Harry was sitting in his usual corner of the Gryffindor common room trying his hardest to finish his defence against the dark arts essay.
The problem was, that usually he would write one or two paragraphs, and give it to Hermione to check over.
This way, she would point out which points carried more relevance and he would then continue his essay on from there, stopping every so often to let Hermione make any necessary amendments.
Hermione still hadn't been seen since the incident in potions earlier on and he was beginning to feel extremely uneasy.
After dinner, he and Ron had gone up to the library expecting to find her sitting in her corner surrounded by a mountain of books.
They had searched the whole library and nothing.
They decided to do a brief sweep if the castle before heading back to the common room, where Ginny had checked her bedroom to no avail.
Suddenly it hit him like a brick on the head, and he laughed that he hadn't thought of it before, the Marauders Map.
Harry had checked it just over an hour ago and hadn't seen her anywhere. The map now lay open beside him, and his eyes would scan it every couple of minutes to see if she had popped up somewhere.
Harry could hear the portrait swing open and eagerly glance a look in the direction, hoping Hermione would topple through.
Instead Ginny and Ron made their way into the common room, and catching his eye they both shrugged as they made their way over to him.
"Anything?" Ginny asked hopefully as she pushed into the seat beside him giving him a quick peck on the forehead.
"Nothing, she's not shown up on the map" he replied.
"Mate, you don't think maybe we should go see McGonagall?" Ron began.
"I don't want to get her in trouble if she's left the grounds. I think we should wait until curfew at least before we decide to go to the Headmistress. If she gets caught out of the grounds as well as blowing up at Snape today she'll be in a right mess".
"Yeah, probably right Harry. I dunno though, I'm getting a bit worried. I mean I don't think I've ever seen her be so unstable", Ron grimaced.
The three of them sat in silence each looking at the map until Ron chirped up "Bollocks Harry, you don't think we've forgotten her birthday or anything or maybe I've forgotten an anniversary"
Ginny sighed "Ron. I don't think you two being absent minded would cause her to yell at Snape, I mean, you always forget her birthday and things like that".
Even though Ginny had meant to reassure them, Harry suddenly found himself feeling more and more guilty.
It was true, Ron and himself were never great at remembering things like her birthday, and often the only contact in the summer was her sending them letters to which they tried to reply to, but forgot until another letter arrived with a demand for a reply 'You promised you both would write this summer'.
With this Harry could feel himself becoming more and more uneasy, it was true she had to put up with an awful lot from them, and still no matter what else was going on be it ministry interfering with Hogwarts, or escaped convicts, Hermione had never lost her temper in a classroom.
Harry could feel a sense of dread coming over him as he began to wonder what exactly had happened. He was quickly pulled out of his spiralling mood by an oblivious Ron whispering
"Mate, you think maybe it could be uhhh 'female' problems, she always gets a bit grumpier then".
Harry laughed in spite of himself as he watched Ginny take a swing at his head muttering obscenities words in the process.
The laughter however was short lived as a familiar silver goat came prancing through the common room.
"She's with me. She's safe."
As happy as Harry was to know that Hermione was safely under the care of Aberforth Dumbledore, he found himself deeply troubled at the fact she was hiding in the Hogs Head.