In the back row, Seamus Finnigan – who had been facedown and imitating a thunderstorm a second ago – shot straight up in his seat and exclaimed "Wagah!"

Binns raised a brow. "What was that, Mr. Finnigan?"

The back row sniggered. Seamus went red in the face, muttering, "Er, nothing. Weird dream. Sorry."

The history teacher nodded, well accustomed to his class being used as a buffer between hallway time and lunch. Striding to the front door, he unceremoniously flipped on the lights, flooding the classroom with fluorescent brilliance. Students straightened, fixing various hairstyles and blinking around with blurry wonder.

"Are there any questions anyone would like me to answer before the test?" he asked loudly. "Anything that needs clearing up?" Except for the sound of backpacks hastily being packed and zipped in preparation for the bell, there was the expected void of silence. That is, until…

"Mr. Binns?"

Binns, having just sat down on his messy desk and flipped open the daily crossword puzzle, jumped in surprise. As his eyes fell on the front row and the somewhat new student with explosive hair staring back at him expectantly, he suddenly remembered what period it was.

"Er, yes?" He cleared his throat, shaking off the metaphorical cobwebs, and took a discreet peek at the attendance sheet, folded in half and wedged underneath his coffee mug. "You have a question…Hermione?"

"Not a question exactly," she replied, with an intellectual gusto that seemed to belong in Congress or some other high place of legislation, not a college prep school. "I just wanted to point out that the execution of the French monarchy wasn't really the beginning of the revolution. It started before that, didn't it? In 1786 at the Storming of the Bastilles, when a mob of the lower class took over the Bastilles prison and freed the convicts. That's what really started it."

"Well." He scratched his feeble goatee in consideration, which had been reluctantly growing for the past two months much to the displeasure of his wife. "I did say it was debatably the start of the revolution, but yes, I see your point. Where did you learn that?"

"I studied romanticism. And it was in A Tale of Two Cities."

"Wow." He stared at her critically. Dickens from a Hogwarts brat… now there's a surprise. "How come? Was it a summer assignment from your old school?"

"No, I just did it for…uh…er…because…" Hermione stopped, all at once realizing the entire class was significantly more awake and staring at her. Also, she realized how incredibly lame she would sound if she finished that sentence the way she'd been planning to.

Great, she thought sarcastically. I was a first-class geek at my old loser school, now I get to be a social leper at the privileged one. I might as well get a hobbit hole and start introducing myself as Bilbo Baggins, all-time introvert and advocate of the education system. And thanks to her inner monologue, she'd forgotten what Mr. Binns said.

Awesome.

"You did it because…?" he trailed. "Because you have an interest in history?" His normally emotionless face brightened, probably at the possibility of an in-the-closet history buff, or a fellow Lord of the Rings fan who could attend Comic Con with him. Hermione could sense her barely detectable social status shriveling further.

"No, it's not that- I was just-" The bell cut her off, and Hermione wasn't sure if she was thankful for or stymied by the interruption. In any case, everybody forgot about her again in the frantic rush for the door.

"Hallelujah," Katie Bell muttered from next to her, getting up to join ranks with Cho Chang and another girl from the crew team. Both girls were waiting outside in the hallway, smelling strongly of CHANEL No.5 and the Hudson River. The girls at Hermione's old school, Hufflepuff High, always smelled like the Abercrombie & Fitch store – or weed smothered by strawberry perfume, on top of the Abercrombie.

At least the potheads knew I existed, she thought, feeling sullen all of a sudden as she grabbed her things. She picked up her messenger bag and waved goodbye to scruffy Mr. Binns, moving into the crowded hall. A bunch of rich, pretentious teenagers didn't matter to her, she told herself. All that mattered was studying hard, winning the full scholarship for Duke University, and moving out of New wouldn't even remember high school when all was said and done – no matter how fantastic the Hogwarts architecture might be.

Or how endless school felt right now.

Suddenly, two guys that had each other in chokeholds burst out of a Chemistry classroom, careening straight through the conveyor belt of students like a conjoined twin rhinoceros. Before she could be smashed into, Hermione leaped back, but a nearby freshman girl with headphones on wasn't so lucky, getting pinned and hurled directly into the wall. The girl screeched as her books flew everywhere – a rain of study notes, pristine binders, and review sheets let loose in the air like confetti in Times Square on New Year's – and the boys broke apart, apologizing through obnoxious laughter as they helped her pick up the mess and stumbled off. Hermione's interest piqued when one of them turned around, revealing his face.

It was freckled, grinning, and…and sheer adorable. Ron Weasley.

Cue cardiac arrest.

Doing her best to be discreet (which was no difficult feat when you're five inches taller than a hobbit and essentially invisible anyway), Hermione easily caught up to the two, falling into step behind the boys and pretending to fumble with the strap of her messenger bag.

"I can't believe he failed my essay," Harry Potter was grumbling when she tuned in. Harry was the school's prized star soccer player and a jock on the higher end of the totem pole at Hogwarts, regionally known for its undefeatable sports record and a famous tendency to produce graduates eventually seen on national television and college sports channels. Because Hogwarts also had a student body limit of one-hundred and eighty, Hermione knew Harry and Ron were best friends.

"I mean, Snape gave me a negative one. How is that even possible?" he said incredulously. "I worked on that idiotic paper all Sunday."

"I finished it at 3AM the morning we turned it in and I got a D," Ron inputted unhelpfully. He was a goalie on the team – and admittedly, not the most…adept…player Hogwarts had ever seen. Hermione wasn't well-versed in the art of soccer, but she did have eyes. "Maybe he just hates you, man."

"I know he does," Harry said, narrowing his eyes. "All because I accidentally kicked him in the head with the ball at try-outs last year."

"Right. Accidentally."

"I was nervous – and the sun was in my eyes!"

"Bullshit."

When they reached the dining room, Harry and Ron headed to the sitting area, and Hermione walked to the serving stations. The Hogwarts dining room, less a cafeteria and more of a Russian czar's banquet, was more familiarly called the Great Hall. She didn't think she would ever get used to this level of extravagance at a high school, although she'd been going to Hogwarts for a solid two months now.

The vast hall was schemed in elegant mahogany wood, dark floors paneled and polished to a tee, and rustic round tables each placed next to a framed flag representing every nationality Hogwarts had ever welcomed from its students (or, Hermione suspected, it was actually a strategized ploy to appear cultured and worldly, and to cover up the racism scandal claiming newspaper headlines all over Elite Schools Uncovered ten years ago).

Half of the grand room was a procession of buffet tables and hot food stations, lavishly decorated with medieval candle chandeliers spanning the domed ceiling like clawed stars, as white light poured in from the arched window cut-outs looking down on the rest of campus. An unlit candelabra or regal flower arrangement never present long enough to wilt centered every table, adding the scent of wax and floral fumes to mix with a succulent gourmet aroma. Perhaps most fantastically of all, the Great Hall provided a kitchenette, where cooks would make whatever you wanted if you only said the word.

A manicured red brick trail was visible through the tiled archway leading outside. Hermione knew from getting lost on her way to Economics one day that the trail led to the abandoned Hogwarts courtyard, a small garden allowed to grow wild because it had been forgotten, with a rusted copper fountain in the center and an unfriendly willow tree that had strangely excellent WiFi access. It was her favorite part of Hogwarts.

She slipped into line for the hot soup station, pushing a few unruly locks of curly hair out of her eyes to see. She was extra ravenous today; she'd slept through her alarm clock and almost missed the G-train again, therefore forced to skip breakfast. The omelets she normally ate – prepared by the Hogwarts expert team of certified chefs – were downright drool-worthy, and sorely missed during first period AP French.

Luckily, partial scholarship covered a meal plan.

If it wasn't for the scholarship, Hermione wouldn't be here at all. As if getting a soaring PSAT score, straight As, sixty hours of community service, and writing a dazzling application essay weren't enough, she'd had to impersonate her mother through emails to get in to Hogwarts, too. In fact, most of the Hogwarts application process had been inventing excuses for Mom. Countless times, she'd explained why her mother could never attend the open house or her student interview, fabricating an inflexible schedule that allowed no time to come to the campus walkthrough for an orientation or meet the Financial Aids Director firsthand. Hermione had pretended to be her mother for four months, a sophisticated woman but fatally ill with a highly-contagious virus contracted from a bad hamburger on Fifth Ave, and strictly on bed rest.

Part of her still didn't believe the outrageous plan had actually worked.

When she'd finally been accepted into Hogwarts Institute for Gifted Children – the number one, most exclusive college prep school in New York State, which only offered two sole scholarships per year – her victory was kept secret. After all, as far as Mom was concerned, she was still a full-time student at Hufflepuff High in downtown Queens. As far as Hermione was concerned, that was all her mother would ever need to know.

Hermione walked through the Great Hall, scanning tables filled with loud, devil-may-care teenagers and elaborate flower bouquets for a seat. Every wing of Hogwarts possessed some sort of special nickname, either named in honor of a generous benefactor, or endearingly titled after an event throughout Hogwarts' long, enigmatic history.

Hogwarts Institute had been built in 1831 by four innovators emigrated from the obscurest corners of Europe, all deeply religious in one form or another, and originally founding Hogwarts as a Roman Catholic boarding school for boys. This explained much of the school's antiquated taste, a biased emphasis on Catholic morals, and the high number of volunteer groups. Another fact about the prep school worth nothing was that its kids typically fit into about three castes – none of which included Hermione, to her extreme relief.

Hogwarts boys drove Bentleys and spent their summers building schools for kids in Guam or tanning on catamarans in the Caribbean – or both. They came back in the fall with bronze skin and ridiculous-looking boat shoes, hitting up clubs in Manhattan that would overlook their clearly fake IDs on the weekends, and paying out of the mouth for drugs after school. Hogwarts girls, however, were inherently different. School might be an episode of America's Next Top Model considering the time and effort put into appearances, sport captains were considered goddesses and bitingly competitive, and whoring equaled victory if your boyfriend's inheritance topped the president's income.

Off to the right of the bedlam sat a table reserved for Hogwarts' finest: namely, the jocks groomed to be one-day senators, and their snub girlfriends, who only had to buy their future college a new library to be enrolled there.

This is what Hermione knew about them.

Ron Weasley and Harry Potter, as mentioned before, worshipped soccer like it was a religion and they were the priests. Lavender Brown, an heiress of some national airline company, showed endless miles of her bronzed skin rain or shine, and happened to be Ron's merry girlfriend. Most importantly, she had a brain the size of a chocolate chip – and boobs the exact opposite circumference.

The guy with blonde hair so light it looked like he'd bleached it with Clorox, Draco Malfoy, was the over-indulged son of world famous fashion designer Narcissa. Pansy Parkinson, a cheerleader and frequent winner for the track team, was often seen in the Bahamas during Christmas break or smashing face with Draco in shadowy corridors. Blaise Zabini's family went years back in stock marketing on Wall Street. Cho Chang, the gorgeous Chinese transfer student, flew out to model in Taiwan on weekends; her best friend Ginny Weasley (Harry's girlfriend) was infamously known for her jealousy streak, faithful attendance to international fashion shows in Paris and Milan, and a wicked spike in volleyball.

Seamus Finnigan's father owned a famous beer manufacturing company in Ireland, and Angelina Johnson had been dating Ron's older brother Fred for three years solid; Fred had never attended Hogwarts, but he ran a multi-billion dollar gag show in Hollywood, along with his twin brother George. Finally, there was Gabrielle Delacour, a foreign exchange student from France with an accent thicker than an Oxford Dictionary, and a personality just as thrilling.

Hermione dragged her eyes away from Beverly Hills Arcadia, sitting down to eat lunch with her usual entourage – which is to say, whoever happened to sit at the same table as her. Usually, that was the two girls from Greece who never spoke a drop of English outside of class, loner Neville Longbottom who never spoke at all, and an eccentric girl with white-blue hair and glittery eye makeup that always talked to him incessantly… despite the fact he never talked back.

Hermione was vaguely sure the girl's name was Linda. Wait, no, it was something unusual, wasn't it? Foreign maybe? Moon-related? Luna. Right – Luna something. She was the editor for the school magazine, the Quibbler, and her father was the CEO of the Daily Gazette.

Once she'd finished, Hermione left her tray on the washing rack and slipped away to the abandoned courtyard. Hogwarts campus was enormous: twelve city blocks on the outskirts of Brooklyn with sprawling manicured fields mowed every morning by the maintenance crew, a pool building for the swim team, two-floor gym, the Rowan Ravenclaw Library, a theater hall, school store, and several hangout rooms complete with fireplaces, geometrically-shaped furniture, iPads, and customized candy bars.

Neo-Gothic touches lurked in every aspect of the grounds, in the sandstone brick buildings and pointed spires, the fountains sculpted by fly-in artists, curving archways wreathed with intricate carvings of saints and scripture, and fearsome gargoyles standing guard on the edge of the turret roofs. Every detail came together to render the school into a powerful castle, a French Gothic cathedral transported to the 21st century from lost times.

And it made her feel like a sham.

Beauty and money spilled out of the chandeliers and hand-carved molding like cockroaches in July, taunting her, checking her jeans for holes in the middle of class, filling her with hot shame for the one bedroom basement apartment she'd been holed up in with Mom for the past ten years. No one knew she was a scholarship student, she reminded herself fiercely every time they spoke, every time they glanced at her – but still a cemented itch slithered down her spine as she walked through the front gates of Hogwarts in the morning. It stared in the stone eyes of the gargoyles following her to class, never letting her forget for a second that she didn't truly belong. She would never belong.

She was nothing like a Hogwarts kid.

She had no plans on becoming one of them.

It was 3:30 PM and Gryffindor had an appointment in fifteen minutes.

After an hour-long ride on the subway, Hermione finally arrived in Queens. She half-walked, half-jogged to the Three Tithes, ducking around pedestrians on the sidewalk and dodging speeding cars on crosswalks. The barista inside the cybercafé, Marietta Edgecombe, was from Hermione's old school and worked part-time. She put in an order for a strawberry mango smoothie and waved her ahead as soon as she saw her burst inside. Hermione paid and put the change in the tip jar, swiping her drink off the counter as she headed to the back.

Ten minutes later, she was sitting cross-legged at her usual table in the corner, next to a magazine rack and the faded print of Elvis Presley's smoldering bedroom eyes. There was a mustard stain on his teeth – or at least, there was a possibility it was mustard. A glance at the laptop screen showed Neanderthal had made good on his word and transacted the rest of his payment to her account this morning. All of Gryffindor's affairs were in order.

Bored, Hermione flurried her fingertips across the keyboard, and Ron Weasley's face soon came up on the social feed. Almost instantly, a nervous flutter she thought might be what heartburn felt like set off somewhere near her kidneys, just as it did every time she saw Ron at school. She'd had a crush on him since first semester started in September, a crush largely attributed to his freckles. (She had a very secret, very real freckle fetish, and Ron Weasley had about a billion of them.)

She spent a moment imagining scenarios in which Ron's girlfriend Lavender ended up dumped and heartbroken, and Ron kept Hermione after class to kiss her with the insatiable passion he'd been holding back for months, a passion that would put fictional vampires to shame.

But what would she say in a message to him?

"Excuse me?"

With a spasmodic jerk, Hermione threw herself over her laptop and clicked Alt F4 so fast she nearly gave herself carpal tunnel in one hand. Ron Weasley's face vanished and she looked up, cheeks burning, to see Harry Potter smiling at her brilliantly. She frowned back and averted her attention to the laptop screen once more. Boys who smiled for no reason except to smile, were decidedly best dealt with by not being dealt with at all.

Wait.

Hermione looked up again and blinked a few times, testing the reliance of her eyesight, but the beaming prep boy apparition didn't disappear. Strange, she mused, they usually go away by now…

"I'm Harry," Harry said needlessly, kilowatt smile faltering a touch at her remoteness. He was very sweaty for someone who was smiling so forcefully, and panting like a St. Bernard at that. Did he run here? Why? What was he doing here at all? Didn't he have a collector's car auction or some Hollywood film premiere to go to? Hermione thought incredulously.

Seeming to find her gawking stare a touch unenjoyable, Harry visibly tried to tap down the breathlessness, shoving one hand through his wet black hair and somewhat subtly wiping it off on his shorts. He was wearing knee socks underneath them and a plaid t-shirt, hastily shoved on over his bedraggled long sleeve. Hermione stifled a grimace. And I thought I had a bad fashion sense.

"Hi," she finally said back, not without caution.

Harry – who turned out to be very fidgety when sweaty, or fidgety in general – stuck his hands in the pockets of his shorts, rocking back and forth on his Nikes. Hermione wondered how she'd never seen him standing there before, when it was all but impossible not to see him now. "Sorry," he said, for no apparent reason other than to say it. "I'm, uh, here waiting for someone. Do you mind if I sit with you until they show up?" He waved behind them vaguely, at the full café. "Everywhere else is taken."

Was it? She hadn't noticed, too preoccupied by the unfeasible fact a Hogwarts kid was standing in the Three Tithes like it was the Palace, talkingto her about a subject other than next week's test or the answers on her homework. It seemed unjust at that moment, that Hermione shouldn't have a camera to capture this gloriously bizarre moment with.

"Uh no. Go ahead," she said, when she realized she'd waited too long to answer. Harry started to sit, stopping halfway to quickly look at her. "Are you sure? Because I could go somewhere else if I'm bothering you-"

A snort erupted out of Hermione, she rolled her eyes. "Pft, no. Not at all. I just- I was surprised. I don't mind, whatever." Shut up now, Hermione, you're blabbering. You're blabbering! She gestured at the empty seat, as if he couldn't see it with his own eyes – he wore glasses, for God's sake – and tried to appear as if a contestable discussion was not taking place in her head.

"What the…" Harry breathed a minute later, eyebrows hitching up to his hairline as he stared over her shoulder at her laptop. At first, Hermione started to swell up – true, her computer model left much to be desired, but it wasn't that bad – before it dawned on her that when she closed the Internet window earlier, she had accidentally left a document of code up for a different customer – crazymofo8767 – for the world to see. She moved to close it, but Harry was already leaning in for a closer look. Oh great.

"What isthat?" he asked, perplexed.

"Er…Sudoku?"

"That doesn't look like Sudoku."

"It's an advanced version. Gold members only."

Harry gave her a significant look and Hermione shrugged. According to her, she could not be blamed for being born with a sarcasm motor, especially one that worked double time outside of school hours. No one got to choose their genetics. "Seriously," he said, "what is it?"

"Just some programming stuff," she muttered. "Nothing important." She exited out to prove it – and get him to back off. Harry must have gotten the hint from the surly look on her face, pulling back hastily.

Their next silence lasted at least ten minutes, both of them uncomfortably staring in opposite directions. She pretended to take an interest in an Easter edition cooking magazine called Delicacies Weekly, curiously smelling a Dior fragrance ad. She sniffed a perfume sample too hard and pulled back, coughing when a violent throat tickle exploded on her uvula. Quickly, she grabbed for her smoothie, only to find it empty. Perfect.

Her eyes started to water with the effort of diffusing her gag reflex.

Harry straightened. "So Hayley-"

"Hermione," she corrected, sounding like a run-over toad.

"Oh geez, sorry, Hermione." He smiled awkwardly. "I ask you about homework all the time and I don't even have your name right. …Er, this is your first year at Hogwarts, right?"

She nodded, still choking.

"It's a, uh, nice name," he added, clearly trying to amend his fluke. "Interesting."

It was actually Shakespeare. Mom used to be a big fan, back when she remembered how to read anything that wasn't on TV Guide. But all Hermione said – well, croaked – was, "Thanks."

Silence #2 ensued. Harry bounced his legs back and forth, scratched the nape of his neck, and bent forward to loosely clasp his hands between his knees in what seemed to be a physical effort to stop fidgeting – all within the span of two minutes. Hermione tried not to stare. "Do you know what time it is?" he said suddenly, snapping his head up fast enough to make her jump.

"Yeah, uh, give me a second." She tapped a letter on her keyboard and the screensaver of bubbles vanished, replaced by the desktop. A flat-faced Kneazle glared at them darkly from the screen and Hermione felt a tiny chink of fondness at the photo of her manic aggressive cat, Crookshanks. "It's 4:20," she reported.

Weird, she thought, pursing her lips, silverstag97 was supposed to be here over thirty minutes ago. Maybe she'd been spammed, it wouldn't be the first time it had happened – and it was no less annoying now than it had been then.

Harry also seemed aggrieved by this news, strangely enough – which got Hermione feeling very suspicious. "I've been here for over a half-hour waiting for this computer geek guy to show up and he's still not here," he said, scowling and rubbing both sides of his face with his palms like an errant cat. "Maybe I should just take off." This last part was said more to himself, than to Hermione.

She looked at Harry, hard. "What guy?"

"Gryffindor or something, it's a username," he said absently, standing up. "Sorry, Mione-" Past her horror, Hermione was confounded by Harry's terrible abbreviation of her name. "I've gotta go. See you at school."

He was walking away – probably never to speak to her outside of Hogwarts' premises again, immediately eliminating any chances of her being invited to group hangouts where Ron might happen to conveniently be, and inexplicably fall in love with her – when she impulsively shouted "Wait!"

Harry turned around, surprised. "What?"

She stalled, opening and closing her mouth pointlessly. I have no idea what I'm doing, she thought, but in her mind she saw an image of the kitchen counter from this morning, cluttered with unopened envelopes of bills and debts on different bills and disconnection notices, reminding her why she was here at the Three Tithes at 3:45PM sharp – although it didn't help the bright red complexion that had come over her face with a vengeance.

She couldn't believe she was doing this.

"You're – um – silverstag97 with the grade change request, right?" she gritted out.

Harry's mouth parted and he stared at her through those too big, oddly fitting glasses of his for a nonplussed minute, thick eyebrows working. "You're the guy?" he finally said, confused. "Gryffindor?"

"Yes. And I'm a she. Obviously." Shifting into business mode, she straightened and added, "Did you bring your computer?"

"I…um…" He shook his head, as if he could physically dispel his bemusement. "I mean, no, it's at my house. It's a desktop."

"Oh." Hermione frowned. She didn't usually like to do traceable work through her own equipment, especially if it was something as tricky as what Harry was asking for – but he was a Hogwarts boy, which meant money was no object for him.

Federal prison, here I come, she told herself, not altogether sarcastically.

Cracking her knuckles, – Harry winced at the noise, which gave her a vindictive sort of satisfaction and made her want to do it again – Hermione waved him back over and opened the web browser on her laptop. "Ok, first of all, I want you to know I strongly disapprove of this," she began, as she always did when tampering with student's grades – whether to try to coax said student onto an ethically better path, or to abate her own conscience was a topic up for discussion. "Secondly, this costs about four hundred dollars," she continued. "Can you pay?"

Harry nodded and Hermione waited for the something else. The of course or well, duh. Perhaps even a pretentious snortthat was so typical of Hogwarts kids. When Harry did neither except stare at her patiently, she blinked and turned back to the screen. "Right. Do you want to change a whole grade average, or a grade for a specific class or something?"

"I was thinking along the lines of something smaller," he said, pointing at the online copy of his interim report. His finger landed on a class Hermione had already suspected he would choose. "Can you change one assignment? For Chem?" he inquired.

Now Hermione wanted to say well, duh. She bit her tongue before it could come out. "Show me which assignment and what grade you want," she replied simply.

After about twenty minutes, Hermione was four hundred dollars richer and Harry had a B minus on his intermolecular bonds essay. (Hogwarts, it should be noted, ought to look into investing in a better security network.) She zipped the cash into her Hello Kitty wallet, ignoring Harry's astonished look, and started to pack up.

"You're going?" Harry asked, watching Hermione hitch a bulging messenger bag onto her slight shoulder. She looked at him with those uncannily sharp brown eyes of hers, eyebrow furrowing in puzzlement, but he had to look away after a moment. Holding her gaze reminded him of trying to stare down the sun or a mean dog – it was impossible to do without getting yourself injured.

"Yeah, I mean-" She frowned, planting one hand on a hip. "-what else is there to stay for? Did you want me to do something else?"

"No, I… never mind." He shrugged. "I'll just walk out with you, I have to get going too anyway." Harry stood up, towering over her easily. He wasn't very tall, but Hermione was pretty short, even with the few bonus inches of her unusually big hair. His scrappy lankiness – which gave the impression Harry was part-toothpick – and spike-soled sneakers also boosted his height. Unfair, Hermione mentally bristled, following his tall, skinny form through the crowded café to the exit.

Rain was beginning to come down in fleeting, quicksilver bullets outside. Hermione started to go, but Harry Potter didn't seem to think their meeting was over yet. Clamping down a twinge of irritation when he spoke up, she slowly turned back around, eyes widened expectantly.

"Do you do this all the time?" Harry asked, waving a hand toward the Three Tithes to indicate whatever he meant by this. "Like every day?"

"It's an on and off thing," she said reluctantly. "For…fun." Inside, Hermione cringed at her poor choice of words, wishing she could take them back. First, she studied history units during the summer for fun, and now she committed cybercrime for mere amusement. Boy, she sure was turning out to be a real gem. No wonder she had so many boyfriends!

"But it's a job, too," Harry pointed out, frowning at her. "Isn't it? I saw your profile online, you seem to be pretty well-known."

"I also apparently seem to be male and nerdy," she said pointedly. Harry flushed. Before he could pry into her business anymore, she cycled back three steps and announced, "Well, I have to go, er, Harry. It's raining." Barely. "And I have homework." A lie, she did all of it during class. "So…bye." Hopefully.

Harry nodded, lifting his hand in a wave. "See you around."

No, you won't. But Hermione only smiled stiffly, turned around, and hurried away.

The rain storm was fast and furious by the time Hermione reached downtown. Climbing up the subway station exit to ground level, she found the streets outside had become glittering black rivers, streaming with runoff and dotted by pruned trash bags on the block corners. She lifted the hood of her hoodie up and held her messenger bag close, darting into a construction tunnel to avoid the rain.

The menacing groans of thunder were ignored by Hermione as she walked home, because maybe the thunder was only the sound of a subway rushing to another stop, its booming procession echoing through the tunnels like a war chant, pouring out of the vents in potholes and creeping into the street to confuse everyone. Or maybe because for every boom of thunder, there are three strikes of lightning we haven't even seen yet.

Storms were a peculiar brand of uncertainty.

Fifteen blocks later, an apartment building with ivy green railings surfaced in the distance, marked number 9 in a seamless row of unremarkable brownstones. As Hermione walked, she imagined spring, where pollen showered the city in a fine white dance, and the tulips at Central Park grew in like bean poles. Fumbling with her keys, she undid the numerous locks to the apartment, shouldering the rusted door until it caved and let her in. The scent of stale cigarettes and flat coffee divulged her senses, permanent scents leaked in by the heating ducts connected to the landlord's flat upstairs.

Home sweet home, the old straw welcome matt read a small sigh, Hermione switched on the hallway light and kicked off her Converses – one flew off and landed on an orange heap of frizz that had come to greet her, which flailed back into a half-open shoe closet with a wounded screech.

"Oh shoot, Crookshanks! I'm sorry," Hermione gasped, crouching down and fretting over her Kneazle with apologetic hands. Crookshanks, a manic aggressive stray that had wandered his way to their household when she was in middle school, bit her finger hard enough to draw blood before scampering off like a thief. "Ouch! Yeesh, I said I was sorry, you oversensitive banshee-"

But Crookshanks had already left, probably gone under Hermione's bed to lay some revenge cat crap on her textbooks. Hopefully, the school-owned volumes would survive his wrath.

Hermione sighed and wrung out her hair with her good hand, squeezing water out of the frizzy strands and wiping her socks on the rainbow striped throw rug she'd picked up at an Indian shop going out of business last year. It had sense taken residence in the tiny entrance hall. "I'm home," she yelled. "Do we have any band-aids?"

When no one answered, she went into the living room, twelve square feet of a lumpy couch, tiny dining room set (really just fold-up tables), and an old-fashioned TV with huge bug antennas. The freezing hardwood floor groaned under her as she walked in, dipping and rising unevenly in places the soles of her feet had memorized, the gleaming wood polish long worn away by past tenants.

She moved past Mom, passed out on the couch while some reality show played, and dropped the grocery bags she'd grabbed at a bodega three blocks back on the kitchen floor. A band-aid in the overflowing junk drawer was scrounged up, and she started to put away the food, willing herself not to get annoyed about the mess the apartment was in. Even if it was spotless when I left this morning, she thought irritably.

"What do you want for dinner?" she called out, shuffling through the forlorn cabinet shelves loudly enough to rouse her mother from Dream Land. "Pasta or mac and cheese?"

No response. Slyly, Hermione pulled a pot out of a cabinet and dropped it on the floor with an ear-splitting BANG of metal and linoleum. The sound of Mom grudgingly returning to consciousness was accompanied by a curse when she couldn't find the remote control.

"Mom-"

"I'm not hu-huuungry," Mom said through a mighty yawn, giving up on her search for the remote and falling back on the couch with a huff. "I just want-"

"You have to eat something," Hermione interrupted, re-entering the living room and coming to a halt in front of the TV set. Heat radiated off of it, warming her back – it had clearly been on all day, and since it was nearly thirty years old and shitty, that meant the electricity bill would be sky-high by the end of the month.

Mom avoided her eyes, fidgeting with the crocheted blanket thrown around her. She was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, size zero but vast and revealing on her gaunt frame, which was thin as a spindle's needle and riddled with bruises and thin scars. Looking at her mother was similar to staring at a dug-up skeleton: dirty, hollow-eyed, and wasted.

But that was nothing new. Hermione, whose keen eyes missed not even the tiniest change, was interested in seeing her mother's gaze. "Aren't you hungry?" she asked cajolingly.

Stubbornly, Mom didn't answer.

She scowled. "Fine, pretend you can't hear me. I'll make us the pasta."

"Have a ball," Mom said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. Her pupils, Hermione instantly noticed, were the size of pencil points. Bingo.

Mom seemed to realize what she did a second too late, cursing again – this time, at Hermione. She started to make an angry retort when the doorbell suddenly rang and interrupted them.

She threw up her arms, exasperated. "You invited Mundungus here tonight? I thought you weren't going to bring him around on school nights."

"I didn't talk to Mundy today," Mom said defensively. Hermione stared at her hard – she could always tell when someone was lying – but Mom didn't exhibit any tells. Her mother peered at the front hallway over the back of the couch, lifting her head so slowly her skull could have weighed three hundred pounds. If the pupils were the first sign something about her was off, her mother's exhaustion was a sure confirmation that she'd been high. But the hyperactive bliss had gone by now, leaving a lethargic sloth behind – maybe Mundungus and his friends stopped by when she was at school.

No wonder this place is a mess, she thought furiously, kicking aside an empty beer can that had been poorly hidden under the DVD stand.

"Who's at the…the door?" Mom asked, through another gaping yawn.

The doorbell rang again, insistently. Hermione broke her stance with an aggravated growl. "I'll go look," she grumbled, stomping off. Mom fished the remote out from between one of the couch cushions and changed the channel behind her.

At the door, Hermione stood on tip toe and stuck her face against the eyehole, hovering her hand over the chain lock. Her heart instantly turned into a ball of lead at what she found there, however.

Oh. My. God.

There were cops. At her house.

Oh God. "Oh shoot, oh shoot, oh shoot, oh shoot," she whispered furiously, head whipping back and forth between her mother's placid form and the door. What were the police doing here? What did her Mom do? Did they know about the disability checks, the heroin? Or did Mom's loser boyfriend get busted for selling drugs again, and blame them for it this time?

Worse. Did they know about Gryffindor?

She really didn't need this.

Hermione took a deep breath, decided to shove all the blame onto Mundungus if they were here to search for drugs, and got to work on unlocking the door. With her hands trembling uncontrollably, it took thirty seconds longer than it should have, but finally she opened it.

"Hi, um-" She swallowed nervously under the weight of three policemen's stares on her, trying to seem composed and unsuspicious. "May I help you?"

"That depends." The one who spoke had the head of a boiled egg, shaved and strangely spongy-looking. He pointed sharply at her. "Are you Hermione Granger?" he demanded.

No. In fact, I've never heard of that name in my life. Excuse me while I escape to Canada.

Hermione stared at each of the officers evenly: one African American woman with brown eyes and close-shaved platinum blond hair on the right, an overweight man giving her dirty looks to the left, and then the sponge man between them. There was no point denying it. "Yes."

"Would you come with us, sweetheart?" the woman said, holding up an impressive-looking badge for her to see. As if the uniform didn't make the message clear enough. "There's someone at the station who would like to ask you some questions." At that, Hermione's heart pounded so hard she was sure they could see it lurching against the Taco Bell logo on her massive hoodie.

"Am…" Her voice faltered. She started again. "Am I in trouble?"

The policemen all exchanged a meaningful look, which she did not miss, and Hermione had to fight not to scowl. How old did they think she was, twelve? More aggressively than she meant it to be, she snapped, "Well, what is it?"

There goes the sarcasm motor. Instantly, any possible sympathy in the air vanished. The woman faced Hermione, squaring her shoulders and speaking in a voice suddenly carved not out of lollipops and roses, but grit and steel. "Miss Granger, you are hereby arrested under charges for piracy," she informed her sternly, revealing a pair of handcuffs and advancing. Hermione's eyes widened. "Come with us now, we're taking you to the station."

Hermione stared blankly at the three of them for a minute and when she spoke, her voice was just shy of a mental breakdown. "Okay."

The officers escorted her to the cruiser.

AN: WHAT? NO TOM RIDDLE THIS CHAPTER? BUT WHERE IS MY BABBBBYYYY? D'''''':

Deep breaths, deep breaths, girls! His sexiness will return. Next chapter. I swear it!

Kisses!
ImmortalObsession