DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING BUT THIS SO-CALLED PLOT.
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Apparently, saying that you thought testing out unknown handwritten spells on your friends was irresponsible and stupid made you an inexorable stick-in-the-mud.
Harry and Ron left for Hogsmeade, uncaring that she refused to go along.
Hermione strolled along an empty passage, stopping before a tall window. The weather outside was abominable. She imagined the boys stuck in the middle of a sleety street, iced over from head to toe, their skin a bright bright blue.
Then their limbs began to fall off.
She was doomed to feel exhausted forever. What would it take for Harry to just listen to her? For Ron to stop taking her for granted?
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my senses, as though of...
"Hermione Granger."
Why did disembodied voices and noises insist on jarring her out of pensive moods?
It was Padma Patil this time, who scarcely ever spoke to her. Hermione's immediate curiosity took a bit of the edge off her irritation.
"Yes?"
She looked grave as she asked, "Can you tell me how I have suddenly gone from having the third highest score in potions, to the fourth? And more importantly, how the hell is HARRY POTTER sitting in the top slot?"
"Ah." Hermione's uncertainty lasted for barely half a moment before she said, "Harry's been working really hard lately."
Yup. Loyalty to Potter above everything; no matter how badly she wanted to throw both him and his book into a vat of rancid flobberworm mucus.
"Oh please," said Padma, "Working really hard? Enough to turn into a genius overnight? And why is his hard work only showing results in one class?"
Hermione shrugged helplessly.
"Listen, Hermione. I know this is all to do with Slughorn's favouritism. I get that Harry's your best friend, but this ISN'T FAIR – " She stood up straight, and locked her hands behind her back – "I have a proposition for you."
Padma looked like she was standing in a boardroom before a dozen ruthless business tycoons, rather than in a dingy corridor with her frumpy classmate.
"Go on..." Hermione ventured.
"We pool our resources for the term end project. We'll prepare two impeccably researched papers with flawlessly brewed potions, submit one each, get back our pride and position, and call it a day."
She spoke in a brisk and offhand manner. Hermione smiled, and extended her hand out wordlessly. Padma grasped it with her own.
"Library? After dinner?"
"Affirmative."
"...Then she rose straight up into the air like a fucking archangel, and started screaming like she was in agony. Ron, Leanne, and I pulled her down, but she still wouldn't stop screaming... I ran; found Hagrid...got to McGonagall... They've taken her to Mungo's... " Harry's entire body was thrumming with agitation. He was speaking way too fast.
"It was bloody terrifying," Ron clarified, helpfully.
Hermione felt sick.
"An opal necklace, you say?" she asked.
"Yeah," Harry rushed out, "The one on display at Borgin and Burkes. Now we have to figure out how Malfoy managed to get it past Filch's sensors."
Ron's gaze shifted to the ceiling in exasperation. But he held his tongue in an uncharacteristic show of restraint. Hermione didn't feel quite as self-possessed at that point.
"Good grief. Harry."
"Oh get over yourself, Hermione!" He lashed out at her, glaring with unsettling acrimony, "You don't always know everything, alright? I'm right. I KNOW I'M RIGHT. It has to be him. We heard him asking that slimeball in the shop to put it on hold!"
"You don't know that he was talking about the necklace!"
"Where is all this faith in bloody buggering Draco Malfoy coming from?"
"It isn't faith in him, Harry! It's faith in his inability to pull something like this off..."
"Yeah, because it was such a smooth operation. Not a colossal fuck up AT ALL-"
Ron tried to play pacifist- "Er, Harry, mate..."
"No. Ron, no. Shut up. Why don't you see it? You know exactly what a sick and twisted fucker Malfoy is. And you saw him show his dark mark to Borgin!"
"Well, we didn't actually see that..."
"Oh, fuck OFF. Fine. You know what... FINE. I'll be vindicated soon enough!" He looked at Hermione then. His face was still a mask of severe hostility. He pointed at her, "Don't think I'll be above telling you I told you so when shit hits the fan. I'll be saying it for the rest of your life."
With that, he stormed off to his dormitory, before Hermione could bite back by telling him how she hadn't said "I told you so" to him regarding the debacle in the Ministry last year.
Which she wouldn't have actually said. Of course not.
Ron and Hermione couldn't look at each other in the ringing silence Harry left in his wake.
"I'm going to the library," she said shakily.
"Now?!"
"Yes. Now."
"Hermione..."
She left. She needed more than anything to get away from Ron's uncertain cerulean gaze. He would have sat with her, had she stayed. But they would both have known that he would rather have gone up to placate Harry.
Ron found it much easier to say unpleasant things about her than his other best friend.
Right now, she needed to be surrounded by books and quietude. Padma would be there. Brisk and pragmatic Padma would help her lose herself in cerebral pursuits.
She let her mind drift to the nebulous idea that she had been toying with before she found out about Katie's ordeal. She thought about anaesthesia and ketamine, how they might be combined with certain elements of the revive potion to render a person temporarily immune to pain.
Maybe it could decrease the severity of the cruciatus curse...?
Hermione inhaled deeply once she had walked into her safe haven.
She spotted the back of Padma's head sequestered in quiet corner. She'd braided her long, glossy black hair; the thick dark rope contrasted startlingly against the bright white of her shirt.
"Hi, Padma. Let's get started."
Hermione decided to venture down alone for breakfast the next morning. She was about halfway across the common room when she felt someone fist the back of her cloak to stop her.
She spun around, and there stood Harry Potter with his face twisted in discomfort. He was looking at a distant corner over the top of her head, unable to meet her eyes.
His mouth opened.
Then closed.
He rolled his eyes at himself, before finally looking down at her.
By this point Hermione was smiling helplessly.
Curse you, Harry Potter.
He gazed at her plaintively; a little stricken, a little pleading.
Hermione sighed heavily... and wrapped her arms tightly around his waist.
Curse you, you poor love-starved, awful, wonderful boy.
That evening Hermione surveyed the common room dolefully, distractedly.
Harry had just left for another lesson with Professor Dumbledore. He'd been entertainingly disgruntled for the past hour, as he'd watched Ginny and Dean curled up by the fireplace, giggling at Arnold the pygmy puff. She should have known Ginny would put her advice to practice so excellently.
They were still coiled together, looking warm and happy.
She glanced at Ron, who was sitting on the floor, leaning against an arm of the sofa, so he wouldn't have to look at Ginny and Dean. He'd decided that the sight of Lavender Brown painting her nails was a far more pleasant one.
Hermione shot up and stalked towards the portrait hole.
"Where-"
"Professor Slughorn's..."
A scathing snort. "Of course."
Padma wouldn't be getting together with her that evening. She had told her distractedly after their Arithmancy class that she had to attend a meeting of her 'Nocturnal Numerology' club.
The Ravenclaws had clubs for everything, apparently. Hermione wondered idly, as she strolled down the passage leading to the dungeons, what her life would have been like, had she been sorted into that house. Undoubtedly, she'd have been a part of as many study groups as possible. She thought jealously about the learning, the conversations, the scintillating exchange of ideas that she had missed out on.
The year before, Terry Boot had told her on numerous occasions that she belonged in their (his) house. He'd said it while running his hands through his shaggy brown hair.
Hm.
What if she were to take her own advice? What if she went out with Terry Boot? What if she drank butterbeer sitting across from him, held his hand, let him run that same hand through her unruly locks... let him cup her face, and kiss her mouth?
Would Ron be entertainingly disgruntled? Could she count on him to be spurred into action, and to god damn at long last get his act together?
Ha. She stopped walking abruptly.
She knew that would never happen. If the Krum episode taught her anything, it was that jealousy made Ron an ugly person. He would mistreat her atrociously until she'd ditch her suitor, and then he'd expect everything to go back to status quo seamlessly. The frustration she felt at the pit of her stomach surged through her and tore out of her throat:
"Gah!"
"Easy there, Hermione."
"...Nott?!"
Him again?
"Theo, Hermione. I told you to call me Theo."
She just looked at him.
"Go on. Call me Theo."
They stared at each other, as they leant against opposite walls of the narrow corridor. He lowered his head and fixed a sharp look upon her.
"Say it," he crooned in a faux-threatening tone.
Hermione couldn't help but smirk.
"Theo."
He faked a shudder. "Ooooh. My name on your lips sets me on fire."
She arched an eyebrow at him. He smiled.
He was exceedingly slender and narrow. Hermione imagined that his hips where as slim as her own, though he stood at least a head taller. Light brown hair, blue eyes that were about three shades darker than Ron's; she had to admit that he was striking.
"Now what?" she asked him with affected amiability.
Nott—er, Theo—shrugged indolently. "I was headed to the library. I would love it if you'd join me for a dazzlingly intellectual tête-à-tête."
His smile was guileless and full. What even was Theo Nott? A Wildean dandy come to life?
"Okay."
WHAT?! Oh dear, she was smiling back.
"Ah, Theo... There you are! I was just..."
Yes! Why not! Throw Draco Malfoy into the mix too! Good one, providence! Hermione was feeling a tad deranged.
Malfoy stopped short when he spotted her.
"What the fuck?" He looked dumbfounded.
Hermione realised that she rather liked being the cause of his unsettlement. Theo was thinking along the same lines –
"You've done it again, Hermione! You've gone and stunned the unflappable Malfoy. See, this is why I like you so much..."
"Okay, seriously. What the fuck? Theo, if you're having some kind of perverted liaison with a mudblood, you should know that - "
"Shut your mouth, Draco. That is not how one speaks in civilised company."
Malfoy looked aghast.
Theo grinned at Hermione after taking in his expression. "Oh this is fun. I can see why you keep doing it."
And Hermione- god help her- Hermione giggled.
Malfoy's head snapped sharply towards her. All traces of astonishment wiped clean from his face, he regarded her with abject antipathy. In the torchlight, his nearly translucent eyes seemed to be burning with fire and brimstone.
"I'll see you in the common room, Theo."
His tone conveyed much more than his words. He spoke them at Hermione; slow, loaded, and guttural. It was a threat, an insult, and a challenge.
Theo whistled softly once Malfoy had stormed off.
"Intense, isn't he?" he said, admiringly.
"Quite." Hermione's admiration was more obviously sardonic.
"Well. Looks like our illicit rendezvous among ancient tomes is off."
"Another night then. I'll be better prepared. I'll even wear nice underwear."
OH GOD.
Oh fucking god. What on earth possessed her to say that?
Theo looked positively radiant.
"Oh, Hermione. I do look forward to it."
And with a wink and a smile, he left.
Barely an hour ago, she had been envisioning a life where she'd be a part of high-calibre research clubs. Now, she realised that she had inadvertently become a part of something called the Slug club. She didn't know which inspired soul had come up with the moniker, but Slughorn was charmed.
"Cormack, my boy," he was slurring slightly, "You must remind me to introduce you and your wonderful uncle to the Turkish ambassador someday! He has some fascinating new business ventures involving flying carpets, and a modification that makes them considerably less illegal..."
McLaggen was smirking stupidly.
Ginny was flapping around Gwenog Jones like a flamingo in heat.
Well. She had a goblet full of wine. It was time to measure out her life with it.