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AN: Thanks to all those who reviewed! * blows kisses *

Chapter 2

Well, Hermione felt horribly amused by her performance – as usual. School was damned fun when you knew everything they taught in it. Or mostly everything, anyway. She wasn't entirely sure how Muggle studies went these days... So, she stuck her nose in books and acted like a first-grade know-it-all, meanwhile enjoying some very interesting books she had meant to catch up on. Like re-reading some Dickens (ok, that wasn't something interesting to catch up on, but meh) and finding out what that Anais Nin woman was all about. Mind you, reading steamy novels (the latter writer's) under one's desk was probably breaking some sort of moral rule – but nobody would check to see if an eleven year-old was doing something like that. Aaah, safe. For a few years, at least. But she had to be careful nonetheless.

So, she happily went to classes, noticed that Binns was still around (and going on and on about the same things as always) and started writing for some of her own random projects under the guise of taking notes. She couldn't really decide what to do first, though... But Binns? Dead men told no interesting tales. At least, Binns didn't.

She "ooh"-ed and "aah"-ed in all the right places in Herbology. She promptly transfigured her match into a needle in Transfiguration, then remembered that she wasn't supposed to be that good yet, so she altered it to look more like a match. She nearly whistled innocently as Mac G. passed by her.

But the first shock she got was in Potions. Snape. She remembered him... He'd been a kid when she'd last been in Hogwarts. Younger than her – well, that much was obvious. Younger than her pretended age, too. She wondered in passing what he would do if she were to admit to being that girl that he'd admired so much, the Slytherin in her fifth year when he was in his first. Would he be so entirely... a bastard and fright if he knew? She'd love to catch up on things with him, make him some tea, like she used to and...

Meh. She couldn't go all protective and motherly on him now, could she? So, back to know-it-all it was. She raised her hand when he asked a question and waved it around in what she hoped passed for too much youthful exuberance. She was a show-off now. Not a Slytherin queen with elegance and nobility on her side, who could easily wrap any colleague around her little finger. She was also not the woman who had, immediately after finishing Hogwarts, published a book on sex tricks and spells. She waved her hand even harder, trying to repress a giggle, as Snape tortured the Potter boy. And then she stood up, wanting to see how Snape would react to that. Was she overdoing it?... Nah.

"I don't know," said Harry quietly. "I think Hermione does, though, why don't you try her?"

Oh, wrong move, Potter. Dead wrong. But funny. She tried to find the decency to blush and sat down.

The class moved on as cheerful as ever – which meant, not really cheerful at all. And she pretty much spent her time day-dreaming and doing things mechanically while the others un-mechanically screwed things up all around her.

Her first real challenge came during the flight lessons. She couldn't decide whether she should know how to fly. She knew it, of course, but she'd never been terribly good at sports. Flying was wonderful, but she couldn't catch or hit or do anything with any ball whatsoever. And she was a Muggle, brooms were supposed to be merely cleaning instruments for her.

She soon decided to declare herself afraid of heights. More free time. School, repeated over and over soon got tiresome, despite the know-everything-already fun factor, and she wanted to do some stuff of her own. Some research, some reading, some prowling about. That sort of thing. And, 'sides, even know-it-alls had to have their weak points.

A fight broke loose between Slyths and Gryffs while she was spacing out and she had a sudden teacherly urge to box the guilty parties' ears. Malfoy and Potter. History repeated – except last time it had been Potter against Snape. So, brats ran in the family and the Potions episode of rudeness hadn't been an accident. Good to know. And if only they could stop going into fanatic-mode around him. She saw Malfoy mount his broom and Potter getting ready to follow. This might end up with broken wrists, legs or worse, so she decided to step in.

"No!" she shouted. "Madam Hooch told us not to move – you'll get us all into trouble."

'And break your little scrawny neck while you're at it,' she thought. 'Malfoy has practice, Potter. You don't. Surely you see that.'

But, of course, Potter ignored her. Boys. Malfoy threw the... something, Potter caught it quite spectacularly, rushing down towards it, tumbling on the grass – all that. He was safe. And a hero. Hermione rolled her eyes, but grudgingly admitted to herself that sports apparently also ran in the family along with brat-ism. McGonagall appeared right then and there, with all the authority of a stern Transfiguration professor. Hermione nodded to herself, proudly. This was her Minerva Mac G., alright. She dragged Potter away. Very good. Professional.

So, while she had to wait for Hooch to get back and the class to start again so she could prove to suck at it badly and be excused from the rest of the course, she thought about her darling projects. She should consider and organize them. What did she want to do first? Research the history of Japanese magic further and write that book about it? No, it was interesting, but not that interesting. And she'd have to magic her books around a lot, since she wasn't supposed to even think about other magic right now, never mind research roots of magical practices in other places. That was a project that had to wait. Then how about finally learning enough to become a Potions Mistress? No, too early and she needed to do the practical part for it – and she didn't have where to do that and the necessary materials.

So she came to the conclusion she had wanted to come to from the beginning – she wanted to write that novel. A wonderful story about a witch and several wizards and power games and, of course, steamy scenes every now and then. All elegantly done, in the style of Isabel Allende for romance and some fantasy novel she'd read not long ago for power games. Tales of Passion and Power – working title only.

After all, one needed a break from research, right?...

But she didn't get it, it proved very soon after that. Potter and the little Weasley were troublesome. Not only had Mac G. not punished Potter for his stunt, she'd given him a place on the team. Talk about playing favorites. And now, he was at it again. Wanted to have a duel against Malfoy and the gang. She tried to stop the little brats from getting into trouble again, but then realized that the most they could probably do would be to poke each other in the nose with their wands. And then she realized that Malfoy might have heard some really big nasties from his family, so she tried to stop them again, then gave up again – and finally ended up locked out of her bedroom late at night, along with Potter, Weasley and Longbottom, who was very good at being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

'Fuck it,' she thought. 'There goes my peaceful night of writing. Again. Well, at least I don't have an older body, other urges and other plans. That would've been frustrating.'

So she reluctantly went with them. And of course, Malfoy didn't show up – but Filch did. 'Fuck schoolboys,' she thought. It would be so undignified to be caught by Filch and chastised.

And, amidst a lot of running, they ended up exactly where Dumbledore had told them not to go – which she didn't realize until they ended up face to face with a three-headed dog the size of an elephant. That was the moment when her starting-the-routine-again hype wore off, quickly and suddenly. There was something very wrong there. Horribly wrong.

It was huge and ugly and everything she had quite forgotten a Cerberus was. All of its three heads had woken up from a peaceful sleep and it was starting to bare its teeth at them. She gulped, barely registering that the others had no clue what was happening yet. Sharp, huge teeth. Paws that could hit any one of them against the wall at such force that they would die instantly – and under one paw, a trap door. But her attention was caught more by the throats – big enough to swallow them whole. She slowly reached towards her wand, but then the others realized what was going on and opened the door again. They tumbled outside.

She shivered and took a deep breath. Cerberus. In the school. Then she ran with the others towards Gryffindor Tower. Fear could be read on all their faces – including hers. But she had a different reason for fear than them. She could've beaten the dog – she was sure she could've. But... It wasn't supposed to be there. What was Dumbledore playing at, putting a monster so close to students?... What was his plan?... What was he hiding?... What indeed was he so desperately hiding that he was willing to put kids in potential danger for it? It had to be something great and dangerous – but for the life of her, she couldn't think what. She fell into an armchair, thoughtful, her mind racing, going through all sorts of possibilities – a Deathly Hallow? She was sure Dumbledore had one, if anybody did. Or the Lost Sword of Gryffindor – but no, why hide those?... Who would steal the Sword?... And the Hallows were quite easy to hide, especially since not many people believed in them. Something big and famous, something people knew he had, then. But what? She didn't know him to have anything.

"What do they think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?" said Weasley, mirroring her own thoughts. "If any dog needs exercise, that one does."

She gave a huff. Were they blind?

"You don't use your eyes, any of you, do you?" she snapped. "Didn't you see what it was standing on?"

"The floor?" Potter said, annoyed and she scowled at him. Bratling. "I wasn't looking at its feet, I was too busy with its heads."

"No, not the floor," she snarled, wishing they could see the obvious that was so clear to her, it was unbelievable they could have missed it. "It was standing on a trapdoor. It's obviously guarding something."

Then she realized she hadn't really meant to say that. Why disclose Dumbledore's little secret to eleven year-olds? Why? 'Rowena, my dear,' she heard Godric's voice in her memories. 'You are the stupidest genius I've ever met.' She stood up, glaring at them.

"I hope you're pleased with yourselves," she spat, not liking her little slip at all. "We could all have been killed – or worse, exp-elled. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bed."

She stormed off. That was the second one. 'Or worse, exposed,' she'd almost said. She'd nearly done it again. A slip of her tongue. A foolish mistake. Unworthy of her. 'Rowena, my dear...' She heard Weasley's voice behind her.

"No, we don't mind. You'd think we dragged her along, wouldn't you."

She could care less. She was a fool. Nearly exposing herself like that. For what? A Cerberus in her school. Worse had happened – the Chamber of Secrets all those years ago, when she'd been gone from the school, not keeping a close eye upon it. What a time to go off on vacation! Or the Murders of 1792, when she'd barely managed to find out that the Muggle Studies professor was actually an anti-magic wizard. Imagine that. He'd planned to kill all wizards and then commit suicide. A very faulty plan – the man had been insane. The air-raids during the World War, that had ruined a part of the Forest and other such things. And now, for a Cerberus, she'd almost gotten herself in trouble. Not a big, big lot of trouble, but...

Calm, my dear Hermione. Calm.

How strange that she sometimes still thought of Godric so intensely that she could almost hear his voice in her head. A thousand years before! He felt like a ghost, only half-real now. If magic books and their own diaries hadn't recorded it all, by now she'd start wondering if it had all been real or not. If perhaps she was delusional. But now, all she really wondered was if her Godric, that she talked to in her head, wasn't perhaps very different from the real one. She thought of him as a broad-shouldered, brave, laughing man with long, reddish curls and no table manners. Like a Weasley, of sorts. Would she even recognize him now, if he somehow appeared before her? Probably not, but it was best not to dwell on these things and imagine that her memory was brilliant. Acute. That it really was as if he had only died yesterday.

'So what's Dumbledore hiding, my dear?' she asked of him, as she slid into her bed and put a silencing charm so none of her sounds or rustling of pages could be heard outside.

'Oh, I have no clue,' she imagined Godric replying. 'But or worse, expelled?'

As she reconsidered her manner, she realized how absolutely in character that line had been. And laughed.

Xxx

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