DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but this twisted so-called "plot".
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Disappointment plus self-pity plus fury was a frightfully distressing combination for one young witch to deal with.
It began with yet another abortive Apparition lesson. Hermione was simply not accustomed to failing; yet there she was, crashing over and over and over again. Even the partonus charm had conceded to her skill and resolve after no more than six tries.
And so, she stomped out of the Great Hall in a right temper, carrying with her the fourth 'D' (of which condescending old Twycross had spoken nothing about) – disappointment. Crushing, maddening disappointment.
She sat stewing by the lake, running her fingers through the luxuriant grass on the shore. Since it was a Saturday and the weather was almost pleasant, there were a fair number of students out and about. A few meters away, a group of seventh years – two boys, three girls – had bravely waded into the unquestionably cold water, and were splashing about like imbecilic toddlers. Hermione was quite sure that the primary motive behind that exercise was getting the girls' shirts wet.
A few minutes later, she spotted Theo and Ginny strolling along the edge of the lake and towards her. Together.
Her throat developed a dense, hard, pumpkin-sized lump. Ginny was grinning in that saucy, teasing way of hers, and Theo was looking down at her, amused.
"Merlin, Herms," Ginny exclaimed, settling down next to her, "We've been looking for you for ages!"
Ages, Hermione thought uncomfortably. Something close to panic was spinning within her.
"Hold on. Herms?!" Theo said with a look of wicked delight, "Herms? You let her call you Herms?"
"She does what she wants," Hermione mumbled.
They both ignored her.
"Fuck off," Ginny said good naturedly, "You call her buddy..."
"Excuse me, I was just taking the piss. Hermione is the one who said it first!"
"Pshaw! That's a likely story..."
And that was how self-pity came into the mix.
The night after they'd "studied" together in the library, Hermione couldn't sleep. Ginny had come in fully determined to be Friendly (yes, with a capital F), and so she had been. Theo evidently suffered from obsessive compulsive charisma; Hermione watched with dismayed horror as he brought out the same flirtatious, playful side of him that he had used to charm her so many months ago.
Just like that evening, Hermione once again felt an overwhelming urge to cry.
Theo and Ginny were tossing wisecracks from one to the other like they were caught in an extremely intense tennis rally, and it was utterly wretched, the way she just wasn't able to bring herself to break in and assert her existence.
Why had they sought her out in the first place? Clearly, she wasn't needed here at all.
And then came fury, bringing with it an impulsive undercurrent of fuck it, which coerced Hermione into performing a small act of self-sabotage. She stood up and walked away.
"Wha – hey, where are you going?"
She glanced over her shoulder at Theo as he sat up from his semi-recumbent lounging.
"I just remembered I have some Arithmancy homework left to do. I'll see you later," she said, her voice high-pitched and feverish.
She'd only taken a few more steps before she felt his hand on her arm, and he turned her around to face him again.
"Are you okay, Hermione?" he peered at her with concern.
"Yes," she replied, and when she saw he looked unconvinced, she added, "Apparition is getting on my nerves, I suppose."
He didn't withdraw his hand, nor his frown.
Ginny, splayed out on the grass, laughed. "You have no idea how heartening it is for us ordinary people when you fail at something."
Hermione smiled tightly. In that moment, she fully felt the collective weight of disappointment, self-pity, and fury. Turn them out, knaves all three.
She pulled away smoothly from Theo's grip, tilted her head in farewell, and walked away as fast as she could without actually breaking into a run. She didn't once look back, terrified of what the sight of the two of them might do to her composure; those two jolly ordinary people lazing by the lake, probably laughing over how neurotic poor, smarty-pants Hermione was about her homework, and her lessons.
She came to an abrupt stop as she remembered having this exact thought, nearly word for word, over five years ago. Except then, it was regarding Harry and Ron after they'd just finished with their first lesson on the levitation charm...
"You're saying it wrong. It's Wing-GAR-dium Levi-O-sa, make the "gar" nice and long."
She'd regressed so far that she had reclaimed the broken psyche of an eleven year old social outcast.
So, she had abandonment issues. Diddums. When she was five, her aunt and uncle had forgotten all about her in middle of the farmer's market in Orton, and she had wandered lost and in tears for over an hour before they finally remembered her. Plump and sweet Ruby Groves had abandoned her on the playground when they were eight, after the other kids made fun of her for playing with 'Bossy Beaver Granger'. Harry had abandoned her over a broom; Ron abandoned her like it was his favourite pastime... Padma, her first and only partner in intellectual pursuits abandoned her... Pete was twined around her naked body one night and suddenly leaving the next morning...
Theo had made her feel cherished, understood, and completely not alone for a long stretch... she supposed it was about time he moved on with his life.
Golly gosh, but she was being pathetic. Stop it. There really was Arithmancy work to get done. She sniffed. Stop it. She'd neglected practicing wandless transfiguration for a week. Her eyes were stinging. Stop it. Of course, she needed to read at least six more books on potioneering – the margin between Harry's grades her hers was getting to be cataclysmic. She needed to look up some more protective enchantments. Her lower lip trembled.
Stop it stop it stop it.
Hermione spent the whole day in the restricted section of the library, after which she felt she could confidently claim to be fully capable of writing a top-quality dissertation on the protego charm. A Saturday well spent, all in all, if you were gracious enough to strike the ten minutes she spent sniffling from the record.
On standing up, she found her legs to be stiff beyond reason – she very nearly toppled right back into the armchair she had spent... well, shit... eight hours nestled in. It was nine o'clock at night. She'd missed dinner, tea, and supper. The moment she stepped out of the library doors, she rummaged around in her bag in a desperate frenzy until she found a slightly crushed granola bar. She practically inhaled it all in one go.
She didn't feel like she could muster the energy required to visit Harry and Ron in the hospital wing... or to do anything besides hiking up to the Gryffindor tower.
Sometime later, she was leaning over the sink before a bathroom mirror, lethargically plucking stray hairs from around her eyebrows. Once satisfied, she straightened her spine and stared blankly at her freshly groomed visage.
She looked so terribly tired. Hours of unremitted reading had caused the vessels under her eyes to swell up, and the eyes themselves looked flat, strained, and dull. Her skin was alarmingly pasty. She slapped both her cheeks repeatedly, and soon they were stained pink in the most unnatural way. She had her hair pulled up into a high bun which was nearly the same size as her head. It made her already slender neck look ridiculously twig-like. She followed the gently curving column down to where it met her shoulder – harshly cut by the prominent line of her clavicle – and then back up. Her gaze landed on the mole a few inches under her left ear. It was more like a glorified freckle, really; but it stood out explicitly against her current pallor, like a coffee grain on ivory.
Hermione sighed and splashed cold water on her face until it was numb.
When she was finally curled up in bed, she wrote a letter to her parents. It was six pages long, and suffused with a tone of light frivolity and cheerfulness.
By the time she finished all her pending work on Sunday, the clock struck had noon, and Hermione felt like she'd lived through the day six times over. It was proving to be one of the longest weekends of her life.
She heroically kept her mind from lingering on her fervent yearning to spend time with Theo, and instead chose to loiter around the upper corridors, thinking about the dark and sinister premonitions she'd extracted from her Arithmantic calculations. Most of the sixth floor was deserted – until she found Dean standing before a portrait with a frown on his face. Hermione walked over and stood beside him.
The picture was of one Philippe d'Orleans, a late descendant of some French aristocratic (pureblood) line, and he was fast asleep, completely oblivious to his audience.
"Fucking hideous, innit?" Dean commented disdainfully.
"IMPUDENCE!" Monsieur d'Orleans howled, suddenly wide awake, "I wood 'ave you locked in an iron maiden fool of Bubotuber pus for zis!"
"Not you, you toff," Dean barked, and then turned to Hermione, ignoring the indignant sputtering that followed, "Look at the brushwork. It's terrible."
It truly was. The shabbily applied paint was made all too obvious by the poor choice of colour and clumsy composition. Dean ducked his head and peered at the artist's signature.
"Some Collins bloke. Nineteen Twenty. The height of the modernist movement and this is what magical people were doing. Can you imagine what incredible pictures they could be making? Their paintings fucking move, and all they're using it for is to immortalise stuffed up geezers like old Philippe here."
"CONNARD! VA TE FAIRE ENCULET!"
"Well, art in the wizarding world is sub-par across the board," Hermione paused to cast an efficient silencing spell on the raving Marquis, and then continued, "I mean, look at the photography, the novels, the poetry, the music..."
"Oh fuck, the music," Dean groaned, "You right. It's all rubbish."
They left d'Orleans miming furiously and continued to examine the paintings lining the wall.
"Tsk. Awful. I'd call it derivative, but the so-called artist probably didn't even know he'd inadvertently butchered Velasquez's style."
Dean laughed, "We need to bring about a revolution, comrade Granger. It's on us."
"It ought to be really bloody easy in such a boring and conservative cultural climate."
Eventually, they ran out of wall, and standing at the end of the corridor, Dean asked, "Have you seen Ginny, by the way?"
"Er, no. I haven't since yesterday morning."
"You and I have that in common then," he said, bitterly, "She's refusing to talk to me because I laughed when precious Harry fell off his broom the other day..."
"That wasn't funny," Hermione snapped.
"I know it wasn't. Everything was going wrong that day, damn it. Everything. Then Harry gets bludgered, and Luna's carrying on in her way... I just... It was hysterical laughter, alright? I wasn't enjoying myself. And Ginny just jumped down my throat."
"Okay, I understand. But you know she's a bit hot-headed –"
"A 'bit'?! Ha!"
"– and she's sensitive about quiddi –"
"About Harry."
Hermione didn't know what else to say; her own feelings of resentment were blocking her from formulating a proper defence for Ginny's case.
"She's going to have to do it," he continued angrily, "break up with me, I mean. She can't just ignore me and expect me to do it for her. Bitch can't have it that easy."
Hermione stared at her feet, biting down hard on her lip.
"Sorry," he offered after a few seconds.
"It's okay. You're... upset..."
Dean just laughed humourlessly.
She looked at her watch, and good grief, it was only twelve thirty.
Things looked better on Monday. Hermione sat next to Harry, nibbling on scrambled eggs and toast while he absentmindedly sipped his pumpkin juice, probably preoccupied with thoughts about Ginny and Dean's row, and his upcoming lesson with Dumbledore.
Ron was sitting with Lavender, both stonily ignoring each other. Hermione wasn't feeling petty enough to gloat... even to herself.
Barely had she set foot out of the Great Hall when she stood face to face (well, face to chest) with Theo. He raised an eyebrow at her startled expression and asked, "Off to class then?"
There was a subtle accusatory tinge to his enquiry, to his stance, to the very air surrounding him.
"Yes. Transfiguration."
"Okay. I'll walk you to it."
"No!" she blurted, "You needn't bother. I just..." she looked to her left, and to her right, and then called out "Harry!" and scampered away without another word of explanation.
She felt terrible and nauseous, wishing she hadn't eaten anything just moments before. Still, there was a sense of calm that came with the knowledge that she was pulling away before he finally decided to.
"...when we came out of the memory, Dumbledore told me that Hepzibah Smith was found dead two days later, and her House-Elf confessed to accidentally poisoning her cocoa. Slytherin's locket and Hufflepuff's cup were gone. And the one everybody knew as Tom Riddle seemed to fall off the face of the earth."
"Blimey," Ron breathed.
"He framed the House-Elf?" Hermione demanded, shrilly.
Harry nodded, gravely and knowingly.
"All worth it in his opinion. The only thing he cared about was getting his hands on those treasures. The next memory was Dumbledore's, ten years later. Riddle came into his office and asked for a position on the Hogwarts staff."
"He what?" Ron looked stunned. Hermione was still fuming over the fate of Hepzibah's poor House-Elf.
"As the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Dumbledore turned him down, of course, and he was none too happy about it. By that time he'd established himself as the notorious Lord Voldemort, and had started calling his followers Death Eaters."
"Godric's gonads. Why was he so keen on teaching here?" Ron asked.
"Dunno. Dumbledore says it'll all make sense once I've got that memory from Slughorn. Fuck. I really wish I knew how."
"You're going to have to be cunning and underhand about it, Harry. You know how starry-eyed he gets around you," Hermione said, "You'll need to butter him up just right..."
"I tried that, Hermione," Harry whinged despondently, "He shoved me out of his office."
Three pairs of eyes – blue, green, and brown – stared pensively at the Gryffindor hearth. Reflected firelight took on a different hue in each of their irises.
Hermione threw herself into assignments, work, and research with doubly redoubled gusto, which was more than a little extreme, even by her standards. When she wasn't in class, she lived in the restricted section of the library.
Lavender scowled at her every time she saw her. Ron was perpetually agitated; Harry preoccupied. Parvati kept trying to talk to her about Padma, Dean kept trying to talk to her about Ginny. The only way to save herself from the talons of a menacing meltdown was to hide under a pile of tomes.
By mid-week, she looked like a forgotten member of the Addams family. She let her hair spill down her shoulders and back, silently willing the curls and spirals to be as outrageous as possible. Might as well go all out. 'Electrocuted Morticia' was her new aesthetic.
She walked to the greenhouses with Neville, unreservedly convinced that he was the only sane one among her group of peers. He was reading out a passage about the most effective methods of harvesting goosegrass from the latest addition of The New Journal of Herbology while Hermione listened. She remembered when his voice had squeaked and quivered continuously, when he had been the same height as her, when he meekly shuffled up to her and asked if she had seen his toad...
Feeling a surge of fondness towards him, Hermione smiled and asked, "Would you mind if I read your Herbology essays from now on? I'm sure they'll be immensely insightful."
Neville flushed with pleasure and agreed at once.
Theo sat within the range of her peripheral vision, and spent the entire potion's lesson assiduously glowering at her. Hermione shook her hair down to hide him from view, but it didn't help at all.
She could feel his icy gaze.
Oh, hell. Cutting up chomping cabbages was hard enough without being completely distracted. Gingerly, she stole a glance in his direction... his mouth tightened, but the hard intransigence of his glare remained the same.
"AAAAH!"
Ernie's unexpected shout commandeered everybody's attention. He was clutching at his bleeding hand, and gnashing his teeth... At her?
It took a perplexed Hermione a few moments to realise that her overzealous cabbage had taken advantage of her inattentiveness, clamped down on her knife and flung it at the unsuspecting Hufflepuff.
"Shit! I'm so sorry Ernie!" she wrung her hands tensely.
"Oho! What's this commotion?" Slughorn waddled over, and seemed to find the entire situation rather humorous. He sent Ernie off to Madam Pomfrey, and laid a reassuring hand on Hermione's shoulder, "Harmless accident, Ms. Granger. Happens to the best of us."
She held down the demonic homicidal vegetable and hacked it into shreds.
It was only after she had put all the required ingredients into her cauldron and set it to simmer, that she risked another quick look at Theo. He shook his head hostilely.
The seat next to him where Malfoy usually sat was empty.
A tawny, speckled owl dropped a mint green envelope on Hermione's lap, stole a scone off her plate, and flew away... all in a matter of seconds.
A broad grin broke across her face, and she fled from the crowded Great Hall, ignoring Harry's "Who's it from?" and Ron's "Wheh oo tearin offoo?"
She raced through the castle until she found the perfect secluded nook with a lovely large window to settle by. And there, with a happy sigh, she opened up the long missive her parents had written to her.
They always wrote those letters together – two voices, one note – and when she read them she felt like she'd been transported back into their living room, seated on the settee, watching them as they talked to her and to each other.
... your father has decided to sew the most preposterously garish patches onto his jeans like some sort of delinquent teenager... ...old Mrs. Henley's tabby somehow got trapped in our shed, and now she's convinced we torture and kill cats in our spare time... ...your mother is baking again; SEND HELP... ...Hermione, my brilliant girl, your thoughts about Kafka were so discerning... ...Would you believe it, apparently Richey's been spotted in Goa...
...We miss you...
...We love you...
...Hope you're as excited as we are about this summer and our holiday in Australia.
Hermione clutched the letter to her heart and basked in its sweetness. She carefully put it between the pages of a book in her bag; in the evening it would join the thick bundle she kept in the bottom of her trunk.
She didn't think she'd be going to Australia any time soon; not with the way everything seemed to be rapidly coming to a head.
She stood up slowly and looked out the window, detesting the way her joy upon reading her parents' words was going up in smoke, leaving behind the ashy residue of despair.
There were two figures leisurely circuiting the grounds a few meters away from the Whomping Willow. Even though they were at a considerable distance, Hermione could tell that one had long red hair, and the other was wearing a blue and green scarf around his neck.
The hair and the scarf were both flapping in the wind like banners.
Harry, Ron, and Seamus were talking and Hermione paid them no heed. She was a girl possessed: steadfast and resolute. She entered the Great Hall with just one thing on her mind – she would not, could not, let a silly wooden ring and a vaporous ministry lackey defeat her.
The brightest fucking witch of her age closed her eyes when Twycross began his countdown. She pictured the hoop, the whole hoop and nothing but the hoop (I swear before almighty Merlin)...
"...3!"
She spun. Every molecule of air around her hardened like concrete and slammed into her with the force of a mallet, squeezing, constricting all her bones and organs tightly. She opened her eyes with a gasp, and she found herself standing squarely inside her hoop.
"Well done, Ms. Er..."
"Granger," Professor McGonagall supplied with a glint of pride in her eyes.
"Yes," Twycoss droned, "Ms. Granger. Why don't we see if you can manage that twice in a row...?"
She absolutely could, and did.