Disclaimer: Not Rowling. No Money. Stop asking.
Ron was so preoccupied with his own thoughts (which were not, unusually enough, about food or quidditch) that he did not notice Hermione standing outside McGonagall's office, waiting for her to finish up. She knocked on the door, and hearing the magic word "enter", she walked in.
McGonagall looked up from her desk in surprise, setting her quill down.
"Miss Granger? What do you need?"
"Do you... do you have a moment to talk?" Hermione said primly.
"Sit down", the stern deputy headmistress said. "I don't bite."
"That's not what the Weasley twins say", Hermione said, and then clapped her hand over her mouth. McGonagall's eyes widened.
"Oh did they?", she said, her lips pursed. "We will just see about that."
"I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to -", Hermione stammered.
Hermione was surprised when McGonagall smiled. "Miss Granger, don't you think I have those two pegged by now? Do you know what they used to call me when I was your age?"
Hermione shook her head.
"Miss Tricks. My record for pranks was not beat until the Marauders came on the scene. I remember one time I spelled Agatha Bartle's clothing to be invisible to everyone but her..."
Hermione stifled a laugh.
McGonagall's lips were schooled back into a firm line. "Of course, if I find out you told anyone, I will have to make sure that Hagrid has a particularly well-fed hippogriff to clean up after, do I make myself clear?"
Hermione nodded rapidly.
"So to what do I owe the honor of this visit, Miss Granger?"
She blurted out "Why don't I have any friends, Professor? I try so hard..."
McGonagall sighed and sat back in her chair. She steepled her fingers in a very Dumbledore-like way and thought about her answer for a minute. Hermione waited quietly but expectantly.
"Miss Granger – may I call you Hermione while in this room? You may call me Minerva – but only while in this room."
Hermione nodded.
"Hermione, you may have heard it said by quite a few people that you are the 'brightest witch of this age'. I assure you, that in some ways, it is a title you have earned. Your marks are not only the highest of your year, but among the highest in the school."
Hermione flushed and lowered her head.
"But that being said, if you were graduating today and coming to me for a job, even with all of your intelligence, there are two jobs I would never hire you for. I would never hire you to be a teacher, nor would I hire you to be a researcher."
Hermione turned beet red, out of shame and embarrassment. "Why-?", she started.
Mcgonagall raised her hand. "If you will wait just a moment, I will explain. Hermione, there is more to life than being smart. You are very book smart. You know how to study, and you know how to regurgitate what you have read in such a way as to get good marks. You also are very diligent with your study and practice. These are all very good traits. But for all that, you have never learned how to take that leap beyond book smarts. There are many different kinds of intelligence.
"Everyone speaks their own language, Hermione. Even though we are using the same words, the words we are using have different meanings to us. A word that may mean nothing to you may be highly offensive to another person, and the opposite is also true. In the same way, facts are also malleable. What you read in a book may be factually true, but there are shades of grey to even the most hard and fast of facts, if you dig down deep enough. And for as smart as you are, Hermione, you have yet to learn that sometimes it is not as important to be right as to learn what language others are speaking, and to learn to speak it back to them."
Hermione stayed silent, pondering what she was being told.
"You insist on being right, and you take it as a personal affront when you are not. What you need to learn is that it is not as important to be right as it is to be able to understand others and be able to accept that you may be wrong. Even when you still believe you're right. If you don't develop this skill, Hermione, you could be the smartest witch in the world, and you will never be happy."
"Why would you not hire me as a researcher? Isn't being intelligent important for that job?"
"It is, Hermione. But true intelligence requires far more than regurgitating facts. Anyone can do that if they try hard enough. It requires creativity, it requires being able to connect several disparate things together in a way that is not immediately obvious, and while you do show glimmers of that ability, you are still hampered by the fact that you believe facts to be king."
Hermione nodded. "I don't really understand, but I will think about it."
"Why don't you take a risk, Hermione? Talk to someone you wouldn't ordinarily talk to. You might be rejected, but you might just make a new friend."
Hermione smiled wanly. It was clear that McGonagall's words had affected her deeply – cut her to the core. She stood up. "Thank you for your time... M-Minerva"
McGonagall smiled. "Please, Hermione, come and see me anytime. For as harsh as I just was to you, you are very much like me when I was young. I want to see a bright and driven young woman such as you succeed."
Hermione nodded and left the room, deep in thought.
Scene Change
The BeethovenBirds and the MozartBirds were now in a full out brawl, and all of the other types of composerbirds were standing on the sidelines. One of the MalmsteinBirds ran into something disillusioned, and emitted a huge and complex string of chords and running notes that caused all of the birds to stop in their tracks. They came over to see what the MalmsteinBird had discovered.
After they realized what they discovered, they sent a ChopinBird, because it was the most qualified to do what needed to be done. The ChopinBird flew to Hagrid's hut.
PECK PECK PECK dummm dum-da dummmm
Hagrid cursed some more. "Wha' is goin' on out there, makin' all that racket, why did magic hafta go out and make all those feckin' composer birds?"
PECK PECK PECK dummm dum-da dummmm
"Why is that bird singing a funeral march and pecking at my window?"
Fang turned his head to the side and looked very, very confused.
Hagrid opened the door to his hut, and there was a ChopinBird, looking kind of frantic, walking around in circles and singing the first few notes of Chopin's Funeral March.
"Do ya want me ta follow ya?", Hagrid asked. The bird sang a mazurka and started leading Hagrid to what the birds had discovered.
There were thousands of birds standing in the field, but they all made a path for Hagrid to walk, until he finally stopped and a strangely clear patch of grass. He pocked and prodded the patch with his wand, and suddenly stopped. It was a disillusioned person! And he or she didn't seem to be breathing.
"Oh holy mother of Zeus... I hafta find Dumbledore. Thanks, birds! What do ya eat?"
A WelkBird started whistling "Glow Little Glow Worm", and then said "Wunnaful! Wunnaful!"
Hagrid smiled. "I'll get ya a whole cart full of worms for this. Gotta go get Dumbledore. Great man, that Dumbledore." He ran as fast as his thick legs could take him to the castle, while all the different birds chattered excitedly at their impending feast.
Scene Change
Hagrid came burstin into Dumbledore's office. "Headmaster! Come quick! There's a body!"
"Fawkes! Go get Pomfrey!" Fawkes trilled, and flamed out, flaming back about three seconds later with a very surprised Pomfrey. A very surprised and naked Pomfrey. A very surprised, naked, and sudsy Pomfrey. She shrieked. And jiggled.
"Honestly, Albus. How many times have I told you to be SPECIFIC with that bloody bird?"
Fawkes trilled in such a way to show he was not in the least sorry, and then turned his back and preened.
Dumbledore stuttered out an apology and waved his wand. After two seconds, not only was she dry, but she was wearing a nice, satin transfigured robe.
Poppy blushed. "Umm, Dumbledore, I know you beat for the other team, but a woman's body is kind of sensitive, and satin..." She shivered, not unpleasantly.
He sighed, and changed it to terrycloth. She shivered a little more, than murmured her thanks.
"My apologies, Poppy, but Hagrid told me he found a body. Come, let us make haste."
Hagrid then led Pomfrey and Dumbledore to the body (they did not take Fawkes because he couldn't carry a half giant and the other two). Dumbledore immediately disillusioned the body, and found it to be Barty Crouch. So that's why he didn't show up at the first task, he said to himself. He also found it to be dead.
After doing his diagnostics, and Pomfrey agreeing, he stood up. He told Hagrid and Pomfrey to stand back, and also chased around the composerBirds who were still hanging around. A FolkBird whistled "This Old Man", to which Dumbledore chuckled. After the area was clean, Dumbledore set up containment wards, and walked back to his office to floo Amelia. This was now a crime scene. He didn't envy her trying to figure this one out.
Scene Change
Alas, Amelia had figured it out. She spent nearly that whole day interrogating Crouch Jr. under veritaserum. From Crouch she learned many useful things. She learned that Pettigrew was still alive. She learned that he had killed his father and dumped him near the forbidden forest. She learned that the dark mark could not be forced upon someone, and that everyone who had one had taken it willingly. She learned the names of a few marked death eaters, but not too many. She learned that Pettigrew was a marked death eather. And most importantly, she learned how and why Harry was entered into the tournament.
She did not learn where Riddle was hiding, though. Apparently he put that knowledge under the fidelius, and Crouch was not the secret keeper.
After she was done with the interrogation, she took all of her notes, as well as a pensieve memory, and made several copies. One copy she took back to her home. Another copy she stored in her office. And a third copy she sent to Dumbledore, along with a request for an appointment at his earliest convenience.
She did not fully trust Dumbledore, but she was going to have to deal with Cornelius, and she did not trust the slippery little... politician... further than she could throw his round, corpulent body.
Several people had been by to see Crouch. Cornelius Fudge, Dolores Umbridge, and most worryingly, Lucius Malfoy. But no one was going to get to him on her watch. She left an Auror guard watching Crouch with strict instructions to curse anyone mercilessly who would not take "no" for an answer, and went home for the evening. Tomorrow, the defecation was gong to impact the rotary oscillator, she was going to have to send a team of aurors to search for Crouch's body.
One floo call from Dumbledore later, she revised her thought. No, the was going to impact the rotary oscillator tonight.
Scene Change
The following morning, in the Great Hall (It was Thursday the 26th of November), many owls came swooping down with mail and copies of the Daily Prophet. There were, as was to be expected, quite a few headlines, all of them far less sensational than the headlines that Skeeter would have come up with.
In all the hubbub, though it would be easy to miss one of the more significant events to have occurred in that room. Hermione walked in, and walked over to the Ravenclaw table. She sat next to Luna.
Luna sat quietly eating, and turned to look at Hermione. "Hermione Granger. The nargles told me you would be sitting here this morning."
"Hello, Luna, do you mind if I sit here?"
Luna chewed on her eggs. "That would be wonderful, Hermione Granger. It would be almost like having friends."
Hermione got her food as well, and started eating.
"What are Nargles, Luna?"
"Nargles tell me sometimes what is going to happen before it does. Sometimes they lie, but not often."
"I didn't know they existed."
Luna stopped eating, and looked at Hermione with an unusually piercing gaze.
"Do you believe in God?"
"I'm Anglican."
"Close enough. Have you ever seen him?"
Hermione shook her head.
"And yet you believe he exists."
"Well, yes."
"Why?"
"... I don't know. Because stuff... exists?"
Luna smiled. "Then you understand. I believe in Nargles because they tell me things and it happens."
"But what if they were something else?"
"What if something else created the Universe?"
Hermione thought for a while.
"The Universe exists, so something created it... you know things are going to happen before they do, so something told you."
And McGonagall's lesson finally kicked in. It was language. It may or may not be nargles, but Luna was trying to put something into words that she didn't know how to put into words, so she called them nargles. Maybe they existed, maybe they didn't, but they were real to Luna, and that's all that matters.
"I understand now, Luna."
Luna smiled. "The nargles told me you would. You have far fewer wrackspurts than you did yesterday."
They both ate their breakfast, chattering companionably.
Harry looked at them with abject astonishment from the Gryffindor table. He rubbed his eyes and cleaned his glasses, then blinked, and looked again. No, it was true. Luna and Hermione were chatting amiably with each other. There was no shouting, no raised voices, they even seemed to be enjoying themselves.
If this was what came from not caring, he was going to not care forever. If he cared.
An owl picked that moment to land next to him and present its leg. He grabbed the letter, the owl grabbed a piece of bacon, and swept off.
He read the letter.
Harry, please see me in my office tonight at 8 PM. We still have a lot to discuss. -Albus.
Harry smiled. Maybe things were finally going right.
A/N I am very interested in things such as philosophy. You might see more discussions like the one between Hermione and Luna.
You thought the composerbirds were just me being silly? No, they're a part of the plot. Maybe not a huge part, but they're in-universe.
It looks like that talk Harry had with Dumbles set a ball rolling downhill, and it's picking up steam, wouldn't you say?
Update 7/23/16: A few spelling fixes, some non story impacting changes. All of the chapters have had fixes applied as of this update.